THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CONVENTION.

HL Deb 06 February 1908 vol 183 cc999-1047

LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON

rose to call attention to the Convention recently concluded with the Russian Government relating to the respective interests of Great Britain and Russia in Persia, Afghanistan, and Thibet; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, a week ago the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition intimated that an opportunity might soon be taken for a more detailed criticism of the Anglo-Russian Convention than was possible on the Address, and the noble Lord opposite who leads the House concurred in the propriety of such a discussion. That is the nature of the debate which I am about to initiate. It will not be conducted, so far as I am concerned, in any spirit of hostility to His Majesty's Government, although many of my remarks, perhaps the majority of them, will be of a somewhat critical nature.

The Convention has been concluded and signed; and for better or for worse, for longer or for shorter, it is part of the accepted diplomacy of this country. In these circumstances I am sure that there is not one of us who would not wish that its future should conform to the most sanguine anticipations of its authors rather than to any misgivings of our own. I shall hope, therefore, to say nothing that may in any way embarrass the future development of this policy, while reserving to myself the right to comment upon the steps by which that policy has been shaped. I am sure that no one will contend that a treaty so far-reaching and so immensely important as this should be free from criticism in this House.

We concede, and I think rightly concede, in this country a wide and almost unlimited discretion in treaty-making to our Governments. They conduct their negotiations in absolute secrecy. Parliament knows little of what is going on, and the public know less. From time to time a Minister with artless candour may lift a corner of the veil and disclose the ravishing beauty of the object behind. In the present case we were denied even that privilege. The Government have it in their power to consult or not to consult experts as they please. I think it hardly possible that they have done so in the present instance. They can sign a treaty at any moment they please, and I have noticed, as a rather remarkable coincidence, that treaties have a habit of being signed a few days after the rising of the House of Commons. In that way immunity from Parliamentary criticism I for at least six months is secured.

The Government of the day can also announce the fact of the treaty in a manner; to attract popular approval. That was done in the present case. The conclusion of the treaty was announced at the end of August, but it was not until 25th September that its actual terms were disclosed, whereupon many of those journalists and others who had committed themselves, perhaps, to a premature acceptance of its details, found themselves in a rather difficult position. All those advantages, whether designed or accidental, were enjoyed by the Government in the present case. I make no complaint of that. But in proportion: as this immense responsibility is vested in the Government of the country, so must they expect to answer for the manner in which it is discharged. I am sure they would be the last to claim to escape criticism on the mere ground that we are dealing with a fait accompli. On the contrary, they will probably welcome the opportunity afforded by this discussion of giving an explanation on many points which, because of the delay that has ensued, will have been all the more thought out and matured.

May I begin by saying that I am confident that the majority of your Lordships will approve cordially of the general policy of understandings and alliances which has in recent years been substituted for the attitude of isolation—a splendid but sometimes precarious and possibly even dangerous isolation—in which this nation before stood? A great deal of the credit for that change is due to Lord Lansdowne; and we all know, or at least we dimly apprehend, the part that has been played in it by the influence and the political sagacity of the Sovereign. That the entente with France should be followed by an agreement with France's principal ally is only a development of this policy on accepted lines. Further, I think there is no agreement that would generally be more acceptable to this House, or to the country, than one with Russia. Though the political rivalry between the two countries has frequently taken the form of diplomatic conflicts and sometimes of actual collision during the past century, there is, I am convinced, no inherent or ineradicable antipathy or antagonism between the two Governments or the two peoples. In Central Asia, I can testify from my own experiences that the most harmonious relations are capable of existing between Russian and British officers on the frontier. Therefore, that this long feud which has been the source of so much anxiety, which has produced such incessant intrigues, and has involved such great expenditure to Russia, and perhaps still more to India, and to ourselves, should be composed is an end which all of us in this country must a priori desire, and which would be still more acceptable to the Indian Government, and the Indian peoples.

I am sure the members of His Majesty's Government will be the last to claim that an arrangement of this sort is any monopoly or invention of their own. When I had the honour of serving Lord Salisbury at the Foreign Office ten years ago, he drew up a scheme for adjusting the relations between Russia and ourselves throughout Asia on a much wider basis even than this. The same idea, I happen to know, entered into the aspirations of Lord Lansdowne, the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and the Government of India were consulted in my day and replied in a favourable sense about the conclusion of such an arrangement with Russia concerning Persia and Afghanistan. Therefore there is nothing in this policy to which we on this side of the House would be at all likely a priori to object. On the contrary, we should be the first to congratulate His Majesty's Government if we were convinced that the arrangement they have made is of a satisfactory nature, and is likely to be followed by an honourable and permanent peace.

There is one criticism which has been passed upon the Agreement from which I should like to dissociate myself. That is the view that no arrangement ought to have been concluded with Russia because it might have prejudiced the cause of constitutional reform in that country. I see no validity whatever in this plea. Indeed, I see no relevancy between the two propositions. His Majesty's Government could only deal, as they did deal, with the accredited and established Government of the Russian Empire. There is no prospect of that Government being dislodged; and it would appear to me to be not only false policy, but an almost gratuitous impertinence to decline to negotiate with that Government because a constitutional movement is proceeding in Russia with which a large number of people in this country find themselves in sympathy.

I now pass to a more detailed examination of the Treaty itself, and here my remarks will be, perhaps, rather less favourable in character. I noticed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day asked us to look at this Treaty as a whole and not to be too critical about the details. That is all very well so far as it goes. I am quite willing to accept and act upon the philosophy— Give all thou canst. High Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more. I am not at all disposed to approach the question in a huckstering spirit. But I venture to point out that this Treaty is not an offensive or defensive alliance between Great Britain and Russia. It is not a general expression of harmonious or friendly relations between these two great Powers. It is a detailed arrangement of their specific interests, claims, and rights in three countries in Asia. If these arrangements are fair to both parties, if they contain the qualities of vitality and permanence, then we may expect this Treaty to produce the feelings and the attitude which His Majesty's Government desire to create. But supposing it is shown that this bargain is doubtful in respect of Afghanistan, bad in respect of Tibet, and worse in respect of Persia, then I think it would be impossible to argue that the whole result could be good.

For my part, I prefer to accept the position suggested by the Foreign Secretary in one of his speeches in the recess, when he asked us to regard this Agreement as a business transaction. But no body of men can be more familar than your Lordships with the fact that a business transaction must be regarded quite as much, if not more, in the light of the terms in which it is concluded as in the spirit and temper in which it is drawn up. The spirit and the temper may change as time goes on, but the written terms remain and survive. This Treaty attempts to compose and adjust the relations of Great Britain and Russia in respect of three Asiatic countries—Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet—and I will deal with them in the order in which they occur in the Treaty itself. I only wish I had here a largo map in which I could punctuate my arguments. This seems to me one of those occasions when one of the late Lord Salisbury's large scale maps is required. In the absence of such, I had seriously thought of having prepared a small map and strewing it hither and thither over your Lordships' benches; but I was rather afraid that I might be held to blame for attempting to convert this august and sequestered Chamber into the semblance of a public meeting, and that it would be regarded as an act almost of impertinence on what is nearly my first appearance in your Lordships' House.

What was the situation in Persia with which His Majesty's Government were called upon to deal? The Persian kingdom is inhabited by a people possessing great quickness of intellect, capacity, and charm, who have preserved their national existence for centuries in spite of a government of which I cannot speak in complimentary terms. The survival of Persian independence has been largely assisted by the geographical situation of the country between the territories of two Great Powers, neither of which can afford to allow Persia to be overrun or absorbed by the other. Russian influence has come in from the north and northwest, impelled by that forward movement which has carried her over the greater part of the Asiatic continent. Great Britain, for her part, has been compelled to take an active concern in Persia, partly because it lay immediately beyond the outer frontiers of India, but even more because long before Russia had displayed an interest in the country, we had, by the enterprise of our merchants, by the activity of our commerce, acquired and developed a great position in the Persian Gulf and in the South of Persia.

How great that position was I was enabled to realise when I was permitted by the late Government to make an official tour to those waters in 1903. I found that in the Persian Gulf over 80 per cent. of the trade and over 90 per cent. of the shipping were in British hands. From the ports on the Gulf this British commerce was carried on mule back and by caravan into the interior. British influence extended, therefore, not only over the waters of the Gulf, but over a great stretch of territory along the South of Persia all the way from Baluchistan on the east to the Tigris on the west; and not only was this position unchallenged and supreme, out, I would point out as a matter of credit, that during the hundred years in which it had grown up it had never been utilised to acquire any position of territorial aggrandisement by this country.

The British ascendency in the South of Persia was balanced by a corresponding and, perhaps, an even greater Russian ascendency in the north, largely reinforced by the fact that the Russians have what we have not, great military forces lying behind a contiguous land frontier many hundred miles in length. Russian influence came down from her frontier towards the centre of the country; and there we can point to the limits where the two spheres of influence joined. There was no gap whatever between them except such as was created by the great sand deserts which stretch across the heart of Persia, and form a natural division between the two spheres upon which I regret that more attention was not bestowed by His Majesty's Government in this arrangement.

Now, what happened when this Agreement was concluded? His Majesty's Government, after repeating with Russia the exchange of formal assurances as to the integrity and independence of Persia, proceeded to the creation of certain zones in that country, and they rather rashly stated in the preamble the principles upon which they intended to act. I hope your Lordships will permit me to read the words— Considering that each of them has, for geographical and economical reasons, a special interest in the maintenance of peace and order in certain provinces of Persia adjoining, or in the neighbourhood of, the Russian frontier on the other hand, and the frontiers of Afghanistan and Baluchistan on the other. In ostensible pursuit of these principles His Majesty's Government then proceeded to trace three spheres in Persia. The first was the Russian sphere in the north in which we engaged not to seek for ourselves, and not to support in favour of British subjects or in favour of subjects of third Powers, any concessions of a political or commercial nature. The second consisted of the British sphere, in respect of which Russia entered into similar engagements; and the third sphere, or neutral zone, practically covered the whole of the rest of the country.

May I ask your attention to each of these spheres in the order in which I have enumerated them? First, as regards the Russian sphere, let it be remembered that on the principles laid down this should have consisted of the provinces adjoining or in the neighbourhood of the Russian frontier. Those provinces are—and here I regret the absence of the map—Azerbijan, Ghilan, and Khorasan in the extreme north. Nevertheless, His Majesty's Government have thrown into the Russian sphere the province of Mazanderan, south of the Caspian Sea, which can only be described as adjoining the Russian frontier on the hypothesis that the Caspian Sea is a Russian possession and a Russian frontier. Then, if we turn to the western side of this sphere of influence, we find that the line of the Russian sphere has been drawn down to the border between Turkey and Persia to a spot in the neighbourhood of Baghdad on the main line of commerce between Baghdad and Teheran, Kasr-i-Shirin, a spot not less than 400 miles distant from the nearest point on the Russian frontier. That is throwing into the Russian sphere the entire province of Persian Kurdistan, Ardelan, and the Kermanshah district, and, what is perhaps more serious still, the important British trade route that runs from Baghdad via Khanikin and Kermanshah to Teheran.

Not content with this, His Majesty's Government have then taken the line of the Russian sphere and deflected it still further to the south so as to enable it to include Ispahan, the old capital of Persia, which is situated about midway between the Caspian Sea and the Gulf. In Ispahan, when I was in Persia a few years ago, Russian interests and trade could scarcely have been said to have acquired any prominent part at all, while, on the contrary, during the last 100 years we have there built up a position of assured and conspicuous predominance. Nevertheless, Ispahan is gone. Not satisfied with this, His Majesty's Government have then taken the line and deflected it still further to the southeast so as to include the Persian city of Yezd. Now there is not, and never has been, any conceivable Russian interest in Yezd: that is a place where we have for years had a British Indian colony established in connection with the Persian community of Parsees, who are the parents of that famous and intelligent community that has risen to a position of so much affluence and distinction in Bombay. Yezd, in spite of those conditions, has been included in the Russian sphere.

From that point the line of the Russian sphere slopes away to the Afghan frontier. I would ask your Lordships to observe, as the point of this argument, that the Russian sphere as I have described it does not accord with the preamble of the Treaty, because the greater part of it is not adjoining or neighbouring to the Russian frontier; and Russian predominance in it cannot be justified on economic, any more than on geographical, grounds, because in the greater part of it that predominance does not exist. Out of the twelve cities of Persia containing a population of more than 30,000 inhabitants, no fewer than eleven are included in the Russian sphere, and these eleven contain the capital Teheran, with all the possibilities of diplomatic and commercial pressure in the future which that position affords. With that position of affairs I confess I look with some apprehension to the future that is likely to await the few British commercial or economic institutions or concessions that we still enjoy in the capital of the Persian kingdom.

Then out of the eleven trade routes by which foreign commerce enters Persia, as many as seven are placed in the Russian sphere; and these include the trade route to which I referred just now, which enters Persia on the western side from the direction of Baghdad, and by which the whole of the heavy articles of commerce whether from England or India incapable of entering the country on mule-back from the south—because of the precipitous ridges they have to cross—has hitherto been brought up the waters of the Persian Gulf and up the Tigris to Baghdad, and then across the mountains into Persia. When I was in Persia the value of the British trade on this route amounted to £1,000,000 a year, and at present it is not much less than £750,000. Yet the whole of that trade route has been handed over to the Russian sphere. This short description is, I think, sufficient to show that the Russian sphere contains all that is best in Persia, all the principal centres of trade, all the main sources of political or commercial influence, and in the whole of this sphere, so long as this Treaty continues, we are debarred from seeking to procure political or commercial concessions.

I remember that the Foreign Secretary made a speech at Berwick in the recess in which he said— We have safeguarded the Indian frontier without foregoing commercial prospects in any part of Persia where we had any. If that is the degree of knowledge possessed by the advisers of the Secretary of State, I am not surprised at the sacrifices which appear to me to have been made. But, even so, I think we should have been content if a similar elasticity of interpretation had been applied to the construction of the British sphere, at least where the Russian sphere ended, brought down, as it has been, to the heart of the country. There we might have expected the British sphere to begin, the more so in consequence of the conditions of predominance I have described in the southern part of the country. Every argument that could be used for bringing the Russian sphere down to Kasr-i-Shirin, or Ispahan, or Yezd could equally and even more strongly be adduced for bringing the British sphere up to those points.

In the south-west of Persia your Lordships may have heard of the Karun River. Many years ago Sir H. Drummond Wolff procured amid a great flourish of trumpets the concession of the navigation of that river for British enterprise as a set-off to a Russian political concession in the north. A little further to the east is the Persian port of Bushire, where for 150 years we have had a factory, and where for 100 years we have had a British Consul-General and Resident who is almost the uncrowned King of the Persian Gulf. From Bushire starts the main line of commercial entry into Persia from the south—a line which goes up country from Shiraz to Ispahan, and at Shiraz we have his summer quarters. Yet, though in the whole of this sphere the evidences of British commercial supremacy are unquestionable, the entire region has been excluded from British influence. In future we are to have no greater rights there than are enjoyed by Germany, or even by Russia herself. What ought to have been, according to all the arguments used in this treaty, a British sphere, has been converted into a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground upon which the nations of Europe will fight out their commercial battles in future. Russia is left secure in her position of ascendency in the north, but in the south, where, as a result of all this labour, this expenditure, these disinterested sacrifices, we have acquired the position which I have described, we are no better off than the latest new-comer in the country. It may be that the noble Lord who speaks for the Government in this House will be able to give some explanation of this part of the Agreement; but I can only say that it appears to me to involve an almost inexplicable sacrifice of British interests in that part of Persia.

I now pass to the British sphere. This is drawn under the Agreement from an arbitrary point on the Afghan frontier through the Persian town of Kerman, to the port on the Persian Gulf of Bandar Abbas. If the justification for these arrangements is that they are intended to protect the frontiers of the two Powers, how is it that a section of the Afghan frontier on the extreme northwest, from Zulfikar, where the Russian frontier joins the Afghan, down to the point at which the British sphere starts, has been left out of the Agreement? The omission of that piece of frontier from the Agreement is likely to be attended with rather inconvenient consequences in the future. The British sphere contains only one city of any size—Kerman—against eleven within the Russian sphere; and only one trade route as against seven. It is a sphere of no commercial or economic importance whatsoever. It is inhabited, where it is inhabited at all, by a sparse and, in the main, a nomadic population; it is only one-half the size of the Russian sphere, and the greater part of it consists of what the late Lord Salisbury used wittily to describe as "very light soil."

All the reasons that have been alleged for extending and stretching the Russian sphere down into the heart of the country have here been ignored, and the only considerations advanced by His Majesty's Government are those of a strategical nature. They tell us that by the creation of the British sphere they have protected an exposed corner of our Indian Empire in the neighbourhood of Seistan. I do not object to that claim at all. I should be the last to minimise its importance, because I believe I was one of the first to draw attention in my writings on Persia many years ago to the strategical importance of Seistan. I am sure we are glad that that aspect of the case has been so satisfactorily considered by His Majesty's Government; but, while keeping a very open eye to that peril, it seems to me that they have applied the telescope to their blind eye with respect to the remaining British interests in the whole of the rest of Persia. As regards strategy, the Government would be mistaken if they thought our strategical interests in Persia were confined to a particular corner of Baluchistan. Any railway advance either to the Beluch frontier or beyond it into India is almost a physical impossibility and your Lordships have only to read the weighty and conclusive argument that was drawn up by that eminent authority Captain Mahan to know that the real strategical danger to India on the Persian side lies from the direction of the Persian Gulf. But putting that by, I submit to your Lordships that our interests in Persia are not strategical either alone or mainly. The whole of my argument would be worth nothing, and the whole history of the past 100 years might not have been, if it were not clearly established that we have great commercial, political, economic, and telegraphic interests in all parts of Persia, but particularly in the south. In the case of Russia, the whole of these considerations in drawing up the Russian sphere have been borne in mind, and have been used to justify an extension of influence which the most ardent sympathiser with Russia can scarcely have dreamed of in his wildest hopes. In the case of the British sphere, they have all been ignored, and for the security of a portion of the British border—not unimportant in itself—it seems to me that we have sacrificed our commercial and political position, or at least have jeopardised that position over the greater part of Persia.

I am now brought to a consideration of the Persian Gulf. Your Lordships are no doubt familiar with the fact that there is scarcely any page of British history which can be read with greater pride and satisfaction by Englishmen than that which records our relations with the Persian Gulf. By the most disinterested efforts, by immense expenditure spread over more than 100 years, we have pacified the waters of that sea; we have sounded and buoyed the channels, and laid down the telegraph cables by which the news of this debate will be conveyed this evening to India or the Colonies beyond. We have enabled Persian authority to establish itself on the northern littoral of the Gulf. We have built up a large trade for ourselves, and we have made a secure pathway for the commerce of other nations. If there is a part of Persia where our interests, accordingly, might have been expected to be recognised in this document, it should have been in the Persian Gulf. But there is no mention of the Persian Gulf whatever in the body of this Agreement. It is true that prefixed to the Agreement is a letter, issued by the Foreign Office, in which His Majesty's Government draw attention to previous declarations of British policy and reaffirm the importance of maintaining British influence in the Persian Gulf, the most significant; of those declarations having been, as your Lordships know very well, the famous statement by Lord Lansdowne in this House in May, 1903. It is said in this letter that the Russian Government in the course of the negotiations explicitly stated that they do not deny the special interests of Great Britain in the Persian Gulf, a statement of which His Majesty's Government have taken formal note.

I cannot help asking the question—If that assurance was given by the Russian Government, why was it not stated in a letter of the Russian Minister, above his own signature and in his own name? Is it not a remarkable thing that it should only appear second-hand as a quotation in a letter from our Foreign Secretary in this country? One of the main reasons for which we are invited to welcome this Treaty is this, that Russian declarations, which have hitherto only been recorded in the privacy of diplomatic intercourse, are here, for the first time, written down in black and white. We are told that immense importance attaches to the doctrine, litera scripta manet. I do not think that argument is very complimentary to the Russian Government, because it implies that a spoken assurance is of less validity than a written assurance. It is, therefore, not an argument which I would myself employ; but as it is employed by others, I am compelled to ask, Where is the litera scripta about the Persian Gulf? Why does it not appear in the Agreement? Why, instead of the litera scripta, are we only given a quotation from what the Russian Minister is said to have said to our Secretary of State?

I think I might go a little further and ask, Why is the assurance given by Russia about the Persian Gulf not included in the body of the Treaty? It is only fair to note the two-fold explanation given by the Government. They say, in the first place, that the Gulf does not touch the Russian or the British frontier, and that, therefore, there is no occasion to allude to it. But the Gulf touches the British frontier just as much as the greater part of the Russian sphere, of which I have spoken, touches the Russian frontier, and rather more closely if it is a question of mileage. Moreover, it is impossible to use this plea seriously, because if you advance a little further into the study of these documents you find that His Majesty's Government have not been averse from concluding agreements with Russia about Tibet, which, at no point, touches the Russian frontier. Therefore, I think that that plea has only to be stated to be dismissed.

The second defence of His Majesty's Government is that the Gulf is only partly in Persian territory. I am not an international lawyer, but I suppose that the reference is to those parts of the Persian Gulf which are in the territorial waters of Persia and to the Islands strewn about the Gulf which belong to her. I think if British influence had been admitted in those regions we should have been quite content. On the southern shores of the Gulf we have treaties with the Arab states which are quite sufficient for our purpose, and in the rest of the Gulf we are content to trust to His Majesty's ships; but even this limited agreement about the Persian waters of the Gulf is not included in the arrangement, and I can only conclude that the omission of any reference to the Persian Gulf in the body of the Treaty is one of its most unfortunate features.

If, however, all these concessions, great and notable as they arc, of which I have spoken, were certain or were likely to be attended by the consequences named in the preamble—that they would prevent all causes of misunderstanding in the future—I think we should accept them with less misgivings. But what is almost certain to happen in the future? The Russian Government, after recovering its political equilibrium and momentum, will naturally devote itself by the use of all its energies and its great means to the exploitation of those regions of Persia which have been assigned to it as its sphere under this Agreement. Presently, probably at no great distance of time, the Russian railways will be brought down to Ispahan and Yezd, and if then Russian subjects go to the Persian Government with an appeal for their extension even to the Gulf, under the terms of this Agreement we are debarred from opposing. Therefore, it is perfectly certain chat we must expect the Russian system of railways connected with the Russian base, to be extended right through the heart of the country, not merely to Ispahan and Yezd, but to the Gulf. When that consummation happens, where will British ascendency in Southern Persia or the Persian Gulf be? I feel almost tempted to ask where will Persian independence be then. When that day arrives and the historian of the future is concerned to determine the moment at which that future was fixed, he will have no alternative but to attribute it to the conclusion of this Agreement.

There is one other point to which, before I leave the subject of Persia, I must allude. I wonder whether the spokesman of His Majesty's Government will be in a position to give us information as to the effect this Agreement has produced upon the Persians themselves. I am almost astounded at the coolness, I might even say the effrontery, with which the British Government is in the habit of parcelling out the territory of Powers whose independence and integrity it assures them at the same time it has no other intention than to preserve, and only informs the Power concerned of the arrangement that has been made after the agreement has been concluded. I have no means first hand of ascertaining what the impressions of the Persians are about this Agreement; but, from the information of friends who have, I should think their feelings must be of a somewhat disquieting nature. Asiatics find some difficulty in distinguishing between geographical and economic spheres and political spheres. They have seen one develop into the other with suspicious and almost unbroken regularity; and I doubt very much if the average Persian would, in consequence of this Treaty, look with any greater confidence upon the future of his country than he did before.

There is another aspect to which, quite briefly and with great seriousness, I would like to ask your Lordships' attention. I think His Majesty's Government, or any Government of this country, ought to proceed very warily in dealing with the territory or the future of Mahomedan countries. The British Sovereign is the ruler of the second largest Mahomedan population in the world. It is one of the most valuable and loyal elements, and one of the most solid assets, in the fabric of the British Empire. I am not certain that we have been altogether happy in recent years in our dealings with Mussulman countries. I do not feel sure that Morocco has any great cause to be grateful to us for our action on her behalf. However that may be, I do venture to say that it ought to be one of the cardinal features of our policy, wholly irrespective of party, to avoid any attitude or any policy which would be capable of arousing the suspicion that we were in the least degree indifferent to the interests or careless about the future of Mahomedan countries or institutions.

There is one defence of this Agreement with regard to Persia to which I am I bound in fairness to refer. We are told I that its great justification has been that: the Russian Government has refrained from intervening in the troubled state of affairs in that unfortunate country. I am not at all clear that it is due to this treaty that that abstention has taken place; nor am I confident that, should the trouble develop further, that abstention will be capable of being maintained. But I think the real answer to this plea is contained in the pledges of the Russian, Government in regard to the integrity and independence of Persia—pledges not contained for the first time in this treaty, but repeated no fewer than five times in the last seventy years. They are pledges to which I myself attach so much importance that I do not think they can have acquired any superior validity by being included in this written arrangement. I am sorry not to have been able to speak about the Persian aspect of this case in more favourable terms. But I have been reluctantly driven to the conclusion that, whatever may be the ultimate effects produced, we have thrown away to a large extent the efforts of our diplomacy and of our trade for more than a century; and I do not feel at all sure that this treaty, in its Persian aspect, will conduce either to the security of India, to the independence of Persia, or to the peace of Asia.

As regards Afghanistan, the preamble inserted by His Majesty's advisers is quite admirable. Their object is to ensure perfect security on the respective frontiers of Russia and Great Britain in Central Asia, and to maintain in those regions solid and lasting peace. Your Lordships will be aware that Afghanistan does not enjoy the same degree of political independence as the kingdom of Persia. For the best part of a half a century the Afghan ruler has engaged to conduct his foreign relations only through Great Britain—to have no foreign relations except with Great Britain—and in consequence he has received an ample subsidy from the Government of India. Therefore it is not possible to argue that Russia has ever enjoyed or does now enjoy a position of equality with ourselves in Afghanistan. On the contrary, we have acquired and have enjoyed a position of political predominance there quite as great as, indeed greater than, any that can be claimed by Russia in those provinces of Persia to which I have already referred.

In the case of Afghanistan, therefore, we might expect that concessions, if made, would not, at any rate, emanate from us. What are the contributions made by the two Powers to this new Agreement with regard to Afghanistan? The British Government engages not to change the political status of Afghanistan; not to annex or occupy any portion of the country; and not to interfere in its internal administration. These three engagements correctly represent the spirit of British policy in Afghanistan for many years; and if His Majesty's Government thought it desirable to embody them in a definite diplomatic Agreement, no one has any right to cavil. Then there is this fourth engagement—that the British Government will exercise their influence in Afghanistan only in a pacific sense, and will not themselves take, nor encourage Afghanistan to take, any measures threatening Russia. That too, represents the spirit of our policy. I do not believe that any Government has existed in this country for the last twenty-five years, or that any Government will ever exist again, which would contemplate marching through Afghanistan and using Afghan territory as a jumping-off place for an attack upon Russian possessions in Central Asia. I should regard any such proceeding as a wild and demented act. So far so good, although the inclusion of this provision here seems to give to Russia for the first time the right to have a voice in our arrangements with the Ameer of Afghanistan which may be fraught with some inconvenience in the future.

Apart from that, there is an ambiguity in this clause to which I should like to draw attention. Your Lordships will remember that the frontier of Afghanistan between Persia and the Oxus was drawn up and delimited by the British and Russian Governments in the years 1885 and 1886, and it is recorded in a treaty between the two Powers. In other words, both Powers have pledged themselves to the observance of that frontier. We are bound by the most solemn obligations to the Ameer of Afghanistan to defend it, if attacked; and it may be regarded, therefore, as the outer frontier of the British Empire. When then we pledge ourselves never to take ourselves, nor to allow Afghanistan to take, any action of a threatening or hostile character across that frontier, may I ask why it is that the Russian Government has not given a similar pledge in connection with this matter?

Along the whole northern frontier of Afghanistan there are Russian positions, Russan forts, and Russian troops, and even their railways are stored there for extension to Herat. If this treaty is going to be a solid guarantee for the peace of Asia, might we not expect that while we gave these pledges Russia would have assured us that these preparations would be desisted from or abandoned? But there is not a word as to that. Supposing the worst should happen. Supposing at any time a violent infringement of this frontier which we have demarcated and guaranteed should take place. Supposing another Penjdeh incident should occur. How are we to reconcile our obligation to the Ameer of Afghanistan to defend his frontier with the obligation that we have assumed in this Treaty not to take or to encourage Afghanistan to take any measures threatening Russia? That is a position that I earnestly hope may never arise, but in discussing this Treaty we have to look at possibilities, and the possibility in this case is one, I think, of a very serious character. So much for our engagements with regard to Afghanistan.

In reply, the Russian Government have given two declarations, the second of which flows from the first. In the first place, they declare that they recognise Afghanistan as outside the sphere of Russian influence, and they engage that all their political relations with Afghanistan shall be conducted through the intermediary of His Britannic Majesty's Government; and, secondly, they engage not to send any agents into Afghanistan. I have often had occasion in writing and talking about Central Asian affairs, to deplore the general lack of knowledge that prevails on this subject in this country. But if any where such an ignorance did not exist, I should have thought it would be in reference to Afghanistan and our engagements with Afghanistan. Yet I have seen in many quarters, and even in that sane and well-informed organ the Westminster Gazette, this defence of these provisions— At the same time, we get also what we have never been able to obtain before, a solemn recognition on Russia's part that Afghanistan lies outside her sphere of influence, and a promise to conduct all political relations with Afghanistan exclusively through the British Government. Now, if this were a concession given for the first time it would be very valuable, it might even be a quid pro quo for the concessions which we ourselves have made. But your Lordships are probably aware that this engagement, given by Russia for the first time in the year 1869, has been repeated by her totidem verbis in 1874, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1882, 1884, 1885, 1887, 1888, and 1900. I am not aware that it gains in validity by being repeated for the twelfth time. But, however that may be, to claim it as a concession—to regard it as a quid pro quo—is clearly out of the question.

On the other hand, three definite concessions have been made by us in this arrangement. In the first place, Russian and Afghan frontier officials are to be permitted to hold direct relations in the future on local and non-political questions. Well, the result of that experiment depends largely upon the manner in which those terms are interpreted. My experience is that all frontier questions either begin by being or end by being political questions. And how are we to know, several hundred miles away, what is the particular character of the discussion that is going on between the Russian and the Afghan frontier officials? When I was in India the late Ameer of Afghanistan sent to me a letter from a Russian frontier official to one of his officers, affecting to relate to local and non-political matters. The space occupied by them in the document was very small, but there were some pointed allusions to the Boer war, which was at that time proceeding, in a manner not altogether favourable to British interests. I hope that such will not be the character of the conversations or correspondence that may take place in the future.

But the most remarkable feature about this provision is this, that, while we concede to Russia these relations between their frontier officials and the Afghan frontier officials, we do not enjoy them on our own borders. Here we are committing the Ameer, apparently without consultation with him, and so far without his consent, to setting up a system on his Russian frontier which does not exist on our own. No one knows better than the noble Lord (Lord Elgin) that one of the main difficulties of the Indian Government is in endeavouring to settle matters on the frontier between India and Afghanistan The difficulty arises in the main from the fact that the Ameer will not allow his local officials to communicate with ours. It seems to me, therefore, that instead of committing him to an arrangement of this sort with Russia it would have been rather more appropriate to induce him, in the first place, to make a similar arrangement with ourselves.

The second concession we have made is the admission of commercial agents in the future. I hope His Majesty's Government will give some explanation as to this. It is a little difficult to reconcile the article in the Treaty in which Russia engages not to send any agents into Afghanistan with the clause to which I am now referring. And I am a little afraid as to the manner in which the commercial agents may act. Perhaps His Majesty's Government will be willing to tell us where it is contemplated that they will be—whether they will be on the frontier or whether they will be sent to other parts of the country. No one knows better than the Government themselves that commerce and politics are very much apt to overlap in Central Asia, and that a commercial agent is inclined to forget his commerce and to remember that he is only an agent.

The third concession that we have made to Russia is equality of commerical opportunity. Surely this is a part of the internal administration of the Ameer of Afghanistan with which we have pledged ourselves not to interfere. I should have thought that it was hardly for us to make promises as to his commercial or tariff system—at any rate, without previous consultation with him. But supposing the Ameer to agree, as I hope that he may, may I ask why reciprocal concessions have not been made to us in the Russian territories in Central Asia? If we are to open to the Russians the markets of Afghanistan, why are they not opening to us the markets of the Russian Khanates of Khiva and Bokhara? For years we have been trying to obtain commercial agents in those cities. Surely if we make this very substantial concession to Russia in Afghanistan the least we should expect is a similar concession to ourselves in the Russian Protectorates in Asia.

Then there comes the question of the assent of the Ameer. That, of course, is a very serious matter. This treaty was concluded in August last. Six months have since elapsed, and the Leader of the House told us the other day that the assent of his Highness has not yet been received. He attributed this to the customary slowness of Orientals. I hope that that may be the case. But, surely, instead of making this Agreement, assuming the consent of the Ameer, and waiting to acquire it, the more prudent course would have been to consult the Ameer and to have obtained his assent in advance. All last winter, we read in the papers with great gratification, his Highness was in India, and met with a great reception there, and his sentiments were of a most friendly description. Surely, there could not have been a better opportunity of discussing with him these matters than was afforded then; and the whole of this delay might have been avoided if that had been done. I hope for the sake of the Agreement that there may be no trouble about the assent of the Ameer. But I need hardly say that, if he withheld his assent, a situation of the greatest inconvenience and anxiety would be created. I shall now pass from the question of Afghanistan. Summing up the situation there we appear to me, so far as I can see, to have obtained nothing in return for very substantial concessions. Afghanistan still remains protected by exactly the same pledges as before, with the difference that they are now embodied in a treaty. Meanwhile we have tied our hands and the hands of the Ameer by a number of engagements which may possibly be a source of some anxiety in the future.

I pass, in conclusion, to the subject of Tibet, and here I venture to say, the treaty stands in extreme need of explanation and defence. I certainly will not presume to inflict upon your Lordships on the present occasion a discussion of the Tibetan policy either of the late or of the present Government. Possibly another occasion may occur to do that. I am quite content to take the operation, of this treaty upon Tibet as it stood when His Majesty's Government assumed power. You are doubtless familiar with the general facts as regards Tibet. Tibet is a country which stretches for many hundreds of miles alongside and outside of the northern frontier of India. Its capital, Lhasa, is less than 200 miles from the nearest point of the British border. The Indian Government have had close contact—sometimes friendly, sometimes the reverse—with the Government of Tibet for the best part of 150 years. We have made treaties with them. A substantial trade has grown up between the two countries, and every geographical and economic-reason that could be or has been alleged in earlier parts of this treaty for the predominance of Russian influence in other parts of Asia could be advanced, with much stronger force, for British predominance in Tibet.

Quite lately we were called upon to vindicate our rights and our interests there at considerable expense, but with entire success; and we secured a treaty which gave us the legitimate fruits of that undertaking. Under this treaty friendly relations were gradually growing up between the people and the authorities of Southern Tibet and ourselves; and we had thoroughly convinced them of our intention not to interfere at all with the administration of their country, and gradually we were breaking down the wall of suspicion and distrust that has hitherto severed those two countries and peoples. That was our position in relation to Tibet when His Majesty's Government assumed office.

Now what is the Russian position? The nearest point of the Russian frontier to the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, is 1,700 miles distant. The Russian frontier is at no point contiguous with the Tibetan frontier. On the north the strip of Mongolia, 400 miles in width, extends between. Russia, so far as I know, has invested no money, acquired no stake in Tibet; and according to all the arguments which we have been considering in the earlier part of this discussion, she has nothing to do with Tibet at all. I hope you will not believe that this is merely my own contention or my own narrow view of the case. It has been expressly admitted by the Russian Government themselves. Only as recently as 11th April, 1903, the Russian Ambassador told Lord Lansdowne that Tibet was in any contingency outside the sphere of Russian policy. And yet in the face of this agreement, surely of a most explicit and categorical nature, His Majesty's Government in this treaty have conceded equal rights and interests to Russia in Tibet with ourselves, and have exchanged assurances with them based upon the assumption of equality.

His Majesty's Government have even consented in an annex to this treaty to consult the Russian Government about the manner in which we are to carry out one of our own treaty obligations with the Tibetan Government with respect to the evacuation of the Chumbi Valley. The Chumbi Valley is a small tongue of territory stretching down into the British border 2,000 miles distant from the nearest point of the Russian frontier, which we have temporarily occupied as a guarantee for the fulfilment of their obligations by the Tibetan Government. I confess I do not know what Russia has to do with the Chumbi Valley or with our engagements relating thereto with the Tibetan Government. I have referred to the Persian part of this treaty as involving great sacrifices. The Tibetan part appears to me to involve an absolute surrender; and really this particular annex as regards the Chumbi Valley, unless it is capable of explanation, seems to me to be almost a humiliation.

There is only one other point which I wish to touch. His Majesty's Government claim this treaty to be one leading up to a solid and lasting peace. If that be so, surely the first object should be to exclude any possible sources of future dissension. You all probably know that one of the main sources of the mischief a few years ago was the presence in Lhasa of a Russian Buddhist subject named Dorjieff, who was the evil genius of the Dalai Lama, who led him to believe that he would be assisted by Russia, and who was largely responsible for the war that ensued. Surely in any agreement for the future the presence of such persons ought not to be expressly encouraged. And yet we find an article introduced into this treaty by which Buddhist subjects of Great Britain or Russia may enter into direct relations on strictly religious matters with the Dalai Lama and other representatives of Buddhism in Tibet. This, of course, means a passport for the return of this man Dorjieff to the country. And, really, in the future, when the Russian and Afghan officials are discussing local and non-political matters on the Afghan frontier, and when Dorjieff is discussing strictly religious questions with the Dalai Lama of Tibet at Lhasa, I should almost wish to possess the magic carpet in order to transport myself to that country, and be present for a short time at those deliberations.

As regards Tibet then, every evidence pointed to the growth of friendly and intimate relations between the Tibetans and ourselves, and to the establishment of British predominance in Tibet as assured and as well justified as Russian predominance in those regions adjoining the Persian frontier to which I have before alluded. And yet we have, it seems to me, thrown all these advantages lightly away and have admitted the right of Russia to have a voice in any thing we may do in the future as regards Tibet.

I am glad to bring these observations to an end, and I am sorry to have detained your Lordships so long; but I am sure your Lordships will allow that some lengthened exposition has been necessary in the treatment of a subject as important as this. For my own part, I regard this treaty as the most far-reaching, the most important treaty that has been concluded by the British Government during the past fifty years. It must profoundly affect the future of three Asiatic countries. It must leave an indelible mark, let us hope for good, on the relations between Great Britain and Russia, and it must exercise an almost inexpressible influence upon the future of the British dominion in Asia, a problem which, I think, with the most intense conviction of which I am capable, is the most momentous which can come before the minds of British statesmen.

Your Lordships will, therefore, I hope, not complain if you have been asked to turn aside for one afternoon to the contemplation of this subject and if, even for the space of an hour and a quarter, I have troubled your Lordships with what is, in reality, the condensed result of the studies and the travels of more than twenty years. I wish that my own impressions of the treaty, point by point, could have been more favourable than they have been; but I cannot honestly say to your Lordships that that is a fair bargain which I hold to be unequal and unfair. No one would be better pleased than myself if the noble Lord opposite is enabled to give explanations that may remove many of the apprehensions I have suggested; still more, if the concessions which I have described, and which appear to me so excessive, turn out to have been well and profitably made and if we find that in giving much, we have gained more. And I am sure that there is no body of men in the United Kingdom who would be more anxious than your Lordships' House to congratulate the Foreign Secretary of this country, who carries with him so large a measure of public confidence, if we could feel convinced that the arrangement which he has here concluded will not merely involve a temporary reconciliation of divergent interests, but will be a lasting guarantee for peace and harmony between those two great nations in Central Asia.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for Papers respecting the Convention recently concluded with the Russian Government relating to the respective interests of Great Britain and Russia in Persia, Afghanistan, and Thibet.—(Lord Curzon of Kedleston.)

THE EARL OF CROMER

My Lords, I have to claim a full measure of the indulgence which I am aware is always accorded to those who address your Lordships' House for the first time. The noble Lord, in the eloquent address to which we have just listened, has dwelt on certain defects in the Angle-Russian Agreement. He brings to bear on this question an intimate knowledge of the details possessed by few individuals, and with which I certainly cannot in any degree compete. I am not going to attempt to deal with the details, upon which I have no doubt we shall hear some explanation shortly from the noble Lord the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.

I approach this question from a wholly different and more general point of view than that of the noble Lord. I do not think it is possible to appreciate fully the merits or demerits of this Agreement without taking into consideration the general condition of affairs in the East, especially in those countries with which Great Britain is principally concerned. That condition was described about a year ago by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as one of unrest. I do not quarrel with the phrase. It is probably as correct as any very condensed and epigrammatic expression of this kind could be; but it admits of being amplified. It would perhaps be correct to say that the transition stage through which the East has been passing for many years has now reached a somewhat acute phase. Everywhere you see that the West is endeavouring to thrust its ideas on the East, or that the East is endeavouring, on its own initiative, to assimilate Western government, with which it is wholly unfamiliar. The most conflicting elements have been thrown into the political, social, and administrative melting pot, and I do not think it is possible for any one to foretell what will be the result of the attempt to fuse all these elements together.

I should like to state briefly what I consider to be those conflicting elements, and I hope I may be able to convince your Lordships that my observations have a real bearing on the question of the Anglo-Russian Agreement. In the first place, we see almost everywhere deep-seated religious feeling grappling with agnosticism, or something approaching agnosticism. There can be no doubt that the contact of the West tends in a great degree to unsettle the whole moral basis on which the fabric of Eastern society rests. Then, again, we have, almost everywhere, antique customs, old-world-ideas, and solid conservatism grappling with methods of government wholly novel to Eastern minds. I should like to give your Lordships an illustration of what I mean by this last observation. I have been told by a doctor very learned in the Moslem Law that an apostate from the Moslem religion, or, as we should call him, a convert to Christianity, should most certainly be stoned; and I have been officially informed by an exponent of the Moslem Law that the only punishment admissible, without violating the sacred law of Islam, for certain offences was that the criminal should be mutilated and crucified.

Then we have almost everywhere, and notably in India and Egypt, a great gulf fixed between the masses and the educated classes. Very little has been done in recent years to temper the ignorance of the masses. On the other side, you have an educated class possessing a high and somewhat empirical form of knowledge, unleavened by practical experience, and they bring this knowledge to bear on some of the most perplexing problems which could occupy the minds of the Statesman and the administrator. Then it has to be borne in mind that in this country we have considerable difficulties to contend with. The growth of democracy has very much increased the difficulties of the problem which was described some years ago by Mr. Bright as that of governing a people by a people—the people of India by the people of England. I cannot help expressing the wish that some of the irresponsible politicians in this country who speak with so much confidence and with so little reserve on this Eastern question would occasionally bear in mind the warning of the Duke of Wellington that— If ever you lose India, Parliament will lose it for you. And, if my recollection serves me rightly, the Duke only spoke of one branch of the Legislature, and that branch not your Lordships' House.

It is to be remembered, too, that the recent Japanese war has exercised a very great influence on the minds of Eastern, and more especially I conceive, of Far Eastern populations. There is nothing very surprising in all this. It is the natural outcome of contact with the West, the spread of civilisation, of the growth of education, and of the policy—as I think, the very wise and dignified policy—of not allowing subject races to remain ignorant in order that they may be more easily governed. But it must all give cause for serious reflection. I do not think it gives cause for grave anxiety, but it certainly makes it incumbent that those nations which have possessions in the East should exercise even greater care, watchfulness, and circumspection than, perhaps, at any other period of their history. Notably, my Lords, I think it is impossible to foretell what will be the result of the ferment which is now going on in the mind of Far Eastern populations, more especially as the principle of nationality appears to some extent to have taken root in the East and to have taken the place of those bonds which have hitherto bound Eastern populations together. But, I think, one conclusion may be drawn with safety, and that is that those mutual jealousies and rivalries of European nations brought in contact with Eastern nations has enormously increased the difficulty of dealing with all these Eastern problems. Look at what happened but a short time ago in Morocco. There the misgovernment of an Oriental State brought about tension between two of the great Powers of Europe which was as one time fraught with some danger to the peace of Europe. Then there was the case of Macedonia. In that country, the only method it has been possible to devise to rectify some of the worst features of an Oriental State has been to bring into existence the particularly cumbersome and inconvenient machinery of internationalism, but without much success. Then there is the case of Persia. In spite of the criticism of Lord Curzon, I cannot help feeling that there is a good deal of force in the remark made by the noble Marquess a few days ago that the effect of this Agreement has already produced a very satisfactory effect in Persia. I cannot help thinking that if it had not been for that treaty there might have already been a state of considerable tension between this country and Russia. No field is left open for the exercise of that art in which astute Oriental statesmen excel—the art of sowing discord between two European nations. Let us turn our eyes to the Congo. In circumstances which have not arisen, and, I trust will not arise, the rights and interests of the various nations of Europe may throw considerable difficulties in the way of introducing an improved system of government into that sorely tried country.

A couple of years ago I wrote a despatch to the Foreign Office, in which It dwelt upon the dangers of the Pan-Islamist movement in Egypt. Some thought the dangers exaggerated, and the rapidity with which the movement was coped with certainly gave some colour to that view. But I much doubt whether I did exaggerate. It appears to me that what is known as the Sinai Peninsula incident was like a vivid picture flashed suddenly on the political screen by a magic lantern. It showed with what haste race hatred can be stirred up, and it gave a very striking, though very brief, glimpse of the real difficulties that underlie all those problems of Oriental government. The conclusion at which I arrive is that anything that can be done to mitigate the inevitable risk arising from the jealousy of European Powers on Eastern questions should be welcome. I welcome this Agreement with Russia, not only because I think it conductive to the immediate peace in that part of the world, but also because it is of a nature to facilitate our dealings with those other European problems in which this country is and must always remain so closely interested.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord FITZMAURICE)

My Lords, the subject which is engaging your Lordships' attention to-night has been introduced by a noble Lord who, perhaps, more than any other man in this country has a right to speak and be heard on this subject. Long before the noble Lord had attained the high position which he now occupies amongst the statesmen of this country he had already made himself famous as the author of a book on Persia, which still retains its position as a classic. Succeeding him in this debate we had a few, but valuable, words from another noble Lord who is specially fitted to give a judgment upon a question which is one of politics affecting the continents of Europe, of Asia, and of Africa.

Following these noble Lords in the debate I feel that my claims on your Lordships' attention can be comparatively small; but, on the other hand, I feel that I am defending a treaty which I am glad to think has not been assailed in any of its larger and more general features. I was glad that the noble Lord began his speech by admitting that this treaty has been received on the whole with a favourable verdict in almost every quarter—not only in this country but elsewhere. I am bound to say that as the noble Lord proceeded, perhaps, some of his criticisms went some way towards depreciating the value of the rather full favour with which his opening sentences were charged. But I make no complaint of that, because undoubtedly a treaty of this kind ought to be discussed and criticised; and I can hardly imagine any place where such criticism is more proper or likely to be more valuable than in your Lordships' House.

It is within the knowledge of all those who have read this treaty that it relates to three countries in particular—to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet; but the document must be judged as a whole. That need is clearly stamped on the face of it. If that were not so we might have attempted, possibly in some respects successfully, to have negotiated particular conventions; but, in order to deal with the large issues which were involved, it was deemed desirable—and so far there has been no criticism—to deal with all these three countries and the questions to which their position gave rise in one document.

I desire to follow the noble Lord in the order of his criticism. Not unnaturally he turned first to Persia. In his work on Persia the noble Lord quoted a passage from a well-known work of one of his most distinguished predecessors in this field of literature, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who said it was desirable in discussing Persia to remind yourself that you were not dealing with the Persia of Darius nor even the Persia of Shah Abbas the Great, but with a very different and much more humble order of events. The history of Persia has undoubtedly been a melancholy one. We know that at the time of the Crimean War there was a brief moment when perhaps there was some hope of permanent reform. A very distinguished man, Mirza Takki Khan, appeared in Persia and attempted to reform the country, but, as usual, intrigues, hostility, and bribery were too much for him, and in a very short time he was driven from power. His remarkable career has quite recently been recalled to the memory of those who take an interest in this question, by General Gordon, in a paper which he read the other day before the Asiatic Society.

Since those days Persia's progress has been a progress downhill. Many plans for its regeneration, political and financial, have been put forward. There was a time, when the Minister at Teheran was Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, when a policy was set on foot of which the basic idea was that Persia might be regenerated by the free application of British capital, and every encouragement was given to British enterprise to adventure itself in the country. No doubt some results can be shown to have arisen from that policy. The Imperial Bank of Persia is the most solid as it was the earliest result of that policy. But there was really not much else to show. Certain concessions for making roads have been obtained; and there have been concessions in the western parts of Persia to syndicates for developing the extraordinary wealth of the country in mineral oil. But the general results in what I may call the "concession" period were disappointing.

After a short interval there came another period, which may be described as the period when foreign countries entered upon a policy of rival loans. Persia was continually approaching other countries in her financial difficulties as lenders. But ultimately the conviction forced itself on the mind of every diplomatist and statesman of this country that something-different from the policy of expensive rivalry at the Court of Persia was desirable, and that it would be well to see whether it was not possible to place our relations with Russia in regard to Persia upon a clear and permanent basis. That policy, as the noble Lord who introduced the subject fully acknowledged, is not peculiar to the present Government. Our predecessors originated it. I do not say that in any attempt to justify my case by a tu quoque argument. On the contrary, in my opinion the late Government adopted the only course that was open to them, bearing in mind what the situation was. That being so, I have only to say that when we took up the threads of the negotiations between Russia and Great Britain from the hands of our predecessors in office we did so with a full sense of our responsibility, and we proceeded with them on that advice, which, fortunately, is always at the disposal of the Government of this country—the advice of our skilled permanent officials.

In these negotiations the interest of the India Office is almost as great as the interest of the Foreign Office. The line of demarcation of these two offices, in Persia particularly, has been a subject of difficulty with every Government for many years; and there can be no negotiations by the Foreign Office in regard to Persia or Afghanistan in which the India Office does not play first fiddle as much as second. It is hardly necessary for me to say that there are officials in the India Office of unrivalled experience in these matters; and, with regard to the Foreign Office, I would remind the House that our Ambassador at St. Petersburg, Sir Arthur Nicolson, is a man of very considerable Persian experience, and that the principal adviser of the Government at home is Sir Charles Hardinge, who, before he entered the Foreign Office, had also served in Persia and at St. Petersburg. Therefore I pass by any suggestion that the Government entered on these negotiations blindly or without taking expert advice.

It is said that the line of the Russian sphere has been drawn too far south. That objection was put forward, almost immediately on the publication of the treaty, by a very eminent foreigner and a sincere friend of this country, M.Vambéry, who in a series of letters to the English Press, in the Morning Post, embodied exactly the same argument which has been put forward by Lord Curzon in his able and interesting speech. Both the noble Lord and M. Vambéry argue their case as if a line drawn across Persia was a line which would enable Russia, or Persia under Russian influence, to establish Customhouses along its whole length and levy adverse duties on British goods. But the articles of the treaty, whether they relate to the Russian sphere or the British sphere, are limited to the granting of concessions to foreign Governments, or to individuals or companies under the protection of foreign Governments. The ordinary trade of the country will continue exactly as it is now. The noble Lord and M. Vambéry seem to be afraid that something like a movement for tariff reform was going to take place, or had taken place, and that along the line there would be found a chain of Customhouses with disguised Russian officials levying hostile duties on British goods.

LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON

I really am not responsible for the arguments of M. Vambéry, which I have not seen. I am in the recollection of the. House that I never said anything about Custom-houses or tariff reform. What I anticipated was our inability to obtain any concession in the future in the Russian sphere

LORD FITZMAURICE

What I was pointing out was this, that the argument of the noble Lord, which is absolutely identical with that of M. Vambéry, fails, because the line is not a commercial line, and the dangers he anticipates to British trade could only apply were it possible for the Russian Government, or the Persian Government under Russian influence, to set up Custom-houses along the line to keep British trade out. But the clauses of the treaty are not commercial clauses. They were strictly drawn up to show that they related to concessions within certain defined districts. I believe that, taking the line of demarcation as a whole, it is not a concession one way or the other. I defend this line as being, on the whole, a line which recognises existing facts, and not a line which creates any particular right or disability which does not at present prevail. It is said that the line is drawn not ungenerously in the interests of those who under Russian protection may approach the Persian Government for concessions. My answer to that is that the treaty must be judged as a whole. The exact line of demarcation in a matter of this kind must obviously be one of give and take. The real question is whether, taking the treaty as a whole, and admitting that a full recognition is made of Russia's commercial position, corresponding advantages are not obtained by us in the general settlement of all outstanding questions with Russia, in the determination of the condition of rivalry between the two Powers in Asia; and, on the other hand, the obtainment by us of a similar line, though, perhaps, our line is more important from the strategical than from the commercial point of view.

I can state that in 1903 a Departmental Committee sat at the India Office, on which the Foreign Office was represented, and they arrived unanimously at the conclusion that what was essential to the security of British interests was a triangle of territory including Seistan, Kerman, and Bandar Abbas, se as to render it impossible for Russia to construct a railway to Bandar Abbas or any port to the east of Bandar Abbas without our consent. I have great satisfaction in saying that this is the exact line which has been secured. Then there is the argument that we have allowed far too large a number of the routes of trade from the Gulf and from Baghdad with Persia to fall inside the Russian sphere. But, even if that were so, we have got in our hands some of the most important routes—as, for example, those that approach Persia from the south. My reply, generally, is that it was absolutely impossible, bearing in mind the geography of Persia, if we were going to make an arrangement of this kind at all, giving to Russia a sphere in the north, that we should not be exposed to a charge of this kind. Because if you examine these trade routes, even those which enter Persia from the south, you will find that eventually the object of the trader is to get not only to Ispahan, but from the north even to Teheran itself. We are quite justified in this, and the late Government would have adopted a similar course, and would have allowed the northern part of Persia to be within the Russian sphere.

There is another and more particular criticism which has been urged—namely, that it shows a special laxity on our part to have allowed the trade route which comes up from Baghdad, which may be the line of a future railway, and goes on to Kasie-Cherin, Khanikin and Hamadan, to fall within the Russian sphere I venture to say that if we had attempted to cut that district out of the Russian sphere. I should not this evening be defending any arrangement at all. I feel, as did the noble Lord, the disadvantage of discussing these questions without a map. This trade route is one which the Russian Government especially desired to obtain within its sphere, and therefore clearly, unless we were prepared to say that we would not accept the condition at all, and would break off the negotiations, it was certain that that trade route would fall within the Russian sphere. There is yet another argument which I would venture to submit. The trade route going from Baghdad to Khanikin is one along which in all probability a railway will some day be run in connection with the Baghdad Railway.

Whatever our individual views on this question may be, we all know that there is another Power, not Russia, which is taking a great interest in the railway communications in the direction of Baghdad. Undoubtedly, whoever may get a railway concession and execute it to Baghdad will desire to carry it up to the Persian frontier; and if we had interfered so as to prevent the railway beyond falling into Russian hands, then I think, in all probability we would have gratuitously gone out of our way to bring another Power into the field against us, and in that case I am inclined to think that the joint opposition of those two Powers would probably not have been favourable to the general results of our negotiations. But we have not desired in these negotiations to play any hostile part towards any other Power. We have, on the contrary, tried to register existing facts; and we have found in regard to the trade route which runs from Baghdad to the Persian frontier, and from the Persian frontier to the places I have named, that there were other interests already, so to speak, in possession. If I wanted to convince your Lordships how impossible it would have been to have opposed the wish of Russia in this matter, I should only have to show you on the map that the ultimate end of a line on Persian territory from Kasr-i-Shirin is Teheran, and some day or other it is practically certain that the Russian Government will desire that there should be a railway following the existing line of route which has been made by Russian enterprise and money from their northern frontier at Julfa to Teheran, and that the railway from the Persian frontier will therefore some day link up at Teheran with the railway coming from the frontier at the north. I would ask the noble Lord whether he really thinks that, as the Russian interest is naturally so strong on this question, we should have acted wisely if we had risked wrecking the whole negotiation upon it when, as I venture to tell your Lordships, we were certain not to have succeeded.

I wish to put another point about British commerce. The Imperial Bank of Persia is one of the few really successful concerns which have of late years sprung up in Persia, due to British enterprise. There is no body of men more capable of judging whether this arrangement is good or bad; and I am glad to be able to inform your Lordships that the Imperial Bank of Persia has conveyed to the Foreign Office its approval of this treaty, and its belief that it will be most useful in the development of Persia. I am inclined to set the opinions of these hard headed men of business against the fears of M. Vambéry and his school. I remember that more than twenty years ago, when I had to defend in another place another set of negotiations connected with Afghanistan and Persia, at the time of the celebrated Penjdeh incident, the very same school of thinkers who are now predicting evil said that the arrangements then made by Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville were so foolish that it was quite certain the final knell of English influence in Afghanistan had been sounded. Now that I hear exactly the same criticisms, and from exactly the same people, I am inclined to hope and believe that those who may be so fortunate as to occupy a place in this House at the end of another period of twenty years will find the present prophecies about the decay of our influence in Persia to have been equally groundless.

The noble Lord, I think, has not only misread what may be called the commercial clauses, but he has also overlooked the fact that all existing concessions, even in the Russian area, are specifically protected and maintained, and that therefore, although the future concessions will undoubtedly be to the advantage of the Russian concessionnaire, those who have embarked British money in ventures in Persia will not stand to lose. I do not think the noble Lord would really wish me seriously to enter into a defence of the use in the preamble of the words "adjoining or neighbouring." It is certain that a great deal of learning and verbal refinement might be expended upon the question what is exactly meant by those words; but, broadly speaking, I think we should all recognise that the northern provinces of Persia are in the neighbourhood of the Russian frontier, and that it is no unfair definition which has dealt with the particular provinces mentioned by the noble Lord. And I mast add that it has never been part of oar policy, so far as I know, though the noble Lord seemed to imply it, that the whole of the trade and railway communications of Persia were, in some indirect way, to be liable to control in those parts.

I now pass to the question of Afghanistan. I desire, in the first place, to say, with reference to the assent of the Ameer, that I was a little astonished that the noble Lord, with his great knowledge of Oriental diplomacy, should have said that we ought to have waited for that assent. These are matters which require an appreciation of the ways and methods of Asiatic diplomatists and potentates, and it is not for me to state my opinion on a question of this kind. But I am bound to tell the noble Lord that the opinion of those with whom I have discussed this question does not at all coincide with the view which he has put forward. Undoubtedly it would have run the risk of great delay, considering the leisurely manner in which Oriental diplomacy is invariably carried out. If we had told the Ameer of Afghanistan that we were going to wait an indefinite time, or until he had signified his approval of this long and complicated document, the probability is that noble Lords would not be discussing this question this evening. We would have run the risk of very great delay, valuable time would have been lost; and, considering the grave condition of affairs in Persia, I ask whether noble Lords think that success would have crowned our efforts in the same degree as when we were able to discuss all these questions at Teheran with a Government which was not then in the throes of something like a revolution as it now is? But there were other points which the noble Lord brought up in regard to Afghanistan. He dwelt more particularly upon the undertaking which His Majesty's Government gave in the second article not to annex or to occupy in contravention of our treaty engagements any portion of Afghanistan.

LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON

The clause on which I laid stress was the clause in which His Majesty's Government— Engage to exercise their influence in Afghanistan only in a pacific sense, and they will not themselves take, nor encourage Afghanistan to take, any measures threatening Russia. That was the clause I thought rather ambiguous.

LORD FITZMAURICE

I am coming to that. But before the noble Lord arrived at that point, he asked what equivalent we had got for the undertaking not to annex or to occupy in contravention of our treaty engagements any portion of Afghanistan, and he complained that we had not obtained trade advantages in Afghanistan and even in Central Asia. It should be pointed out that there is a complete equivalent given by Russia. Obviously, when Russia gives us a solemn undertaking embodied in a treaty for the first time that she will not interfere with, or try to change the political status of Afghanistan, she has given us, as the greater includes the less, a clear and binding engagement that she will not annex or occupy.

The noble Lord next asked what would His Majesty's Government do if there were an act of war and territory were seized in breach of faith. I must, however, absolutely decline to discuss the terms of a treaty, the whole object of which is to maintain peace, on the basis of what would be done in case of war. When the Penjdeh incident took place, Mr. Gladstone summoned Parliament, and asked for a war Vote of—if I remember right—eight millions of money. But oar relations with Russia are now such that we need not discuss imaginary Penjdeh incidents. The object of this treaty is to put an end to the condition of affairs out of which the Penjdeh and other incidents grew and endangered peace. Then the noble Lord cavilled at the mention of Russian and Afghanistan authorities and officials, specially designated for the purpose, establishing relations with each other for the purpose of settling local questions. So far back as 1900 there were negotiations between the Russian Ambassador in London and Lord Salisbury in regard to this question, and there never was any unwillingness on the part of His Majesty's Government to entertain the proposal for the establishment of frontier relations. Lord Salisbury, of course, pointed out that it would be a matter to be examined as to what was exactly meant by "local questions," but there was no objection in principle on the part of the late Government to an arrangement of this kind. Then Lord Curzon asked what was meant by commercial agents, and where it was exactly contemplated they should be allowed to go. But the article of the Treaty—it is No. IV.—shows that these details will be matter of negotiation to be arranged between the two Governments, due regard being had to the Ameer's Sovereign rights.

The noble Lord also asked why it was that His Majesty's Government had not included in this arrangement the Persian Gulf. The position of Great Britain in the Persian Gulf is one which has been defined irrevocably by the statements of the noble Marquess, now the Leader of the Opposition, in this House when Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and it was not our opinion that we should in any way have added strength to those declarations by embracing the Persian Gulf—where this country stands in a peculiar position—in an agreement relating to Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet. On the contrary, we consider that by separating the question of the Persian Gulf we do not weaken our position, but rather strengthen? by making it more plain. We have placed it beyond the smallest doubt that, in regard to the Persian Gulf, we stand exactly where our predecessors stood before us. I confess that the more I examine this question of the Persian Gulf the more convinced I am that we have done wisely in keeping the Persian Gulf outside the terms of this Agreement.

Then Lord Curzon made a point—rather a debating point—as to why we should be so anxious to keep out the Persian Gulf when we brought Tibet into this arrangement. Personally, I am quite unable to see that there is any logical connection between the one set of circumstances and the other. I can hardly imagine anything more absolutely different than the position of Persia, and the Persian Gulf in particular, where we have large interests which we intend to maintain at all hazards, and that of the distant, obscure, and little-known country of Tibet. I will state quite frankly that, whereas in Persia our policy is one of maintaining, to say the least, our existing position, in Tibet, which is remote even from the Empire of India, our policy ought to be a minimising policy, a policy of reducing our engagements to a minimum and, if anything, of drawing back from any policy of adventure that may have been contemplated. In regard to Tibet I was glad to observe that the noble Lord did not renew the charge, which I have seen very often made with regard to this treaty, that we had departed from the policy of our predecessors in office in the Convention with China. I do not wish to labour that point, because I have not been attacked about it here. But I have noticed elsewhere an attack on the Government for having brought China by the treaty of last year into the Tibetan question, which is entirely based upon what appears to be a misrepresentation of a passage in a despatch by my noble friend opposite, in which he alluded to the conduct of the Chinese authorities in regard to a particular matter, quite at the beginning of the troubles in Tibet, and pointed out how difficult it would be at that moment to work through the Chinese authorities. That despatch has been misrepresented as a permanent declaration of policy that in no circumstances would the British Government admit the position of China in Tibet. Passing from that the principal point which the noble Lord brought forward was the fact that we had entered into an agreement with Russia; he asked what had Russia to do with Tibet? Here I think I am engaged in answering, not the Front Bench opposite, but the noble Lord himself; for in the careful study I have made of the question and of the Papers presented to Parliament by the India Office in 1904–5, I think I have detected a certain note of difference between the view of Tibet taken by the noble Lord and that taken by his colleagues. The events connected with the Younghusband Treaty seem to me to point to that. We consider that we have followed in the steps which noble Lords opposite laid down for us. There were negotiations in 1904 between my noble friend and the Russian Ambassador, and in the course of these conversations, which were recorded on both sides, the position of Russia was admitted. Moreover, in a communication that was made in June, 1904, to Count Benckendorff it was distinctly laid down by my noble friend that we were not prepared to establish a permanent mission in Tibet; and that so long as no other Power endeavoured to intervene in the affairs of Tibet, we should not attempt either to annex it, to establish a protectorate over it, or in any way to control its internal administration.

But I am told that we have gone beyond what the late Government did, because we have admitted in this treaty the position of the Buriat pilgrims. These pilgrims and the suspicion attached to them were no doubt one of the primary causes of the troubles in Tibet which ended in the expedition. I venture to say it is idle in diplomacy to try to lay down conditions which cannot be enforced. I ask any man who bears in mind what is the position of the Dalai Lama, and the other representatives of Buddhism in Tibet, and the enormous extent of the unprotected frontiers of Tibet, to consider whether it would have been possible to enforce a clause which provided that under no conditions should pilgrims of that kind go there, even if we had succeeded in inducing the Russian Government to assent to it. Lhasa is a Holy City, and Buddhist pilgrims desire to go to Lhasa from India, from China, and from Russia. If we had attempted to say that in no circumstances would we allow' Buddhists from Ruissia to go to Lhasa, such a clause would not be worth the paper it was written on. The position at Lhasa rather resembles that at Rome. The Dalai-Lhama, like the Pope of Rome, is the head of a religious community, which is, or was, also a political community. Now what would have been thought after 1870, when the terms of a possible "Law of Guarantees" were being discussed between Italy and the Pope, if the Italian Government had said: "Oh yes, we will allow Italian Roman Catholics and even Roman Catholics from France-and Austria to visit Rome, because those are adjoining countries; but we will forbid English or German or Spanish pilgrims, because presumably among them will be some whose motives for pilgrimage will probably be political rather than religious." I say that such an attempt would have been ridiculous. In Article III. the British and Russian Governments have respectively engaged not to send representatives to Lhasa. That article has been criticised on the ground that we should not have brought Russia into the matter at all. My reply is that His Majesty's Government have only embodied in a more formal document the engagement already practically given to Russia in June, 1904, by our predecessors. In return we have obtained an engagement on the part of the Russian Government that they will not send representatives to Lhasa. His Majesty's Government, in a despatch to the Government of India in December, 1904, had already declared the right of access to Lhasa as inconsistent with their policy; and that was. I think, very wise conduct on the part of the late Government.

I wish to clear up this point, because it is an important one. By Article IX. of the Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904, the Government of Tibet engaged that without the previous consent of the British Government no concessions for railways, roads, telegraphs, mining, or other rights should be granted to any foreign Power, or to the subjects of any foreign Power. In the event of consent to such concessions being granted, similar or equivalent concessions were to be granted to the British Government. Then came the Convention with China, in which it was expressly laid down that this prohibition should not apply to Chinese. The effect was to provide that Chinamen in Tibet should not be regarded as foreigners. Finally, by the Anglo-Russian Convention we have simply extended to Russia the undertaking to which we had already bound ourselves by an international instrument, the treaty with China, as well as by the verbal promises to which I have referred. Article IX. of the Convention of 1904 simply amounts to a self-denying ordinance, which affected ourselves as well as other Powers, and this was, I think, fully acknowledged in the conversations between my noble friend and the Russian Ambassador. It was fully understood that it was not the desire of the British Government in India, any more than it was that of Russia, to take up an adventurous policy in Tibet.

No man has a greater right to speak on all these subjects than Lord Curzon, and when he does so it is the duty of whoever may have the difficult task of replying to him to do so fully. In considering this Convention as a whole, I ask you to take up the newspapers of this evening, and to read the accounts of the agitated and dangerous state of Persia, and, I am sorry to add, of the dangers which have arisen upon the frontier of Turkey and Persia, where something like a state of warfare is actually in existence. We have in Persia at this moment a state, I will not say of revolution, but of serious domestic trouble, and the risk of armed conflict upon that frontier, which for so many years has been a source of diplomatic danger. I ask the House whether—even if every word that the noble Lord (Lord Curzon) has said had been fully justified and I had no answer to it—whether it is not, for reasons given by the noble Earl on the cross benches (Lord Cromer), at least an immense advantage that there is no risk of diplomatic conflict, no risk of further aggravation of those troubles in Persia itself, owing to the fact that Great Britain and Russia have now got an Agreement and a common policy? We know at the Foreign Office how subtle the atmosphere of Oriental diplomacy is, how complicated are the currents, how immensely difficult it is to overcome the delays, which madden the ordinary English diplomatist and often make him despair of a solution. We recognise all that; but we think that this Convention, judged by the standard of peace—and it is by that standard that I ask the House to judge it—has merited what it has received—namely, the applause of the greater portion, as I believe, of the Press of the civilised world; and that it has also merited that which I hope the noble Earl on the cross benches will allow me to say I value almost more than anything—the approval of the Englishman who above all is able to form a judgment upon these things as a whole—namely, the noble Earl—who for so many years has stood across "the backbone of three continents" (to employ the phrase which Prince Bismarck used in conversation with Lord Ampthill), and, standing there and judging of the whole of these complicated questions as a statesman acquainted with Europe, with Africa, and with Asia, has told the House that, he also, estimating this Convention by the same standard, has judged it, and has approved it.

LORD LAMINGTON

My Lords, I do not Chink that any Member of your Lordships' House objects to the Convention in principle. The only criticism that has bean directed against it is in regard to details. We have for years past deplored the lack of agreement with Russia in regard to Persia; and I think we must allow the noble Lord who has just sat down the satisfaction of thinking that this Convention may have contributed to remove difficulties that might otherwise have arisen between ourselves and Russia in regard to the troubles now taking place in Persia.

But when we come to the details of the Convention, I confess I do not think that the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State has met all the criticisms which were directed by Lord Curzon. Take, for instance, Lord Curzon's criticism as to the absence of any reference to the Ameer of Afghanistan with regard to this Convention. The excuse is that there might have been considerable delay had the Ameer been consulted. But it seems to me there will have been more serious delay if the whole of the treaty with regard to Afghanistan falls to the ground owing to objections that may possibly be raised by His Majesty. Last year we received His Majesty the Ameer in India with every possible honour, with honours, perhaps, in excess of what might have been paid to an European monarch; and yet the concluding stage of an agreement which vitally concerns and affects the interests of his country was arrived at without taking him into consultation. From what I know of the vigorous personality and straightforward characteristics of His Majesty, I cannot but fear that he may regard our action as an offence and slight upon himself.

Then, again, with regard to the criticism that we have placed ourselves at a disadvantage in Afghanistan in regard to our undertaking to exercise nothing but a pacific interest. The noble Lord who initiated this discussion mentioned the fact that Russia has her armed forces up to the very gates of Afghanistan, and that we, by our undertaking with Afghanistan, have always promised to protect that country from aggression. How are we to maintain that attitude if our policy in that country is to be purely pacific? I do not think the illustration of the Penjdeh incident at all meets the case. That was a sudden and unexpected event I imagine that what Lord Curzon meant was that at times when preparations may be made to meet a possible warlike operation we should be debarred from taking any action under this convention. I do not think the noble Lord made any reference to the clause which gives facilities for the appointment of commercial agents in Afghanistan.

LORD FITZMAURICE

Yes, I mentioned that

LORD LAMINGTON

I did not catch the noble Lord's remarks on that point The natural argument is that if Russia is to be allowed to have commercial agents in Afghanistan, we ought to be allowed to have commercial agents in Turkestan, where we have a very great trade. Many questions connected with the property of our Indian subjects arise there, more particularly in the case of deceased persons. Fraud is not infrequently perpetrated, and the property of deceased persons is seized by some so-called official, and, despite the very good offices of our Embassy at St Petersburg, very often redress has not been obtained. If the noble Lord had said something about the possibility of our having commercial agents established in Turkestan, it would have been some set off against the disabilities we have placed upon ourselves in this Convention in regard to Afghanistan.

As to our position in Persia—the most vital matter of all—I hail with delight the statement by the noble Lord that His Majesty's Government fully sustain the strong declaration made in 1903 by the noble Marquess who now leads the Opposition in your Lordships' House. That is eminently satisfactory. At the same time it seems a very specious argument to say that it has placed our paramountcy in the Persian Gulf in a better position by eliminating all reference to it from this Agreement. It seems extraordinary that, when you are entering upon the most important convention, perhaps, of modern days, a particular item of the greatest importance to ourselves should be excluded from consideration on account of its importance. What is the position of the neutral zone? I presume the neutral zone in Persia is practically in the same position as the whole of Persia was previous to this Convention. In 1903, in another place, Sir Edward Grey, speaking upon our position in Persia, said that when it was declared that we and the Russian Government were equally bound to respect the integrity of Persia, he feared this meant that they were bound to respect a vanishing quantity, and that the time might come when they would find themselves respecting nothing at all. If this neutral zone is really on the same footing under this Convention, then I am afraid that, despite the frontier line that has been drawn, it is equally liable to disappear. How are you going to preserve the integrity of Persia better now than before this Agreement was entered into? The only difference is that the Russian line has been drawn further south; and I think Lord Curzon very well put the possibility of what will happen when Russia extends her railways down to the limit set forth in this Agreement.

I do not think the argument that Persia is not the only country possessing a seaboard in the Persian Gulf is at all a fair one. The Chancellor of the Exchequer remarked the other day that Turkey bad also to be considered. I think that is a very misleading statement. At the present moment Turkey has only one small port at the head of the Gulf, and, though she has a seaboard nominally 200 miles in length, that seaboard is not an integral portion of the territory of Turkey. This territory has only been acquired within the last 40 years, and therefore the claims of Turkey to any coast line in the Gulf is very slender indeed, and it is not long ago that we protested successfully against any further development of Turkish activity in the peninsular of El Katir. That shows that we have only recognised very slightly the dominion of Turkey in the Gulf; and it must be remembered I that neither Turkey nor Persia would really have owned a single mile of coast line had it not been for our past action I in bringing about order throughout the whole of these coast lines. I think it is to be regretted that this opportunity was not taken to safeguard to the utmost possibility our paramountcy in the Gulf.

The whole object of a question which I raised in 1903, was to try to arrive at some understanding with Russia; but it never struck me that in any arrangement which would be arrived at we should omit consideration of what should be the most vital element of agreement. I regret it, not merely from the commercial point of view, but also because of its most serious importance in regard to the defence of India. That is really the crux of the position, for the Persian Gulf is but one link in the long line of defence which extends from Egypt Eastward. I imagine that the large amount of money that has been spent in order to secure control in the Gulf has not been expended solely for commercial interests, but also because it is one of the most important positions in the safeguarding of our Indian Empire. I congratulate the noble Marquess the Loader of the Opposition once more on having made that very distinct pronouncement in 1903. It obviously has borne good fruit, as it has been endorsed to-day by the representative of His Majesty's Government. I also think it is very well indeed that this question has been raised by such a pastmaster in all these questions of the outlying frontiers of India as Lord Curzon. The question cannot be raised too often, because we want to bring home to the people of this country the vital importance that these matters have upon the safeguarding of our Indian Empire. I should liked to have touched upon other points, but owing to the lateness of the hour I will not do so. But I wish to say that I hail with the utmost satisfaction the very distinct statement made by the noble Lord the Under-Secretary, and I only hope it will be made good in the future One other point that I would refer to before sitting down, is that from the strategical aspect a mistake seems to have been made. The land frontier of Beulchistain is safeguarded, but the line should at least have been taken to Lingah and not to Bundar Abbas. Lingah is only some ninety miles on, but the islands of Kishm and Hedjain would then have been included beyond dispute, and these islands command the entrance to the Gulf. We have a post marked British on Kishm and it would be interesting to know what the Government have to say in this matter.

Moved, "That the debate be adjourned."—(Lord Sanderson.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly to Monday next.