thousands of square miles in extent, a naval base and the Kowlung extension; while in the meantime the Government appears infected with that spirit of optimism which Voltaire defined as "la rage de soutenir que tout va bien, quand tout va mal."

Such an instance of political prescience and official energy hardly inspired a belief in the existence of any definite policy as far as China is concerned, nor, if such a policy did exist, in any ability on the part of the present Government to adhere to it, even in the face of open hostility which might and will entail permanent injury upon British interests and prestige in the Far East. The truism that diplomacy rests ultimately upon force is in danger of being forgotten in these days of Peace Conferences and aspirations for the abolition of war. The united pockets of a community provide for the policeman who conducts a wrongdoer before the judge, because, in the present state of society, there are serious doubts whether the criminal's moral sense alone would be strong enough to take him thither after the commission of an offence. The tax-payer ("under Schedule D") also provides for an Army and a Navy, which are simply the police of empire, and competent hands employ them as such. Lord Salisbury's omission to do so in China was not repeated on the Nile where, in the opinion of many who know the country and its possibilities, the measures taken to protect our interests were altogether disproportionate to their value. At all events, the "forcible diplomacy" principle won a belated recognition and that fact, coupled with the summary manner in which the French were treated at Muskat, is as far as it goes a good omen for the success of British policy in dealing with the problem which is summed up in the title of this article.

In Persia are centred British interests which far outweigh those in Central Africa, for through Southern Persia lies the easiest road to India, and for that reason amongst many others, to quote Sir Frederic Goldsmid, "not even

1

in the days of the First Napoleon was Persia more essentially a part of the geographical side of the Eastern Question than she is now.'

The British connection with Persia is one of long standing, and its beginning coincides curiously enough with the earliest relations between this country and Russia, since it was the "Russian or Muscovy Company," chartered by Philip and Mary in 1555, which opened communications with Teheran. Four years later, Sir Anthony Jenkinson visited the "Great Sophie, Emperour of the Persians," as the envoy of Elizabeth, and before 1581 no fewer than six expeditions were despatched by the Muscovy Company to Persia via the Volga. The leader of the fifth, Thomas Bannister, broached to the Shah a subject which is of absorbing interest for more than one nation at the present day, the question of an overland route to India, but nothing practical resulted. A later traveller, however, Sir Anthony Sherley, returned to England with a very tangible concession in the shape of the Shah's permit for all Christian merchants to trade with Persia. During the reign of Shah Abbas, the English navy first appears in its latter-day rôle of police in the Gulf, one clause in an Anglo-Persian agreement to expel the Portuguese being to the effect that "the English should keep two men-of-war constantly to defend the Gulf." In those days the Russian rulers, especially Peter the Great, were always anxious to foster trade, and to employ English energy and enterprise to that end, so much so that in 1734 the Empress Anne granted a concession to English merchants to carry goods through Russia to and from Persia on payment of an ad valorem duty of 3 per cent. Their subjects, however, viewed the pushing foreigners with other feelings; "The Russes are sorie that wee doe trade into these parts, for wee are better beloved than they are," wrote a factor of the Muscovy Company in 1565, and the reason of the disfavour with which the door Russian Government views Free-trade and the open to-day lies in the fact that foreign competition invariably

results in the Russian merchant being beaten out of the field.

The gradual dismemberment which Persia has suffered at the hands of the Czars began with Peter's conquest of Baku and Darbend in 1722, although diplomatic relations between the two countries had been opened more than a century before this date. Some ten years later Russia restored these places, together with all Persian territory, as far as the Araxes, but it was a case of reculer pour mieux sauter, since Catherine's death in 1796 alone prevented her victorious army from entering Teheran itself. The respite was not for long, in spite of the Napoleonic wars which convulsed the whole of Europe. Napoleon's keen eye had recognised the value of Persia as a stepping-stone to India, and his envoys at Teheran were busy obtaining the Shah's co-operation in the Franco-Russian schemes for invasion; no less than three were discussed between 1800-1807.

The now-familiar policy of "bolstering" was resorted to by England, and officers were sent out at various periods to organize the Shah's army: Major Christie, of the Bombay Army, who was killed at the battle of Aslanduz, Major Hart, and Lieutenant Lindsay of the Madras Army, subsequently known as Major-General Sir Henry Bethune, who worked up the Persian artillery under Abbas Mirza.* that time too (1808), was witnessed the spectacle of Sir Harford Jones and General Malcolm, the envoys of Great Britain and the Indian Governor - General respectively, acting in succession on different instructions and without concert at Teheran, in order to counteract the influence

At

*The history of the various attempts that have been made to improve the condition of the Persian army has been briefly given by Sir Frederic Goldsmid in a lecture at the Royal United Service Institution, 1879, and reprinted in the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, vol. xxiii., No. 99. Since 1800 nearly every European nation has lent officers for the purpose-French, British, Italian, German, Austrian and Russian-but whatever good they have done has always been neutralized by the corrupt military administration. And at the present day it is idle to hope for any other result, unless the reform of the government goes hand in hand with that of the army.

brought to bear on the Shah by Napoleon's envoy, General Gardanne.

Malcolm effected nothing; but Sir H. Jones succeeded in making an offensive and defensive alliance with the Shah, who was pledged to defend India against any European power.

This supplemented the treaty of 1800, but as the former treaty had not prevented the conquest of Baku by Russia in the war of 1804-06, so also was the later treaty of no avail when the next war resulted in the Treaty of Gulistan, 1813, by which Persia ceded half a dozen provinces between the Caucasus and the Caspian, and Russia acquired the sole right to have men-of-war on that sea, which has been a Russian lake from that day to this.* This was her first great step towards the Gulf. The next followed in 1828, when the Treaty of Turkomanchai closed an almost continuous warfare of forty years, and Russia won the Khanates of Erivan and Nakhitchevan.

The Shah had appealed in vain for the support to which the Anglo-Persian treaties entitled him; we made no move, and for the third time since 1804 Persia "satisfied herself that England's friendship and promises were of little avail in a pressing emergency."

Since 1828 Russia has held the winning cards in the game, and the history of Persia since that date is simply that of a cat's-paw put forward to snatch Afghanistan, or rather Herat, out of the fire for Russia. It is unnecessary to trace the course of events in this direction, except to note that but for Eldred Pottinger's defence of Herat, which the Persians besieged for eight months at the instigation of Count Simonovitch, the place would have been in Russian hands to-day. Russia's expansion across the Caspian, the seizure of Krasnovodsk, the conquest of the Turkomans and the Khanates, and the construction of Annenkoff's

* When the late Shah once steamed out of Enzeli on his yacht with the royal standard flying, a Russian gunboat threatened to open fire on him unless it was hauled down, and down it promptly came.

line from the Caspian to Tashkend, are all recent events which have found more than one chronicler. The net result has been to place Russia in a commanding strategical position along the whole of the Persian north frontier, from the Agri Dagh to Sarakhs.

Naturally Russian influence has been in the ascendant at Teheran, for her strength is plainly visible behind her diplomacy. During this same period the British policy has been one of drift, "weak in its conception, calamitous in its results," as Lord Curzon put it. Needless to say we have guaranteed the integrity and independence of the Shah's dominions, in an agreement with Russia, as far back as 1834, subsequently ratified in an exchange of Notes in 1838, 1873 and 1874. What more can a fair-dealing nation do? Nothing has been done to maintain our influence at Teheran, and the conduct of our relations with the Shah has been bandied about between the Foreign Office and the Government of India in a way that betrayed not only lack of decision and want of purpose but seriously prejudiced whatever influence remained to us, for Muhammad Shah took great umbrage at the transference of relations with Persia to the Indian authorities, of whom he entertained a very low opinion after the fiasco of the Malcolm mission.* Our commercial relations suffered in consequence and it was not until 1841 that a commercial treaty was concluded; up to that time British merchants had no protection other than that afforded by such friendly relations as happened to exist at the moment between the two countries.

The geographical importance of Persia, as Sir Frederic Goldsmid and Sir Henry Rawlinson have pointed out, must be patent to everyone who looks at a map of Asia, and now that Russia is showing how fully she realizes the

* The Legation at Teheran was under the Indian Government from 1823 to 1835, under the Foreign Office until 1858, then for two years under the Indian authorities, and is now back again under the Foreign Office.