CHAPTER XVI
THE TERMS
I have often been asked what were my feelings when I first saw Lhasa—whether I was not filled with a sense of elation. I was filled with nothing of the kind. It was when I left Lhasa that I really had all that feeling of intense relief and satisfaction which everyone experiences when he has set his heart on one great object and attained it. When I left Lhasa I had my treaty, and—what I had always put at more value than the treaty itself—the good-will of the people. When I arrived at Lhasa it was very doubtful if I should be able to get a treaty at all, and still more doubtful if I could get it with the good-will of the people, without which any paper treaty would be useless. To negotiate a treaty with a people acknowledged by those who knew them best—the Chinese, the Nepalese, and the Bhutanese—to be most obstinate and obstructive, time was required. To break through the reserve of so exclusive a people, to make friends of men with whom we had just been fighting, still more time was essential. Yet it was just time that was denied me. I had pressed for it in June, but in too ineffectual a manner, and had been rebuffed. Though this was an avowedly political Mission, military considerations were allowed to preponderate. I could only stay in Lhasa a month and a half or two months. We must be back before the winter. And thus tied, I had to set to work with all speed, but with the outward appearance of having the utmost leisure, to negotiate the treaty. Hurried as I was, I had yet to assume an air of perfect indifference whether the negotiations were concluded this year, next year, or the year after. And irritated though I might be, I had above all to exercise as much control as I could possibly bring to bear to keep down any feelings of hastiness or exasperation, which might ruin our chances of securing the eventual good-will of the people.
I had, then, too much before me and still too much anxiety in regard to the very immediate present, to yet feel much elation on our first arrival at Lhasa, and my chief thought was how to start the negotiations without showing in what a hurry I really was.
Before, however, describing the course of the negotiations which were now to take place, I must give an account of the terms which I had been directed to make with the Tibetans, and the considerations on which those demands were based. Already, before I left Gyantse, I had received from the Government of India a copy of the despatch, dated June 30,[[33]] containing their views on the terms which they had sent to the Secretary of State. I was to understand that the proposals contained therein had not yet been approved by His Majesty’s Government, but I was, without committing Government, to ascertain how the Tibetan Government would regard them.
It was the terms contained in these proposals—with the exception of asking for the establishment of a Resident at Lhasa—of which I informed the Tongsa Penlop, and asked him, as I have mentioned previously, to communicate to the Dalai Lama.
The first point on which the Government of India laid stress in their communication to the Secretary of State was the acceptance by the Tibetans of an accredited British agent in their country, preferably in Lhasa itself. The arguments against such a measure were largely based on the declarations of His Majesty’s Government, and on consideration of international policy. And apart from such considerations, the Government of India declared themselves deeply impressed by the grave responsibilities which they must incur by placing a resident agent at the capital of Tibet. Still, they felt it their duty reluctantly to assume the burden of that measure.
His Majesty’s Government had already recognized the necessity of asserting the predominance of British influence in Tibet, and Lord Lansdowne had clearly apprised Count Benckendorff of our attitude in this matter. To establish such an influence it was evident that we must now acquire something more practical than the nominal concessions acquired by the treaty of 1890 as the fruits of our operations in 1888. Our experience then gained showed that we could not trust to our recent military successes leaving any lasting impression. It was difficult to avoid the conclusion that the best guarantee for the due observance of the new Convention, and for the adequate protection of our rights as the only European Power limitrophe with Tibet, must be that, in addition to the appointment of officers to watch over our commercial interests at the marts to be established in Tibet, we should demand the acceptance of an accredited British agent in Tibet.
The place at which this agent should reside was a question on which opinions might easily differ, and it might, the Indian Government thought, be left open until they were in possession of the fuller information that would be acquired after the Mission had reached Lhasa. The arguments in favour of placing him at Lhasa were the following: Lhasa was the pivot of the religious and political life of Tibet; it was the seat of the Dalai Lama and his Council, with whom we had to establish official relations; and it was the focus of the priestly influence, which we had to conciliate or overcome. It might be argued that it was undesirable to arouse the resentment of the Tibetans by requiring them to receive a representative of a strange race and a strange religion in the home of their most sacred associations. But after the manner in which for the past fifteen years the Tibetans had repudiated their obligations and had derided the patience with which we had submitted to their insults, Government believed that, even should such a feeling exist, it might be better to face it than to allow of the misconstruction which would be placed upon the location of an agent at any place outside Lhasa.
They saw, however, no reason why the presence of a resident agent in Lhasa should be a lasting source of irritation. For more than eighty years we had now had an agent at Khatmandu, a capital the isolation of which from foreign intrusion had been guarded hardly less jealously than that of Lhasa itself, and that by a people whose prowess had been proved in our own armies. The hostilities which preceded the first appointment of a British Minister at Peking, under the treaty of 1860, were also far more serious than any opposition which had so far been encountered, or was likely to be met with, on the way to Lhasa. The Government of India saw, then, no reason to anticipate greater risk in placing a Resident at Lhasa than was incurred in sending a British representative to Khatmandu or Peking.