THE TONGSA PENLOP (NOW MAHARAJA OF BHUTAN).
I asked him whether he himself would be inclined to be patient if he had been attacked four times at night after waiting eleven months for negotiators to come. He admitted that he would not, and would feel more inclined to go about killing people; but he said I was the representative of a great Government, and ought to be more patient than he would be. I said I had named June 25 as the date up to which I would receive negotiators, but since then I had been again attacked at Kangma, and I could not answer for it that the Viceroy would still allow me to receive negotiators.
I said no Englishman liked killing villagers who were forced from their homes to fight us. We knew they did not want to fight, and we had no quarrel with them. But, unfortunately, it seemed impossible to get at the real instigators of the opposition to us except by fighting, in which the innocent peasant-soldiers, and not the authors of the trouble, suffered most. If these latter would only lead their men I would be better pleased, for then they would appreciate what opposition to the British Government really meant. The Tongsa Penlop was much amused at the suggestion, but said the leaders always remained a march behind when any fighting was likely to take place.
Continuing, I said that, though I had little hope that any settlement would be arrived at without fighting, yet, fighting or no fighting, I had to make a settlement some time, and one that would last another hundred years. If the Tibetans had only been as sensible as the Bhutanese, and come and talked matters over with me, we could easily have arrived at a settlement long ago. All we desired was to be on friendly and neighbourly terms with States like Bhutan and Tibet lying on our frontier. War, though it could have but one result, gave us much trouble, which we had no wish unnecessarily to incur. We, therefore, much preferred peace. I sent my respects to the Dharm Raja, and asked the Tongsa Penlop to write to me often and give me advice regarding the settlement with Tibet, and he fervently assured me of the good-will of the Bhutanese, and said that they would never depart from their friendship with the British Government.
In this interview I purposely appeared indifferent about receiving negotiators, for the less anxious I seemed for them to come the more likely was their arrival. As a fact, when, a fortnight later, there really were signs of their appearance, I asked Government to agree, which they readily did, to grant a few days’ grace beyond the 25th to allow them to come in.
Besides this friendly support from Bhutan on our right, we had also further evidence at this time of equally friendly, and much more valuable, support from Nepal on our left. The Nepalese Minister informed Colonel Ravenshaw that he had received a letter and some presents from the Dalai Lama, but that he made no allusion to our Mission, which omission led the Minister to think that the Dalai Lama was kept in ignorance of what was going on. And this surmise was, I think, perfectly correct, and represented one of the great difficulties with which we had to contend. No one dared inform this little god that things were not going as he would like them, and yet they had to get orders from him, for they would do nothing without his orders.
The Nepalese Minister, to remove this difficulty, wrote early in June to the Dalai Lama, expressing his anxiety at “the breach of relations [between India and Tibet] which had been brought about by the failure of the Tibetan Government to have the matters in dispute settled by friendly negotiation.” He referred to the letter which he had written to the four Councillors in the previous autumn, and he went on: "Wise and far-seeing as you are, the vast resources of the British Government must be well known to you. To rush to extremes with such a big Power, and wantonly to bring calamities upon your poor subjects without having strong and valid grounds of your own to insist upon, cannot readily be accepted as a virtuous course or wise policy. Hence it may fairly be inferred that the detailed circumstances of the pending questions have not been properly and correctly represented to you." The Minister then urged the Dalai Lama at once to send a duly authorized Councillor to meet the British officers, to desist from fighting with the British Government, and to try his best to bring about a peaceful settlement; otherwise he saw clearly that great calamities were in store for Tibet. He concluded by saying that His Holiness was too sacred to be troubled with mundane affairs, but the present critical condition in Tibet demanded his utmost foresight, and on him depended the salvation of his country.
It is melancholy to think that the Dalai Lama paid no heed to this well-intentioned advice, and then, when calamities had fallen upon his country and we were just outside Lhasa, fled on the pretext of retiring into religious seclusion, and left his country to take care of itself.