THE NEW POLICY IN CENTRAL ASIA.
LORD NORTHBROOK'S reply to the Envoy from Khiva, reported in the Times of Tuesday, is of such immense importance that, at the risk of disgusting our readers with obscure geography, we will endeavour to ex- plain to them what it all means. There are two routes by which the Russian Czar can, if he pleases, after immense efforts continued through many years, assail, or what is more to the purpose with practical politicians, can seriously threaten our Indian dominions. The first, and, as we think, by far the most feasible of these, is the Southward one, from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf, across the broad isthmus we call Persia, a distance of only five hundred miles, through a terri- tory which, if only decently governed, could be made to pay revenue, would supply useful troops, and would admit of colonisation. So slight are the geographical difficulties in this direction, and so powerless is Persia from paucity of in- habitants, misgovernment, and religious anarchy, that the Romanoffs could, if unimpeded by Great Britain, in five years substitute a Russian Governor-General for the Shah, and reign with absolute authority from the Caspian to the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. As, however, such a conquest would be the death-warrant of Turkey, which would then have Russia in her rear, and would render India so expensive as to be valueless or burdensome to Great Britain, it would be pre- ceded by a war so desperate that St. Petersburg has hitherto always resisted the temptation—a very great one, for she wants some country in Asia which will yield her revenue—and has expended her strength upon the second or South-Eastern route, leading from the Caspian and the Sea of Aral up the valley of the Oxus, through Bokhara almost to Afghanistan. Hitherto she has conquered and erected posts along this route from the North-East, leaving the region West of the Oxus free; but her statesmen now want the submission of the whole territory between the Oxus and the Caspian. This acquisition, the keystone of which is the subjugation of the only considerable ruler thereabouts, the Khan of Khiva, may give her, if she sinks wells enough, a new road from the Caspian—her true and permanent base for Asiatic conquest—and will give her secure control for some hundreds of miles of both sides of the Oxus, a river along which she may, by the aid of steamers, rapidly spread southward. Russia desires therefore to con- quer Khiva, and as she is just now unoccupied, and the Khan has given her every imaginable excuse—he has an interesting habit of stealing Russians and selling them into a slavery aggravated by religious hatred—she has prepared an expedi- tion which, if human calculations are worth anything, must in two years purge the world of this evil State. The Khan
sees this, and as a last resource has sent anEmbassy to implore the Viceroy of India for aid.
It could not be granted,—nay, it was needful to refuse it with something of bluffness and publicity. About four years ago the Government of India, wearied by the incessant conflict which rages in India and in the Indian Office as to its Central Asian policy, experienced a sudden access of common-sense. It was resolved to make an end, for a time at all events, of the policy of suspicion ; to accept the fact that Russia would conquer all she could reach East of the Caspian, that is, all Northern Asia ; and to try to arrive at some definite, if tem- porary, understanding with the statesmen of St. Petersburg. There was no moral objection to that course, for the petty Mohammedan despotisms which we call Khanates in Central Asia are, with the exception of Dahomey, incomparably the worst governments existing in the world—bear, for example, to the old Government of the Two Sioilies about the same relation which that "negation of God erected into a system" bore to the Government of Great Britain—and their subjugation by Russian arms would be a direct diminution of the misery of mankind. Nor was there much political objection. The action of every State is limited by its power, and it was exceedingly doubtful whether we could interfere for these States by any process short of a declaration of war to be waged in the Baltic and the Black Seas, and probably to include half the world. Direct local interference was out of the question. We could not send five regiments to Khiva without placing them at the mercy of the barbarous States lying between our frontier and that State, or without a strong apprehension that our ally, once relieved of his first apprehension that Russia would conquer him, would feel a second,—that England would civilise him, and would proceed to make himself secure on all sides by a well arranged massacre of British troops. It would be far easier, if we must fight Russia, to fight her when nearer at hand, in valleys and on plateaus whence our Gene- rals could send for reinforcements with some hope of obtaining them in less than a year. On the other hand, indirect aid would be of little use. They do not appreciate moral force much up there at the back of the world, and a few muskets or rupees would only exasperate Russia, without rendering the Khanates one whit more defensible. It was determined, ac- cordingly, to open negotiations with St. Petersburg, an informal embassy was del:watched thither direct from the Viceroy, though endorsed, as it were, by Lord Gran- ville, and the new Indian policy was placed frankly and forcibly before Prince Gortschakoff and the Czar. The agent employed, Mr. Forsyth, was a thoroughly skilful man ; both statesmen saw at once what Russia had to gain, and both acceded with a readiness and frankness which, were not both Russians, we should say was the result of intelligent cor- diality. No treaty, of course, was signed, but a definite arrangement was made, under which Russia agreed in sub- stance, if relieved of our opposition, not to pass a clearly defined line, nearly identical, we believe—though on this point we are not certain—with the line of the Hindoo Koosh. Some of oar informants maintain that the line is still farther north, and protects Bokhara, but of this we are still doubtful. The effect of this arrangement, so long as it is pre- served, is that the immense territory between the Hiqdoo Koosh and the Suleiman, a region 400 miles across, full of deserts and hills and wild races, became a neutral borderland between the two Empires, in which native princes might do their worst or best without interference on either side. From the Caspian to this line, Russia might conquer, or colonise, or erect fortresses, or exact revenue, or accumulate troops with- out our interference, but south of this line she could not go without the interference of the Foreign Office. It was probably his knowledge of this arrangement which encouraged Prince Gortschakoff to plan the expedition against Khiva, while it was certainly a recollection of this engagement which induced Lord Northbrook not indeed to refuse aid to Khiva—for he must have refused it in any case—bat to allow his refusal to transpire in so public a way. In the first serious contingency which has arisen we have kept our word, and now we shall expect Russia to keep hers.
It will readily be perceived that Russia gains for the pre- sent much more than we do by this arrangement. It would take her, in any event, ten or twelve years to conquer down to the Hindoo Koosh, even if she persuades a faithful tribe or two, Cossack or Kerghiz, to do most of the work on her behalf, and for that time she is relieved of an apprehension which frequently influenced her counsels. Even the Con- tinental statesmen who despise us so deeply for retiring
from politics are never quite sure what we shall or shall not do in Asia, and have a lively notion that we may, for all our quiescence, at any moment spend ten or eleven millions in a wildly daring expedition to the Mountains of the Moon. To be relieved of this apprehension is much for Russia ; to be able to convince her enemies that they are isolated is more ; and to obtain both relief and submission without payment is most of all. For it is clear that the most ambitious Russians do not want to cross the Hindoo Koosh till they are ready, and that when they are ready there will be nothing to prevent them except the dread of a resistance from Great Britain, which they must in every case have prepared their minds to encounter. At the same time, the British Government also gains much from the arrange- ment. The Viceroy exchanges an endless apprehension for a certainty, and for the time a pleasing certainty. As long as Russia remains on the other side of the Borderland she is not hurting us, and we are precluded from exhausting and fruitless efforts to hurt her, from silly promises to inaccessible States, and from intrigues with rascals too base to be consistent even in rascality. The moment Russia breaks the agreement we shall know that she means mischief, that she intends hostility and not friendship, and that we must gather ourselves up for a struggle which, with every new mile of Indian Railway, becomes more hopeful. There is no danger of any sudden surprise ; even if 'Russia were absolutely faithless, for she could not invade India without a great army, or conquer the broad border- land now practically neutralised without years of prepara- tion and battle. Under the most unfavourable circum- stances, in the event even of Russia producing a General with a genius for war and buying off all resist- ance within the Borderland, we must have six months' warning within which to prepare ourselves, to obtain reinforcements, and to wake up the English people—never sluggish to suspect Russia--,-to the imminence of the danger. The struggle, when it came, would not be an unequal one, for Russia is spreading a horror of her re'gime among all Mussul- mans from Samarc,and to Travancore; and if we have but their hearty aid, an invasion of India from the North would be a rush into a lake of fire in which even a German army would be lost. Time, in fact, only helps to make a grand struggle, should the necessity ever come, a little easier for us, while we • avoid by the new policy all the expenditure of time, ability, and money involved in our perpetual apprehension of little ones. Our course, in fact, becomes a policy, serious, well-con- sidered, and courageous, instead of a series of petty expedients all tending towards war in the end, all more or less discredit- able, and almost all in the long run annoyingly unsuccessful. Giving stones to little boys to throw at your enemies for you is not wise work, even if there were not something so pusil- lanimous about it. If Russia wants Khiva, let her take Khiva, to the general relief of mankind ; and let us fight when she wants India, and shows that she wants it by a formal breach of her word. That is our new policy in Central Asia, as we under- stand it, and Lord Northbrook in his stern reply to the • Khiyan Envoy shows that he understands and heartily approves it.
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