Besides these political results, there were also scientific results of no mean value. Captain Ryder’s survey operations have already been referred to. Mr. Hayden made valuable geological collections, which are on view in the Museum at Calcutta, and which are described by him in the Records of the Geological Survey of India. Captain Walton’s natural history and botanical collections are placed in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington and in Kew Gardens, and have been described in various scientific works. Colonel Waddell was unable to discover any secrets of the ancient world said to be hidden in Tibet, but he made a collection of Tibetan manuscripts, which are deposited in the British Museum.
If all these political and scientific results may not seem to the ordinary Englishman to amount to much, the most obtuse must at least see one good that came from the Mission—the proving for all time that we can get to Lhasa, and that, even at the cost of crossing the Himalayas in mid-winter, we will see our treaties observed. Anyone practised in affairs knows the advantage of a reputation for enforcing obligations, and this at least accrued to us from the Mission of 1904.
But I have already mentioned that the Secretary of State felt himself unable to approve of the Treaty as signed, and I have now to show how it was that some of the advantages to which the Indian Government attached most importance had to be abandoned.
A week after the signing of the Treaty the Government of India telegraphed to me that the Secretary of State considered that a difficulty was presented by the amount of the indemnity, especially when the provision for its payment was read in conjunction with Clause VII. of the Treaty, the effect being that our occupation of Chumbi might have to continue for seventy-five years. This was, the Secretary of State said, inconsistent with the instructions conveyed in his telegram of July 26, and with the declaration of His Majesty’s Government as to withdrawal. The Government of India were, therefore, asked to consider whether, without prejudice to the signed agreement, it would not be possible to intimate to the Tibetans that the amount of the indemnity would be reduced on their duly fulfilling the terms agreed to and granting further facilities for trade.
Some correspondence followed, but, owing to the shortness of my stay at Lhasa and the undesirability of attempting to alter a Treaty directly it had been made, no action was taken, and I returned with the Treaty intact.
The Government of India wrote on October 6 to the Secretary of State[[42]] reviewing the conditions under which I had had to make the Treaty, and saying that they considered I was fully justified in using my discretion as I did and in signing the Treaty on September 7 without awaiting approval of the amount of the indemnity and the method of its payment, and pointing out that any alteration in the terms at the critical moment would probably have led to a recommencement of the whole discussion.
They also thought my action in acquiring the right for our Agent at Gyantse to proceed to Lhasa under certain conditions might be approved. They were still of opinion that the right might be of the greatest value hereafter, and, hedged in as it was by the conditions mentioned in it, it could not be held, they thought, to commit us to any political control over Tibet.
At the same time the Government of India expressed their sincere regret that the instructions of His Majesty’s Government were not carried out to the letter, as they would have been if communication with their Commissioner had not been a matter of twelve days even by telegraph.
Regarding the amendment of the Treaty to meet the wishes of His Majesty’s Government, they proposed by telegram on October 21[[43]] that in ratifying it a declaration should be appended by the Viceroy reducing the indemnity from 75 to 25 lakhs, and affirming that after three annual instalments had been paid the British occupation of the Chumbi Valley should terminate, provided the terms of the Treaty should in the meantime have been carried out.