RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA.
Belfirst, 24th January 1857.
Sin—The 'present state of Asiatic politics leaves scarcely a doubt that Russia and England are destined to divide all Asia between them, :except -only Asiatic Turkey and perhaps some parts of the further East. Persia is already doomed to absorption in either the one empire or the other. We would no doubt gladly save Persia, as we have saved Turkeyi but the fact that the Caspian is a closed sea makes this impossible. It e can defend Persia against Russia only by sending an army through Persia to meet the Russians on the frontier : this would be making Persia a protected state, with the certainty of ultimate annexation to our Indian empire. Now we must not do this. Persia would be a ruinous possession to us, because the deserts of its Southern part make it less accessible to us than to the Russians.
Our only object in Central Asiatic politics is to guard against the Ruesiansl and keep them at a distance. We shall not attain this object by pressing forward to meet them.
We must at some future time see the Russian frontier conterminous with ours. The danger of such neighbourhood may, however, be neutralized, if we be wise in time, by taking up the most defensible position as our outpost to the North-west, whether on our present frontier, or at Candahar, or at Herat. But nothing ought to tempt us beyond Herat. To go further, would be to plunge into a new region, as vast as India and as inhospitable as Russia.
It is further necessary that we should be supreme in the Persian Gulf; and if even the Emperor of Russia becomes master of Persia, we must exclude his ships of war from the Gulf, as he now excludes those of Persia from the Caspian.
Thus occupying a strong frontier in Afghanistan, and supreme in the Gulf, we should make a Russian invasion of India not only hopeless but impossible.
The Persian war is probably quite as much for our supremacy in the Gulf as for the independence of Herat. It is said that the .Persian Government has been trying to bring the French and Americans into that part of Asia as rivals to us.
Respectfully yours, J. J. M.
Previous page
