27 OCTOBER 1900, Page 2

We do not like this " honorific " Mission from

the Dalai Lama to the Russian Court. It may be purely one of cere- monial, but it may also justify a Mission from St. Peters- burg to Lhaesa. The Lamas, looking out on the confusion in China, may be contemplating rebellion, and asking for the help of some cavalry, and that will not do. We are steadily opposed to any struggle with Russia for Manchuria, or Korea, or even Northern China, but it must be on condition that no one touches Thibet. With Thibet in the hands of any first-class European Power India would be untenable. It would be necessary to fortify all the passes in the Eastern Himalaya, and to keep fifty thousand troops in Bengal Proper and Assam, which are at present ungarrisoned, and even then we should not be safe. The vast plateau, 11,000 ft. high, dominates Eastern India as well as Western China, and must under any circumstances be left in native hands. The despatch of the Mission is of itself a proof that Chinese ascendency at Lhassa is growing weaker.