Mr. Eastwick, Member for Penrhyn, on Friday se'ennight elicited from
Mr. Grant Duff a formal statement of the policy of the India House in Central Asia. It amounts to this,—that Government intends to let Central Asia be. In a very able speech, overloaded with geographical knowledge, the Under-Secretary showed that the Russians were still 800 miles off, with an almost impassable country between and a great military empire at the end of the route, and declared that the policy of the Viceroy was to strengthen the frontier, complete the railway to Peshawur, improve the port of Kurrachee, conciliate our own people, and then wait till India was menaced, a contingency he did not believe in. Shere Ali had been subsidized to enable him to keep disorderly tribes quiet, and not with any view to resist Russia, with whom, added Mr. Gladstone, we had had most friendly communications, during which she had suggested that Afghanistan should remain a neutral zone between the empires. There is a little trace of diplomatic caution in all this. Of course, possible eventualities are not forgotten, and some paragraphs are to be left out of the published despatches, but substantially there is no doubt of our policy. It is to help Shere All with a little money to bind the shifting sands he rules over ; and for the rest, to get as strong and as rich as we can by minding our own business within the Himalaya. We should like to mind it, too, on the Persian side. Surely Mr. Grant Duff's arguments all point to non-intervention in Teheran, yet his chief is going to let English officers go there to drill the Shah's troops without losing their commissions.
Previous page
