THE FLIGHT OF THE DALAI LAMA.
[To THY EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Whether our Alliance with Japan results ultimately in good or ill, it has produced remarkable and unexpected results. The defeat of Russia liberated us from fears of Russian attack on India. We forgot that it also set Germany free of any apprehension of attack from Russia, and has enabled her to tarn her attention to the development of her Navy as a conscious rival of our own. But other Powers besides Britain and Germany were appeased by Russia's defeat. China is now awake and fearless as to Russian aggression. The remarkable Japanese who lived three years in Tibet disguised as a Chinese Buddhist says in his valuable book, published at Madras in 1909: " The loss of Chinese prestige in Tibet has been truly extraordinary since the Japa.no-Chinese War." The occupation by China of Lhasa at present and the flight of the Dalai Lama show that China, biding her time, has now determinedly recovered that prestige. Nor is the matter without significance for ourselves. Look at the map and see the route the Dalai Lama must have taken to bring him to Kalimpong, the Church of Scotland's picturesque and powerful mission in Sikkim in the Eastern Himalayas (set like a tongue between the three little un- visited lands of Nepal, Bhutan, and independent Sikkim). By the route he came any Chinese army might come,—with infinite hardship, no doubt, but safely in the end. There is no reason at present to be scared about the Chinese in Lhasa, but it will be well for us to remember that Mr. Lloyd George's Budget is not the end-all and be-all of British politics. There are great Imperial questions to be studied, and while the Asiatic may have been baffled on the Californian slope and rebuffed in Australia, what is Europe to do with the Chinaman in full possession of Tibet and sitting at the very door of
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