AN INVASION OF TIBET.
THERE never was a more annoying or embarrassing quarrel than this one of ours with the Government of Tibet. Our consciences are clear, fortunately; but our course is to the last degree perplexing. The vague Tibetan rights in Sikkim, if they ever really existed, have ceased by effluxion of time, and the present action of the Lamas is a pure aggression, based, we imagine, in reality, on some promises made by the present Rajah while a fugitive in Lhassa. Sikkim, a wild little mountain State, with less than 10,000 people, voluntarily, and without the smallest coercion, accepted our protection in 1816, and by regular treaty entered the list of Indian feudatories. Tibet made no protest, and the arrangement has lasted ever since, though an inveterate habit of kidnapping travellers has twice compelled the Indian Viceroys to visit the Rajahs with signs of their displeasure. The present Rajah has no right whateverto invite Tibetan troops into his territory, no more right than Reuss-Greiz or Waldeck would have to invite French regiments, and for Tibetans to invade Sikkim under their shadowy rights of a century ago, is simply absurd. They might as well claim Bengal, and, indeed, better, for they did once conquer and hold the vast delta, which is, in truth, the creation of rivers whose head-waters are, either in a geographical or a political sense, within old Tibetan territory. The source of the Brahma- pootra is theirs now, and at different times they have been lords throughout the Eastern Himalayas. They have, however, no rights which statesmen can now consider, and their invasions are acts of violent aggression, justify- ing immediate war. If Tibet were France, and India England, there would be nothing for it but a march to the capital, and even as things are, it may be most difficult to avoid an expedition beyond the mountains. The Lamas who rule at Lhassa are as stubborn as mules, they believe themselves invincible and inaccessible, they control all manner of fighting nomads, and there is nothing whatever to prevent their making an annual descent through the passes just as an amusement. To defeat them before they can seize Darjeeling, we must build a fortress and maintain a garrison in a spot where neither will be of the slightest use to the Empire, and, so to speak, lock up a thousand good soldiers in perpetuity. That is rather too much to bear in the way of injustice, and rather than bear it, we must, if there is no other way, advance to Lhassa.
Such an expedition ought, however, to be avoided by every device not positively shameful. We have no quarrel with the Tibetans, who are as a rule the most secluded of mankind, and go on century after century without giving a sign of their existence ; we have nothing to fear from them within their own frontiers, for they have no connections except with China ; and we have nothing to get from them after a -victory, however complete. The Indian Government and Army have quite enough to do without governing or protecting that awful plateau, three times the size of France, almost as cold as Siberia, most of it higher than Mont Blanc, and all of it, except a few valleys, destitute of population. Including the nomad tribes, there are probably not 7,000,000 of men in that vast territory, and beyond a few mines, of which we know little, there is nothing which could be made to produce a revenue sufficient for a regular, not to say a European Government. At the same time, an invasion, even if it were limited to dictating terms of peace at the capital, would be a most for- midable affair. Lhassa, it is true, is not far off our boundary, and is not defensible against modern guns, if we could get them, by dint of collecting elephants, up those high passes ; or if we could carry them, which we doubt, along the river on which Lhassa stands, and which is rather suspected than accurately known to be an affluent of our own Brahmapootra. But though the Tibetan troops are badly armed, and the hosts of monks who people Lhassa would hardly face rocket batteries, the city is the very heart and centre of Lamaist Buddhism, and an attempt on it would be felt like a challenge by the whole non-Mussul- man Tartar world, rousing tribes of horsemen of whom we know nothing except that they can travel any distance, and that they are too poor and uncivilised to be careful of life. We should be in for a quarrel of generations with men who surround the whole Eastern frontier of the Empire, who know every pass into India, and who in Bootan, Nepaul, and the Hill States, have an army of friends. Moreover, however shadowy the rights of Tibet over Sikkim, the rights of China over Tibet are con- crete and indisputable, and the statesmen of Pekin, if we take Lhassa, must, for the sake of their own prestige, interfere with decision, and interfere, too, through their ultimate reserve, the Tartar cavalry, who will never bear to see Lhassa in European hands. That is a war with China, and a war to the knife ; and though doubtless we can defeat China, we do not want to do it, but rather to strengthen the only Power whose interests in Asia are absolutely identical with our own. To fight China in order to compel the Lamas of Lhassa to leave off worrying us in Sikkim, would be the most disastrous as well as the most absurdly bizarre ending to a long chapter of obscure history that it is possible to conceive. Yet we would gravely warn Lord_ Salisbury that, unless he can persuade the Court of Pekin to act effectually —to act, that is, as they would if their own ascendency were imperilled—it may come to this, and that sooner than he expects. Darjeeling is not a point at which we can endure to hear of an invading force without taking the strongest action to ensure retribution; and if this quarrel continues, we may hear on any morning that Darjeeling is lost. There are not a thousand Europeans between it and Tibet, and the Tibetan Lamas can move tribes who will fight in a very different way from their half-armed "Regulars," though these latter exhibited, as we read the accounts of the attack on Gnatong, unexpected persistency and pluck.
We do hope that the idea of "opening up" Tibet has no place in the minds of the India Office. That is one of the notions which is always floating about in Calcutta, and which unluckily attracts alike the men of science and the men of business. The trade of Tibet, however, never can be equal to the trade of Shoolbred's shop, the people being few and the cost of transport endless ; while, though it would be pleasant to know "all about" Tibet, that grati- fication of intelligent curiosity is not worth half-a-century of war. The travelling pundits of whom the Geographical Society wisely makes so much, will explore Tibet for us if we will find the money, and enter regions, moreover, which, as invaders, we could never reach. We can very well afford to wait for the result of their researches, without wasting energy on an expedition which may bring on us foes of whose numbers, audacity, and means of action we know only two things, that they conquered half a world once, and that people like the Goorkhas, as brave as our own Europeans and almost as efficient, regard them with an incurable dread. If we must fight, we must, for we cannot suffer wrong for an indefinite period ; but the strongest exertions should be made to induce Pekin to prevent the fighting, by persuading and, if need be, coercing its feudatories into action. Pekin hates trouble with Lhassa, for religious as well as other reasons ; but still it has never relaxed its grip on the Lamas, and knows how, when compelled by circumstances, to squeeze hard. It would act fast enough if the Dalai Lama, chosen though he be by supernatural fiat, attempted to escape the necessity of asking the Emperor's recognition.
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