INDIA AND TIBET
A HISTORY OF THE RELATIONS WHICH HAVE SUBSISTED BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES FROM THE TIME OF WARREN HASTINGS TO 1910 ; WITH A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE MISSION TO LHASA OF 1904
BY SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND
K.C.I.E.
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Of THE
UNIVERSITY
Of
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1910
TO
MY WIJFE,
ON WHOM FELL THE ANXIETY
AND SUSPENSE OF DISTANTLY AWAITING THE RESULTS OF HIGH ADVENTURE,
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK,
IN THE HOPE THAT
FROM IT MAY COME SOME RECOMPENSE FOR THE SUFFERING SHE ENDURED
212471
1*15
PREFACE
AN apology is needed for the length of this book. When it was passing through the press, a Parliamentary Blue- book appeared containing much important information as to recent developments, and what 1 had intended as only the account of our relations with Tibet up to the return of the Mission of 1904 1 thought with advantage might be extended to include our relations to the present time. The whole forms one connected narrative of the attempt, protracted over 137 years, to accomplish a single purpose — the estab- lishment of ordinary neighbourly intercourse with Tibet. The dramatic ending disclosed is that, when that purpose had at last been achieved, we forthwith abandoned the result.
The reasons for this abandonment have been — firstly, the jealousy borne by two great Powers for one another ; and, secondly, the love of isolation engrained in us islanders. I have suggested that our aim should be to replace jealousy by co-operation, and, instead of coiling up in frigid isolation, we should expand ourselves to make and keep friendships.
The means I have recommended are living personalities rather than dry treaties, and what Warren Hastings and Lord Curzon wanted — an agent at Lhasa — is to me also the one true means of achieving our purpose.
I am fully conscious of having made mistakes in that part of the conduct of these affairs which fell to me to discharge. The exactly true adjustment of diplomatic with military requirements, and of the wishes of men in England with the necessities of the situation in Tibet, could only be made by a human being arrived at perfec- tion. Not yet having arrived there, I doubtless made many errors. I can only assume that, if I had never made a mistake, I should never have made a success.
Vll
viii PREFACE
Likewise, in my recommendations for the future, I may often be in error in detail, but in the main conclusion of substituting intimacy for isolation and effecting the change by personality, I would fain believe I shall prove right.
What I say has no official inspiration or sanction, for I have left the employment of Government, and am seeking to serve my country in fields of greater freedom though not less responsibility ; but, in compiling the narrative of our relations with the Tibetans, I have made the fullest use of the four Blue-books which have been presented to Parliament. These contain information of the highest value, though in the very undigested form characteristic of Parliamentary Papers. Beyond personal impressions I have added nothing to them, but merely sought to deduce from them a connected account of events and of the motives which impelled them. To Sir Clement Markham's account of Bogle's Mission and Manning's journey to Lhasa, to Captain Turner's account of his Mission to Tibet, and to Perceval Landon's, Edmund Candler's, and Colonel Waddell's accounts of the Mission of 1904, I am also indebted, as well as to Mr. White, Captain Bailey and Messrs. Johnston and Hoffman for photographs.
I lastly desire to acknowledge the trouble which Mr. John Murray has so kindly taken in correcting the proofs.
FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND. September 7, 1910.
P.S. — Too late to make use of it, I have received the just published reprint from the T'sung Pao of Mr. Rock- hill's " The Dalai Lamas of Lhasa and their Relations to the Manchu Emperors of China." The conclusion of this famous authority on Tibet, that the Tibetans have no desire for total independence of China, but that their complaints have always been directed against the manner in which the local Chinese officials have performed their duties, is particularly noteworthy.
to
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
WARREN HASTINGS' POLICY : BOGLE'S MISSION — 1774
Bhutanese aggression on Bengal in 1772, p. 4. Warren Hastings repels aggression, p. 4. Tashi Lama intercedes on behalf of Bhutanese, p. 5. Warren Hastings replies, proposing treaty of amity and commerce, p. 7. His policy, p. 7. He selects Bogle for Mission, p. 8. His instructions to Bogle, p. 9. Value of discretionary powers to agents, p. 10. Bogle's reception by Tashi Lama, p. 13. The Lama acknowledges unjustifiability of Bhutanese action, p. 14. Conversation regarding trade, p. 16. Bogle receives two Lhasa delegates, p. 17. Tibetan fear of the Chinese, p. 18. Bogle suggests alliance with Tibetans against Gurkhas, p. 19. Obstructiveness of Lhasa delegates, p. 20. The Nepalese instigate the Tibetans against Bogle, p. 21. Conversations with Kashmiri and Tibetan merchants, p. 22. Results of the Mission, p. 24.
CHAPTER ]I
WARREN HASTINGS' POLICY (continued) : TURNER'S MISSION — 1782
Warren Hastings' further eiforts, p. 26. Captain Turner sent to Shigatse, p. 27. Power of the Chinese, p. 28. Admission to traders granted, p. 29. Nepalese invasion in 1792, p. 30. Closing of intercourse with Tibet, p. 31.
CHAPTER III
MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA — 1811
Manning's previous career, p. 33. He makes friends with the Chinese, p. 34. Obtains permission from them to visit Lhasa, p. 37. He visits the Grand Lama, p. 37. His stay in Lhasa, p. 38. Results of his journey, p. 39. Subsequent exploration, p. 40.
CHAPTER IV
THE BENGAL GOVERNMENT'S EFFORTS 1873-1886
Bengal Government urge improvement of intercourse with the Tibetans, 1873, p. 42. Press for admission of tea to Tibet, p. 44. Delay caused by refer- ence of local questions to central Governments, p. 45. Colman Macaulay's efforts in 1885, p. 46. The Tibetans cross our frontier in force, 1886, p. 47. Neither Chinese nor Tibetan Government can or will withdraw them, p. 48. General Graham expels them, 1888, p. 49.
ix
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA 1890
The Chinese ask that a treaty should be made, p. 50. Convention signed March, 1890, p. 51. Trade Regulations signed December, 1893, p. 52. Tibetans fail to observe Regulations, p. 54. Bengal Government wish to protest, p. 55. Government of India prefer to be patient, p. 55. Tibetans occupy land inside Treaty boundary, p. 56. Efforts to demarcate boundary, p. 57. Tibetans remove boundary pillars, p. 59. Sir Charles Elliott proposes occupation of Chumbi, p. 61. Government of India adhere to policy of forbearance, p. 62. Reasons for Tibetans3 seclusive policy, p. 63. Chinese fail to arrange matters, p, 64. Report on result of five years3 working of the Treaty, p. 65.
CHAPTER VI
SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS 1899-1903
Attempts by Lord Curzon to open direct communication with Dalai Lama, p. 66. Dalai Lama's Mission to Russia, p. 67. Russian Government disclaim its having political nature, p. 68. Tibetans expelled by us from Giagoug inside Treaty boundary, p. 71. Rumours of Russo-Tibetan agreement, p. 72. Reasons why Russian activity in Tibet should cause Indian Government anxiety, p. 73. Indian Government propose sending Mission to Lhasa, p. 76.
CHAPTER VII
NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA 1903
Russian protests, p. 79. Lord Lansdowne's rejoinder, p. 81. Russian assurances of no intention to interfere in Tibet, p. 82. Such assurances did not preclude possibility of Tibetans relying on Russian support, p. 83.
CHAPTER VIII
A MISSION SANCTIONED 1903
Views of His Majesty's Government on general question, p. 84. Corre- spondence with Viceroy as to scope of Mission, p. 86. Viceroy's proposal to have agent at Gyantse, p. 87. Decision to despatch a Mission to Khamba Jong, p. 87. Correspondence with the Chinese, p. 88. Instructions to the British Commissioner, p. 91. Justification for despatch of Mission, p. 92.
CHAPTER IX
SIMLA TO KHAMBA JONG 1903
I am summoned to Simla, May, 1903, p. 95. Receive Lord Curzon's instruc- tions, p. 96. Mr. White's arrival, p. 97. Magnificent scenery on way to Dar- jiling, p. 100. Views of Kinchinjunga, p. 101. Assistance given by Bengal Government, p. 103. Tropical forests, p. 104. Character of Lepchas, p. 107. Hard work of 32nd Pioneers, p. 108. Reach Upper Sikkim, p. 109. Tibetans protest against our passing Giagong, p. 110. Lhasa delegates arrive on frontier, p. 111. Mr. White, with escort, reach Khamba Jong, p. 112.
CONTENTS xi
CHAFFER X
KHAMBA JONG 1903
I join Mr. White at Khamba Jong, p. 116. Interview with Mr. Ho, p. 117. Speech to Tibetan delegates, p. 118. They refuse to report to Lhasa, p. 121. Recreations at Khamba Jong, p. 122. Deputation from Tashi Lama, p. 123. Arrival of Mr. Wilton, p. 124. Viceroy suggests to Resident he himself should meet me, p. 124. Two Sikkimese seized by Tibetans, p. 125. Shigatse Abbot arrives, p. 125. Situation grows threatening, p. 128. Departure of Mr. Ho, p. 131. My suggestions to Government for meeting the situation, p. 132. Aid given by Nepalese, p. 133. British representation to Chinese Government, p. 138. Recommendations of Indian Government, p. 140. Secretary of State sanctions advance to Gyantse, p. 140. Viceroy notifies Chinese Resident, p. 142. Chinese Government protest, p. 143. Russian Government also protest, p. 144.^ Justification for advance, p. 146.
CHAPTER XI
DARJILING TO CHUMBI 1903
Question of advancing in winter or waiting till spring, p. 149. Risks in crossing Himalayas in winter, p. 150. Transport preparations, p. 151. Departure from Darjiling, p. 152. Crossing the Jelap-la (pass), p. 153. Protests from Tibetans, p. 155. Arrive Yatung, p. 156. Macdonald occupies Phari, p. 157. Obstruction of Lhasa monks, p. 159. Extreme cold, p. 160. Crossing the Tang -la, p. 160.
CHAPTER XII
TUNA — 1904
Lhasa officials come to Tuna, p. 162. I visit Tibetan camp, p. 163. Critical situation, p. 166. Conclusions as to Tibetan disposition, p. 167- Lhasa General visits me, p. 168. Severe cold, p. 169. Bhutanese Envoy arrives, p. 169. His attempts to reason with Tibetans, p. 170. Our losses from cold, p. 172. Mac- donald arrives, March 28, p. 173. We advance to Guru, p. 174. Troops advance without firing, p. 176. Tibetans refuse to allow passage, p. 177. Sudden com- mencement of action, p. 178. Chinese Resident urges delay, p. 179. Our arrival at Gyantse, p. 180.
CHAPTER XIII
GYANTSE 1901
Friendly attitude of people, p. 182. But no signs of negotiators, p. 183. I advocate preparations to advance to Lhasa, p. 184. Tibetan troops again assemble, p. 185. Mission attacked, p. 187. Brander attacks Tibetans on Karo-la (pass), p. 189. He returns to Gyautse, p. 191. Advance to Lhasa sanctioned by Home Government, p. 191. Mission escort reinforced, p. 192. Captains Sheppardand Ottley, p. 192. Brander attacks Pall a village, p. 194. I am recalled to Chumbi, p. 195. Attacked at Kangma, p. 196. I advocate preparing to stop at Lhasa for winter, p. 197. Government discourage the idea, p. 199. Renewed pledges to Russia, p. 201. How these fettered the Indian Government, p. 201. Meeting with Tongsa Penlop of Bhutan, p. 203. More aid from Nepal, p. 206.
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIV
THE STORMING OF GYANTSE JONG — 1904
Macdonald, with reinforcements, leaves Chumbi, p. 208. Good feeling of country people, p. 208. Reinforcements reach Gyantse, p. 209. Ta Lama arrives to negotiate, p. 211. He is informed jong must be evacuated, p. 215. Operations against jong commence, p. 217. Gurdon killed, p. 218. Grant leads assault, p. 219. Jong captured, p. 220. Negotiators not to be found, p. 221. Preparations for advance completed, p. 221. Tongsa Penlop informs Ta Lama of my readiness to negotiate en route to Lhasa, and Dalai Lama of our terms, p. 222.
CHAPTER XV
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 1904
Dalai Lama asks Tongsa Penlop to effect a settlement, p. 223. Action at Karo-la, p. 224. At Nagartse find deputation from Lhasa, p. 225. They ask us to return to Gyantse, p. 226. They fear their religion will be spoilt, p. 230. t And that Russians might want to go to Lhasa, p. 231. Importance I attached to good personal relations, p. 232. The beautiful Yam-dok Tso (lake), p. 233. Arrival at Brahmaputra, p. 234. Letter from National Assembly, p. 235. Question whether to negotiate here or go on to Lhasa, p. 236. Major Bretherton drowned, p. 237. Dalai Lama's Chamberlain brings letter from his master, p. 238. I reply that we must advance to Lhasa, p. 239. We discuss general question of intercourse with India, p. 240. Further discussion with Ta Lama, p. 243. We advance across Brahmaputra, p. 247- Final deputation attempts to dissuade us from going to Lhasa, p. 249. Arrival at Lhasa, p. 250.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TERMS 1904
Disadvantage of being pressed for time, p. 251. Views of Indian Govern- ment regarding terms, p. 252. Their desire to have Agent at Lhasa, p. 252. And to occupy the Chumbi Valley, p. 256. The question of an indemnity, p. 257. Of an Agent at Gyantse, p. 258. Of exclusive political influence in Tibet, p. 259. Of facilities for trade, p. 259. His Majesty's Government consider proposals excessive, and decide against Agent at Lhasa, p. 260. And against Gyantse Agent proceeding to Lhasa, p. 262. Amount of indemnity to be such as can be paid in three years, p. 262.
CHAPTER XVII
THE NEGOTIATIONS
Chinese Resident visits me day of our arrival at Lhasa, p. 263. Question of entering Lhasa city, p. 264. Impressions of city, p. 265. Reception by Chinese Resident, p. 266. Nepalese representative and Tongsa Penlop of Bhutan visit me, p. 267. Flight of Dalai Lama, p. 269. Chinese Resident says ordinary people anxious for intercourse, p. 270. The Ti Rimpoche (Regent) commences negotiations, p. 273. Disagrees with obstructive policy of National Assembly, p. 274. Two Sikkimese prisoners released, p. 276. Difficulties in regard to indemnity, p. 279. Tongsa Peiilop suggests that Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet
CONTENTS xiii
should look to England, p. 280. Chinese Resident denounces the Dalai Lama, p. 282. Tibetans incline to agree to some of terms, p. 282. But continue to protest against indemnity, p. 284.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE TREATY CONCLUDED 1904
Pressure for time, p. 289. Military considerations demand very early with- drawal, p. 290. Necessity for decisive action, p. 290. Tibetans presented with final terms, p. 291. They propose extension of time for payment of indemnity, p. 294. Reasons for accepting proposal, p. 294. Question of Chumbi Valley, p. 295. Permission for Gyantse Agent to proceed to Lhasa, p. 299. I insist on signing Treaty in Potala, p. 300. The ceremony of signature, p. 303.
CHAPTER XIX
IMPRESSIONS AT LHASA 1904
Release of prisoners, p. 307. Visits to monasteries, p. 309. Character 01 Lamas, p. 310. The effects of Lamaism on Tibetans and Mongols, p. 314. Visit to Jo Khang Temple, p. 316. The inner spirit of the people, p. 317. Socia side of Tibetans, p. 318. Tibetan view of English, p. 319. Chinese attitude to Tibetans, p. 321.
CHAPTER XX
THE RETURN 1904
Farewell visits, p. 325. Sensations of good-will, p. 326. Good behaviour of Indian troops, p. 327. Exploring parties, p. 328. Successful work of Rawling and Ryder, p. 330. Return to Simla, p. 332. Meeting with Lord Curzon, p. 333. Audience of His late Majesty, p. 333. Mission flag placed in Windsor Castle, p. 334.
CHAPTER XXI
RESULTS OF THE MISSION
Good-will of Tibetans, p. 335. Friendship of Bhutan, p. 336. Scientific results, p. 337. Indemnity reduced by His Majesty's Government, p. 338. Period of occupation of Chumbi reduced, p. 338. Permission for Gyantse Agent to proceed to Lhasa abandoned, p. 339. Reasons of His Majesty's Government for above, p. 339.
CHAPTER XXII
NEGOTIATIONS WITH CHINA 1905-1910
Convention with China confirming Lhasa Convention, p. 342. Unfriendly' attitude of Chinese in Tibet, p. 343. Their attempts to prevent direct relation^ with Tibetans, p. 344. Sir Edward Grey's remonstrances, p. 345. Indian Govern- ment complains of breaches of Lhasa Convention, p. 347. Chinese device to prevent direct relations between us and the Tibetans in regard to payment of indemnity, p. 348. Question of evacuating Chumbi Valley, p. 354. Chumbi evacuated, p. 359. Trade Regulations agreed to, p. 359. Chinese forward move- ment commences, p. 362. Bhutan taken under our protection, p. 365.
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIII
ATTITUDE OF THE TIBETANS SINCE 1904 1904-1910
Favourable Tibetan attitude following signature of Treaty, p. 367. Dis- turbances in Eastern Tibet, 1905, p. 368. Batang annexed by Chinese, p. 372. Dalai Lama's movements in Mongolia, p. 377. Anglo-Russian agreement in regard to Tibet, p. 378. Dalai Lama arrives in Peking, p. 382. Leaves Peking, p. 385. Arrives near Lhasa, November, 1909, and complains of Chinese encroach- ments, p. 386. Arrives in Lhasa, p. 387. Chinese intention to take away his temporal power, p. 389. Chinese troops arrive in Lhasa, p. 389. Dalai Lama flees, p. 391. Arrives in Darjiling, p. 392. Visits Viceroy in Calcutta, p. 394. Tibetan Ministers ask for British officer with troops to be despatched to Lhasa, and for alliance, p. 395. Dalai Lama's request for aid refused, p. 396. But British Government makes protest to Chinese Government, p. 396. Chinese state they merely wish to exercise effective control, p. 398. Dalai Lama deposed, p. 399. Chinese view of situation, p. 400. Indian Government's views, p. 403. Lord Morley's views, p. 404.
CHAPTER XXIV
SOME CONCLUSIONS
Tendency to centralization of control, p. 407. Reasons why British adminis- trators in India lack confidence in centralization in London, p. 408. Remedies for evil, p. 411. More intimate personal relationship, p. 412. More trust in the " man on the spot," p. 415. Summary of situation in Tibet, p. 415. Morality » of intervention in Tibet, p. 416. Co-operation with Russia, p. 421. Chinese generally good neighbours, p. 421. Necessity for securing removal of inimical local Chinese officials, p. 423. And for preserving intimate touch with Tibetans, p. 424. A forward policy recommended, p. 428.
CHAPTER XXV
A FINAL REFLECTION
" A strange force " or " the designs of bureaucrats," p. 430. No deliberate intention to conquer India, p. 432. Impelled to intervene in Tibet, p. 433. Probability of some force impelling us on, p. 434. Reality of an inherent impulse, p. 435. Its direction towards harmony, p. 436. Hence disorder invites intervention, p. 436. Our intellects should be used to give impulse definite effect, p. 438.
APPENDIX
Anglo-Chinese Convention, 1890 ; Trade Regulations, 1893 ; Anglo -Tibetan Convention, 1904 ; Anglo-Chinese Convention, 1906 ; Anglo-Russian Con- vention, 1907.
INDEX i (p. 447).
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
THE DALAI LAMA Frontispiece
(Reproduced by permission of the " Sphere. ")
MR. BOGLE - .... g
SIKKIM SCENERY - - - - - 105
MISSION CAMP, KHAMBA JONG - - - - -116
THE SHIGATSE ABBOT - - - - 128
THE PRIME MINISTER OF NEPAL - 134
COLUMN CROSSING THE TANG-LA, JANUARY, 1904 - - 160
CHUMALHARI - - - - 162
MOUNTED INFANTRY - 169
THE START FROM TUNA FOR GURU - - 173 SEPOYS " SHOULDERING " TIBETANS FROM POSITION I GURU, MARCH,
1904 176
THE TONGSA PENLOP (NOW MAHARAJA OF BHUTAN) - 204
GYANTSE JONG - - 216
CAMP NEAR KARO-LA - - 224
BERTHON BOATS ON BRAHMAPUTRA - 234
TA LAMA AND HIS SECRETARY - - 242
THE GATE OF LHASA - - 250
THE DALAI LAMA - 256
(Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of the "Daily Graphic."}
THE POTALA, LHASA - - 265
MISSION QUARTERS, LHASA - 267 THE COUNCIL -
THE TI RIMPOCHE - 273
XV
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PACK
THE CHUMBI VALLEY - .... £>97
SIGNING THE TREATY - .... 304
SEALS AFFIXED TO TREATY - 306
THE SERA MONASTERY - - 310
MAPS
1. THE CHINESE EMPIRE, SHOWING THE RELATIVE POSITION OF "| TIBET TO CHINA PROPER, INDIA, AND RUSSIA
At end
!. PART OF TIBET, SHOWING THE ROUTE FOLLOWED BY THE MISSION TO LHASA ....
INDIA AND TIBET
INTRODUCTION
THIS book is an account of our relations with Tibet, but many still wonder why we need have any such relations at all. The country lies on the far side of the Himalayas, the greatest range of snowy mountains in the world. Why, then, should we trouble ourselves about what goes on there? Why do we want to interfere with the Tibetans ? Why not leave them alone ? These are very reasonable and pertinent questions, and such as naturally spring to the mind of even the least intelligent of Englishmen. Obviously, therefore, they must have sprung to the minds of responsible British statesmen before they ever sanctioned intervention. The sedate gentlemen who compose the Government of India are not renowned for being carried away by bursts of excitement or enthusiasm, nor are they remarkable for impulsive, thoughtless action. They have spent their lives in the dull routine of official grind, and by the time they attain a seat in the Viceregal Council they are, if anything, too free from emotional impulses. Certainly, the initiation of anything forward and interfering was as little to be expected from them as from the most rigorous anti- Imperialist. The head of the Government of India at the time of the Tibet Mission was, it is true, a man of less mature official experience, but he happened to be a man who had studied Asiatic policy in nearly every part of Asia, besides having been Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs ; and even supposing he had been the most impulsive and irresponsible of Viceroys, he could take no action without gaining the assent of the majority of his colleagues in India,
1
2 INTRODUCTION
and without convincing the Secretary of State in England. India is not governed by the Viceroy alone, but by the Viceroy in Council. On such a question as the despatch of a mission to Tibet, the Viceroy would not be able to act without the concurrence of three out of his six councillors, and without the approval of the Secretary of State, who, in his turn, as expenditure is incurred, would have to gain the support of his Council of tried and experienced Indian administrators and soldiers, besides the approval of the whole Cabinet.
It is, then, a very fair presumption at the outset that if all these various authorities had satisfied themselves that action in Tibet was necessary, there probably was some reasonable ground for interference. What was it that influenced these sedate authorities, alike in India and in England, to depart from the natural course of leaving the Tibetans alone, to behave or misbehave themselves as they liked ? What was it that persuaded these gentle- men that action, and not inaction, intervention, and not laissez-faire, were required, and that we could no longer leave this remote State on the far side of the mighty Himalayas severely alone ? There must have been some strong reason, for it was not merely a matter of permitting an adventurous explorer to try and reach the "forbidden city." After thirty years of correspondence what was eventually sanctioned was the despatch of a mission with an escort strong enough to break down all opposition. What was the reason ?
The answer to this I will eventually give. But to make that answer clear we must view the matter from a long perspective, and trace its gradual evolution from the original beginnings. And, at the start, I shall have to emphasize the point that there has always been intercourse of some kind between Tibet and India, for Tibet is not an island in mid-ocean. It is in the heart of a continent surrounded by other countries. That it is a mysterious, secluded country in the remote hinterland of the Himalayas most people are vaguely aware. But that it is contiguous for nearly a thousand miles with the British Empire, from Kashmir to Burma, few have
INTERCOURSE WITH TIBET 3
properly realized. Still less have they appreciated that this contact between the countries means intercourse of some kind between the peoples inhabiting them, even though it has to be over a snowy range. The Tibetans drew their religion from India. From time immemorial they have been accustomed to visit the sacred shrines of India. Tibetan traders have come down to Bengal, Kashmiri and Indian traders have gone to Tibet. Tibetan shepherds have brought their flocks to the pastures on the Indian side of the range in some parts. In other parts the shepherds from the Indian side have taken their sheep and goats to the plateaux of Tibet. Sometimes the Tibetans or their vassals have raided to valleys and plains of India, sometimes Indian feudatories have raided into Tibet. At other times, again, the intercourse has been of a more pacific kind, and intermarriages between the bordering peoples and interchanges of presents have taken place. In a multitude of ways there has ever been inter- course between Tibet and India. Tibet has never been really isolated. And, as I shall in due course show, the Mission to Lhasa of 1904, was merely the culmination of a long series of efforts to regularize and humanize that inter- course, and put the relationship which must necessarily subsist between India and Tibet upon a business-like and permanently satisfactory footing.
CHAPTER I
BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
IT is an interesting reflection for those to make who think that we must necessarily have been the aggressive party, that the far-distant primary cause of all our attempts at intercourse with the Tibetans was an act of aggression, not on our part, not on the part of an ambitious Pro- consul, or some headstrong frontier officer, but of the Bhu- tanese, neighbours, and then vassals, of the Tibetans, who nearly a century and a half ago committed the first act— an act of aggression — which brought us into relationship with the Tibetans. In the year 1772 they descended into the plains of Bengal and overran Kuch Behar, carried off the Raja as a prisoner, seized his country, and offered such a menace to the British province of Bengal, now only separated from them by a small stream, that when the people of Kuch Behar asked the British Governor for help, he granted their request, and resolved to drive the moun- taineers back into their fastnesses. Success attended his efforts, though, as usual, at much sacrifice. We learn that our troops were decimated with disease, and that the malaria proved fatal to Captain Jones, the commander, and many other officers. " One can hardly breathe," says Bogle, who passed through the country two years later— "frogs, watery insects, and dank air." And those who have been over that same country since, and seen, if only from a railway train, those deadly swamps, who have felt that suffocating, poisonous atmosphere arising from them, and who have experienced that ghastly, depressing enervation which saps all manhood and all life out of one, can well imagine what those early pioneers must have suffered.
4
BHUTANESE AGGRESSION 5
Fortunately there was at the head of affairs the greatest, though the most maligned, of all the Governors- General of India, who was able to turn to profit the advantages accruing from the sacrifices which had been made. Fortunately, too, in those days a Governor- General still had some power arid initiative left, and was able, without interminable delays, debates, correspondence, and inter- national considerings, to act decisively and strongly before the psychological moment had passed.
Warren Hastings resisted the aggression of the Bhu- tanese, and drove them back from the plains of Bengal into their own mountains ; but when the Tashi Lama of Tibet interceded on their behalf, he at once not only acceded, but went further, and made a deliberate effort to come into permanent relationship with both the Bhutanese and Tibetans. Nor did he think he would gain lasting results by any fitful effort. He knew wrell that to achieve any- thing effort must be long, must be continuous, and must be persistent, and that the results would be small at first, but, accumulating in the long process of years, would eventually amount to what was of value.
The Bhutanese, I have said, when they found them- selves being sorely punished for their aggression, appealed to the Tashi Lama of Tibet to intercede for them with 0 the Governor of Bengal ; and the Tashi Lama, who was then actmgjis Regent of Tibet during the infancy of the Dalai Lama, wrote to Warren Hastings a very remark- V * able letter, which is quoted both by Turner and Markham, and which is especially noteworthy as marking that the intercourse between us and the Tibetans was started by the Tibetans. The Tibetans have stated on many a subsequent occasion to the Government of India, and on innumerable occasions to myself, that they are not per- mitted to have intercourse with us. But originally, and when they wanted a favour from us, the intercourse was started by themselves, and in a very reasonable, dignified, and neighbourly manner.
The Tashi Lama wrote to Warren Hastings, after various compliments : " Neither to molest nor to perse- cute is rny aim. . . . But in justice and humanity I
6 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
am informed you far surpass ... I have been repeatedly informed that you have been engaged in hostilities against the Deb Judhur, to which, it is said, the Deb's own criminal conduct in committing ravages and other outrages on your frontier has given rise. As he is of a rude and ignorant race (past times are not destitute of instances of the like misconduct which his own avarice tempted him to commit), it is not unlikely that he has now renewed those instances, and the ravages and plunder which he committed on the skirts of the Bengal and Behar provinces have given you provocation to send your avenging army against him. However, his party has been defeated, many of his people have been killed, three forts have been taken from him, he has met with the punish- ment he deserved, and it is evident as the sun that your army has been victorious, and that, if you had been desirous of it, you might in the space of two days have entirely extirpated him, for he had no power to resist your efforts. But I now take upon me to be his mediator, and to represent to you that, as the said Deb Raja is dependent upon the Dalai Lama . . . should you persist in offering further molestation to the Deb Raja's country, it will irritate both the Lama and all his subjects against you. Therefore, from a regard to our religion and customs, I request you will cease all hostilities against him, and in doing this you will confer the greatest favour and friend- ship upon me. I have reprimanded the Deb for his past conduct, and I have admonished him to desist from his evil practices in future, and to be submissive to you in all matters. I am persuaded that he will conform to the advice which I have given him, and it will be necessary that you treat him with compassion and clemency. As for my part, I am but a Fakir, and it is the custom of my Sect, with the rosary in our hands, to pray for the welfare of mankind and for the peace and happiness of the inhabi- tants of this country ; and I do now, witli my head uncovered, entreat that you may cease all hostilities against the Deb in future."
On receipt of this letter, Warren Hastings laid it before the Board at Calcutta, and informed them that, in reply, he
WARREN HASTINGS' POLICY 7
had written to the Tashi Lama, proposing a general treaty of amity and commerce between Bengal and Tibet. The letter of the Lama, he said, had invited us to friendship, and the final arrangement of the disputes on the frontier had rendered the country accessible, without danger either to the persons or effects of travellers. He had, therefore, written for and obtained a passport for a European to proceed to Tibet for the negotiation of the treaty, and he now purposed sending Mr. Bogle, a servant of the Com- pany, well known for his intelligence, assiduity, and exact- ness in affairs, as well as for the " coolness and moderation of temper which he seems to possess in an eminent degree." Warren Hastings, with great wisdom and knowledge of Asiatic affairs, adds that he "is far from being sanguine in his hopes of success, but the present occasion appears too favourable for the attempt to be neglected."
This latter is precisely the point which we who have dealt with Asiatics can appreciate so well — taking the opportunity, striking while the iron is hot, not letting the chance go by, knowing our mind, knowing what we want, arid acting decisively when the exact occasion arises. It is hard to do nowadays, with the Provincial Govern- ment so subordinate to the Government of India, with the Government of India so governed by the Secretary of State, with Cabinet Ministers telling us that the House of Commons are their masters, arid members of the House of Commons saying they are the mouthpieces of their con- stituents. Nevertheless, the advantages of such a method of conducting affairs must not be forgotten. Decision and rapidity of action are often important factors in the conduct of Asiatic affairs, and may save more trouble than is saved by caution and long deliberation.
Warren Hastings' policy was, then, not to sit still within his borders, supremely indifferent to what occurred on the other side, and intent upon respecting not merely the independence but also the isolation of his neighbours. It was a forward policy, and combined in a noteworthy manner alertness and deliberation, rapidity and persist- ency, assertiveness and receptivity. He sought to secure his borders by at once striking when danger threatened,
6 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
but also by taking infinite pains over long periods of time to promote ordinary neighbourly intercourse with those on the other side. Both qualities are necessary. Spasmodic action unaccompanied by steady, continuous efforts at conciliation produces no less bad results than does plodding conciliation never accompanied by action. It was because Warren Hastings possessed this capacity for instantly seizing an opportunity, because he could and would without hesitation or fear use severity where severity alone would secure enduring harmony, but would yet persistently and with infinite tact, sagacity, and real good-heartedness work for humane and neigh- bourly relationship with adjoining peoples, that he must be considered the greatest of all the great Governors- General of India.
But to be successful a policy must be embodied in a fitting personality. And to appreciate Warren Hastings' Tibetan policy we must know something of the agent he chose to carry it into effect. What was the character of the man who was to lead the first Mission ever sent to Tibet? We learn from Markham that he was born in 1746, and had at first been brought up in a business office; but on proceeding to India had been given a post in the Revenue Department. His letters to his father and sisters show him to have been a man of the strongest home feel- ings, and his conversations with the Tibetans indicate that he was a man of high honour and strict rectitude. Warren Hastings himself not only had a high opinion of his abilities and official aptitude, but also entertained for him a warm personal friendship.
The youth of Warren Hastings' agent is the first point to note : he was only twenty-eight. Nowadays we use men who are much too old. It is \vhen men are young, when they are still crammed full of energy, when their faculties are alert, that they are most useful and effective. I often doubt whether the experience of maturer age possesses all the advantages which are commonly attri- buted to it, and whether young men act more rashly
MR. BOGLE.
To face page 8.
WARREN HASTINGS INSTRUCTIONS 9
or irresponsibly than old men. The former have their whole careers before them, and their reputations to make. They are no more likely, therefore, to act rashly than " old men in a hurry." Warren Hastings was therefore wise, in my opinion, to choose a young man, and he was equally wise to choose an agent of good breeding and with great natural kindliness of disposition. Asiatics do not mind quickness or hotness of temper, or severity of manner, as long as they can feel that at bottom the man they have to do with has a good, warm, generous heart. He need not wear it on his sleeve, but they will know right enough whether he possesses one or not. And that Warren Hastings' agent had such a heart his home correspondence, his friendship with Hastings himself, and his eventual dealings with the Tibetans amply testify.
Having determined his policy and selected his agent, Warren Hastings gave him the following instructions,* dated May 13, 1774 : " I desire you will proceed to Lhasa. . . . The design of your mission is to open a mutual and equal communication of trade between the inhabitants of Bhutan [Tibet] and Bengal, and you will be guided by your own judgment in using such means of negotiation as may be most likely to effect this purpose. You will take with you samples, for a trial of such articles of commerce as may be sent from this country. . . . And you will diligently inform yourself of the manufactures, productions, goods, introduced by the intercourse with other countries, which are to be procured in Bhutan. . . . The following will be also proper objects of your inquiry : the nature of the roads between the borders of Bengal and Lhasa, and of the country lying between ; the communica- tions between Lhasa and the neighbouring countries, their government, revenue, and manners. . . . The period of your stay must be left to your discretion. I wish you to remain a sufficient time to fulfil the purposes of your deputation, and obtain a complete knowledge of the country and the points referred to your inquiry. If you
* Markham, " Mission of Bogle," p. 6.
10 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
shall judge that a residence may be usefully established at Lhasa without putting the Company to any expense, but such as may be repaid by the advantages which may be hereafter derived from it, you will take the earliest oppor- tunity to advise me of it ; and if you should find it neces- sary to come away before you receive my orders upon it, you may leave such persons as you shall think fit to remain as your agents till a proper resident can be appointed. . . . You will draw on me for your charges, and your drafts shall be regularly answered. To these I can fix no limita- tion, but empower you to act according to your discretion, knowing that I need not recommend to you a strict frugality and economy where the good of the service on which you are commissioned shall not require a deviation from these rules."
Did ever an agent despatched on an important mission receive more satisfactory instructions ? The object clearly defined, and the fullest discretion left to him as to the manner of carrying it out. Hastings, having selected the fittest agent to carry out his purpose, leaves everything to his judgment. Whatever would most effectively carry out the main purpose, that the agent was at perfect liberty to do, and time and money were freely at his disposal. " I want the thing done," says Warren Hastings in effect, " and all you require to get it done you shall have."
The only equally good instructions I have personally seen issued to an agent were given by Cecil Rhodes in Rhodesia. I travelled up to Fort Salisbury with Major Forbes, whom Rhodes had summoned from a place two months' journey distant to receive instructions, for he did not believe in letters, but only in personal communication. After dinner Rhodes questioned Forbes most minutely as to his require- ments, as to the condition of things, as to the difficulties which were likely to be encountered, and as to his ideas on how those difficulties should be overcome. He said he wanted to know now what Forbes required in order to accomplish the object in view, because he did not wish to see him coming back later on, saying he could have carried it out if only he had had this, that, or the other. Let him therefore say now whatever he required to insure success.
DISCRETION LEFT TO^AGENT 11
All that he asked, and more than he asked, Rhodes gave him, and then despatched him, saying, " Now, I don't want to hear of you again till I get a telegram saying your job is done."
These are, of course, ideal methods of conveying instructions to an agent, which it is not always possible for a high official to give. Lord Curzon would, I know, have liked to give similar instructions to me, and, as far as pro- viding money, staff, military support, etc., he did. But, with the closer interconnection of public affairs, public business is now so complicated that it is not, I suppose, possible to leave to an agent the same amount of discretion that Warren Hastings did to Bogle. Still, great results in many fields, and, what is more, great men, have been produced by the use of Warren Hastings' method of selecting the fittest agent, and then leaving everything in his hands. I do not see that any better results have been obtained by utilizing human agents as mere telephones. If the conduct of affairs has become com- plicated, that does not appear to be any reason in itself for abandoning the method. It appears only a reason for principals and agents rising to the higher occasion while still pursuing the old successful method. Ease of com- munication has brought nations more closely together and complicated affairs, but it has also made possible readier personal communication between principal and agent. And therefore there is need not so much for curtailing the discretion of the agent while he is at work as for utilizing the greater facility for personal intercourse now possible. In conversation the agent will be able to impress his principals with whatever local and personal difficulties he has to contend with, and the means required for carrying out their object, and they will be able to impress him with the limits outside which it is impossible to allow him to act. It is a clear certainty that the present tendency to concentrate, not merely control, but also direction, in London, cannot go on for ever. An Empire like ours, immense in size and immensely com- plicated, cannot be managed in detail from headquarters. The time must come when the House of Commons and
12 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
the constituencies, overburdened with the great affairs with which they have to deal, will, by the sheer force and weight of circumstances, see the advantages of leaving more to the men on the spot. They will probably insist on agents being more carefully selected. They will require them to keep in much closer personal contact with head- quarters. They will expect, too, that politicians who control should already be personally acquainted, or make themselves personally acquainted, with the countries they control. But with these conditions fulfilled they will, it may be hoped, be able to leave more to the men on the spot, removing them relentlessly if they act wrongly, but while they are acting, leaving them to act in their own way. Bogle, with these free instructions and this ample sup- port, set out from Calcutta in the middle of May, 1774, that is, less than two months from the date of the despatch of the Tashi Lama's letter from Shigatse, so that Warren Hastings, if he had left ample leisure to his agent to carry out his purpose, had himself acted with the utmost promptitude, even in so important a matter as sending a mission to Lhasa with the possibility of establishing there a permanent resident. Rapidity of communication has not resulted in the rapidity of the transaction of public affairs, and the consideration of despatching a mission to Lhasa nowadays takes as many years as weeks were occupied in the days of Warren Hastings.
During his passage through Bhutan, Bogle found many obstacles placed in his way ; but he eventually left the capital in the middle of October, and on the 23rd of that month reached Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley, up which we marched to Lhasa 130 years later. Here he was received by two Lhasa officers, and farther on, at Gyantse, where the Mission of 1904 was attacked and besieged for nearly two months, he was entertained by a priest, " an elderly man of polite and pleasant manners," who sat with him most of the afternoon, and drank " above twenty cups of tea." Crowds of people appear to have assembled to look at him, but beyond
TASHI LAMA RECEIVES BOGLE 13
the irksomeness of these attentions he suffered no incon- venience or opposition.
On November 8, 1774, he arrived at the place near Shigatse where the Tashi Lama was at the time in residence. The day following he had an interview with the Lama, and delivered to him a letter and a necklace of pearls from Warren Hastings. This was the first official interview which had ever taken place between a British officer and a Tibetan, and as such is particularly worthy of note.
The Tashi Lama received Bogle* "with a very
courteous and smiling countenance," seated him near him
on a high stool covered with a carpet, and spoke to him
in Hindustani, of which he had " a moderate knowledge."
After inquiring about Warren Hastings' health, and
Bogle's journey through Bhutan, he introduced the
subject of the war in Behar — that is, the Bhutanese invasion
of the plains of Bengal. " I always," said the Lama,
" disapproved of Deb Judhur (the Bhutanese Chief) seizing
:he Behar Raja (the Raja of Kuch Behar) and going
to war with the Fringies (the English) ; but the Deb
considered himself as powerful in arms, and would not
isten to my advice. After he was defeated, I wrote to
:he Governor, who, in ceasing hostilities against the
Bhutanese, in consequence of my application, and restoring
to them their country, has made me very happy, and has
done a very pious action. My servants who went to
Calcutta were only little men, and the kind reception they
lad from the Governor I consider as another mark of
riendship."
Bogle explained that Kuch Behar was separated torn the British province of Bengal only by a rivulet ; that the Bhutanese from time immemorial had confined ;hemselves to their mountains, and when they visited ;he low countries it was in an amicable manner, and n order to trade ; that when many thousand armed men ssued at once from their forests, carried off the Raja )f Kuch Behar as prisoner, and seized his country, the Company very justly became alarmed, and concluded
* Markham, p. 135.
14 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
that the Bhutanese, encouraged by their successes in Kuch Behar to-day, and undeterred by so slight a boundary as a small stream, might invade the British provinces to-morrow. Bogle continued that Warren Hastings, on the people of Kuch Behar applying to him for assistance, immediately despatched a battalion of sepoys to repel the invaders, but was extremely glad, on receipt of the Tashi Lama's letter, to suspend hostilities and subsequently to conclude a peace with the Bhutanese and restore them their country. In conclusion, he said that Warren Hastings, being happy to cultivate the friendship of a man whose fame was so well known, and whose character was held in veneration by so many nations, had sent him to the Lama's presence with the letter arid tokens of friendship which he had laid before him.
The Lama said that the Deb Judhur did not manage his country properly, and had been turned out. Bogle replied that the English had no concern with his expulsion ; it was brought about by his own people : the Company only wished the Bhutanese to continue in their own country, and not to encroach upon Bengal, or raise disturbances upon its frontier. " The Governor," said the Lama, " had reason for going to war, but, as I am averse from bloodshed, and the Bhutanese are my vassals, I am glad it is brought to a conclusion."
The point, then, that it was an act of aggression on the part of a vassal of the Tibetans which was the initial cause of our relationship with the Tibetans ; that that act was considered unjustifiable by the then ruler of Tibet, and that our own action was approved of and appreciated by him, is established by this conversation. Except for the unjustifiable aggression of the Bhutanese upon our neighbours, we would never have been brought into conflict with these vassals of Tibet ; and but for the intervention of the Tibetan Regent on their behalf, we should not then have thought of any relationship with the Tibetans. The initiation of our intercourse did not rest with us. We were not the interferers. It was the
THE TASHI LAMA
15
Tibetans themselves who made the first move. This much is clear from the Tashi Lama's conversation.
We may well pause for a moment to consider the man wrho had thus first communicated with us. It so happens that he was the most remarkable man Tibet has produced in the last century and a half, and one cannot help thinking that if he had lived longer, and Warren Hastings had remained longer in India, these two able and eminently sensible and conciliatory men would have come to some amicable and neighbourly agreement by which the inter- relations of their respective countries might have been peacefully conducted from that time till now.
Bogle says of him that he was about forty years of age, that his disposition was open, candid, and generous, and that the expression of his countenance was smiling and good-humoured. He was extremely merry and entertain- ing in conversation, and told a pleasant story with a great deal of humour and action. " I endeavoured," says Bogle, to find out, in his character, those defects which are inseparable from humanity, but he is so universally beloved that I had no success, and not a man could find it in his heart to speak ill of him."
The Lama treated Bogle in the most intimate manner. He would walk the room with the strange Englishman, (explain to him the pictures, and make remarks upon the colour of his eyes. " For, although," says Bogle, " vene- rated as God's vicegerent through all the eastern countries of Asia, endowed with a portion of omniscience, and with many other Divine attributes, he throws aside, in con- versation, all the awful part of his character, accommodates himself to the weakness of mortals, endeavours to make (himself loved rather than feared, and behaves with the •eatest affability to everybody, particularly to strangers."
Continuing his conversation on the subject of Behar, :he Lama, in subsequent interviews, said that many people tad advised him against receiving an Englishman. " I
16 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
had heard also,"* he said, "much of the power of the Fringies : that the Company was like a great King, and fond of war and conquest ; and as my business and that of my people is to pray to God, I was afraid to admit any Fringies into the country. But I have since learned that the Fringies are a fair and a just people." To this Bogle replied that the Governor was, above all things, desirous of obtaining his friendship and favour, as the character of the English and their good or bad name depended greatly upon his judgment. In return the Lama assured Bogle that his heart was open and well disposed towards the English, and that he wished to have a place on the banks of the Ganges to which he might send his people to pray, and that he intended to write to Warren Hastings about it. This he did, after Bogle's return, and a piece of land was given him on the banks of the Hooghly branch of the Ganges, opposite Calcutta, and a house and temple were constructed on it by Bogle for the Lama.
The conversation now turned to the question of trade. The Tashi Lama said that, owing to the recent wars in Nepal and Bhutan, trade between Bengal and Tibet was not flourishing, but that, as for himself, he gave encourage- ment to merchants, and in Tibet they were free and secure. He enumerated the different articles which went from Tibet to Bengal — " gold, musk, cow-tails (yak-tails), and coarse woollen clothes " —but he said the Tibetans were afraid to go to Bengal on account of the heat. In the previous year he had sent four people to worship at Benares, but three had died. In former times great numbers used to resort to Hindustan. The Lamas had temples in Benares, Gaya, and several other places ; their priests used to travel thither to study the sacred books and the religion of the Hindus, and after remaining there ten, twenty, or thirty years, return to Tibet and communicate their knowledge to their countrymen ; but since the Mo- hammedan conquest of India the inhabitants of Tibet had had little connection with Bengal or the southern countries.
* Markham, p. 137.
OBSTRUCTION FROM LHASA 17
Bogle assured him that times were now altered, that under the Company in Bengal — and it must be remembered that when he was speaking our rule did not extend beyond Bengal on that side of India — every person's property was secure, and everyone was at liberty to follow his own religion.
The Lama said he was informed that under the Fringies the country was very quiet, and that he would be ashamed if Bogle were to return with a fruitless errand. He would therefore consult his officers and some men from Lhasa, as well as some of the chief merchants, and after informing them of the Governor's desire to encourage trade, and of the encouragement and protection which the Company afforded to traders in Bengal, " discuss the most proper method of carrying it on and extending it."
The following day the Lama told Bogle that he " had written to Lhasa on the subject of opening a free com- mercial communication between his country and Bengal." " But," says Bogle, " although he spoke with all the zeal in the world, I confess I did not much like the thoughts of referring my business to Lhasa, where I was not present, where I was unacquainted, and where I had reason to think the Ministers had entertained no favourable idea of me and my commission."
Later on, at the request of the Tashi Lama, two deputies from Lhasa came to visit Bogle. They said the English had shown great favour to the Lama and to them by making peace with the Bhutanese and restoring their country. Bogle replied that the English were far from being of that quarrelsome nature which some evil-minded persons represented them to be, and wished not for extent of territories. They were entrusted with the management of Bengal, and only wished it should remain in tran- quillity. The war with the Bhutanese was of their own seeking. The deputies might judge whether the Company had not cause for alarm when eight or ten thousand Bhu- tanese, who had formerly confined themselves to their mountains, poured into the low country, seized the Raja
2
18 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
of Kuch Behar, took possession of his territories, and carried their arms to the borders of Bengal. The deputies could judge for themselves whether the Company were not in the right in opposing them. In the course of the war some of the Bhutan territory was taken from them, but was immediately restored at the request of the Tashi Lama, and so far from desiring conquest, the boundaries of Bengal remained the same as formerly.
The Lhasa deputies said the Lama had written to Lhasa about trading, but that the Tibetans were afraid of the heat, and proceeded, therefore, only as far as Phari, where the Bhutanese brought the commodities of Bengal and exchanged them for those of Tibet. This was the ancient custom, and would certainly be observed.
Bogle stated that besides this there was formerly a very extensive trade carried on between Tibet and Bengal ; Warren Hastings was desirous of removing existing obstacles, and had sent him to Tibet to represent the matter to the Tashi Lama, and he trusted that the Lhasa authorities would agree to so reasonable a proposal. They answered that Gesub Rimpoche (the Regent at Lhasa) would do everything in his power, but that he and all the country were subject to the Emperor of China.
" This," says Bogle, " is a stumbling-block which crosses me in all my paths." And in the paths of how many negotiators since has it not stood as a stumbling-block ! The Tibetans are ready to do anything, but they can do nothing without the permission of the Chinese. The Chinese would freely open the whole of Tibet, but the Tibetans themselves are so terribly seclusive. So the same old story goes on year after year, till centuries are beginning to roll by, and the story is still unfinished. When in the Audience Hall of the Dalai Lama's Palace at Lhasa itself I had obtained the seals of the Dalai Lama, of the Council, of the National Assembly, and of the three great monasteries, to an agreement, and had done all this in the presence of the Chinese Resident, I thought we had at last laid that fiction low for ever. But it seems to be
FEAR OF THE CHINESE 19
springing up again in all its old exuberance, and showing still perennial vitality.
Bogle, at the request of the Tashi Lama, related to him the substance of his conversation with the Lhasa deputies. The Lama assured him again of the reasonableness of his proposals in regard to trade, but said that, in reply to the letter he had written on the subject, he had received a letter from the Lhasa Regent mentioning his apprehension of giving umbrage to the Chinese. There were, too, disturbances in Nepal and Sikkim which rendered this an improper time to settle anything, but in a year or two he hoped to bring it about. As to the English, the Lhasa Regent had received such accounts as made him suspicious, " and," added the Tashi Lama, " his heart is confined, and he does not see things in the same view as I do."
Bogle then hinted at the advisability of the Tibetans coming into some form of alliance with the English so that the influence of the latter might be used to restrain the Gurkhas of Nepal from attacking Tibet and its feudatories. This argument evidently much struck the Lama, who asked if he might write it to the Lhasa Regent. Bogle told him IIQ might, and that he had no doubt that Warren Hastings would be ready to employ his mediation to make the Gurkha Raja desist from his attempts on the territories subject to Lhasa, and that he had reason to think that from the Gurkha Raja's dread of the. English it would be effectual. The Lama said that the Regent's apprehensions of the English arose not only from himself, but also from his fear of giving offence to the Chinese, to whom Tibet was subject. The Regent wished, therefore, to receive an answer from the Court at Peking.
Bogle contended that Warren Hastings, in his proposals to facilitate trade, was promoting the advantage of Tibet as well as of Bengal ; that in former times merchants used to come freely into Tibet ; that the Gurkha Raja's wars and oppressions had prevented their coming for some years past, and he only prayed the Lama to remove the obstacles which these had occasioned. To this the Lama
20 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
replied that he had no doubt of carrying the point, but that it might require a year or two to do it effectually.
So we see the well-intentioned Tashi Lama held back by the obstructive Lhasa authorities ; and this was still more evident at Bogle's next interview, which was with the Lhasa deputies. They came to pay him a farewell visit, and in the innocence of his heart he made the very simple request that they would convey a letter from him to the Lhasa Regent. Nothing could be more natural than such a request ; but, till recently, one might just as well have asked a Tibetan to touch a red-hot poker as to carry a letter from an Englishman. The deputies said that if it contained anything to do with business they could not carry it. "I confess," says Bogle, " I was much struck with this answer." Poor man, he might well be ! And I was equally struck, 130 years later, when I was formally deputed on a mission to Tibet, with the full consent of the Chinese suzerain, when Tibetans still refused to take a letter from an Englishman. It was only when we were in full march to Lhasa, and but a few miles distant, that they at last consented to so simple a proceeding as receiving a letter, though now they have changed so completely round, that this year the Dalai Lama himself, at Calcutta, appealed to the Viceroy of India " to secure the observance of the right which the Tibetans had of dealing direct with the British."
Bogle told the Lhasa deputies that he wished to know the grounds of the Regent's suspicions, but they replied " that much conversation was not the custom of their country," and wished him a good journey back to Bengal. Bogle endeavoured to get them to listen to him, as he wished to introduce the subject of trade, but it was to no purpose.
" This conversation gave me more concern," he records, " than any I had in Tibet." He immediately asked to see the Tashi Lama, and told him " with some warmth," as he
NEPALESE INTRUSION 21
was " a good deal affected," that he could not help being concerned that the Regent should suspect him of coming into his country to raise disturbances ; that God was his witness that he wished the Regent well, and wished the Lama well, and the country well, and that a suspicion of treachery and falsehood he could not bear. The Tashi Lami tried to calm him, and eventually dictated a letter in Tibetan in Bogle's name to the Lhasa Regent. This letter contained only one sentence of pure business. It simply said : " I request, in the name of the Governor, my master, that you will allow merchants to trade between this country and Bengal." Not a very aggressive request to make or a very great favour to ask, especially as the Tibetans had begun their intercourse by asking a favour from us. But it was not for a century and a quarter, and not till we had carried our arms to Lhasa itself, that that simple request was answered, although all the time the people and traders of Tibet were only too willing to trade with us.
Why Bogle did not himself go to Lhasa, as he was empowered to do by his instructions, seems strange. The Tashi Lama said that he himself would have been quite willing, but that the Lhasa Regent was very averse, and he dissuaded Bogle, saying that the Regent's heart was small and suspicious, and he could not promise that he would be able to procure the Regent's consent.
And now the feeling of suspicion was to be increased by an unfortunate occurrence. The Gurkha Raja of Nepal wrote to both the Tashi Lama arid the Lhasa Regent, announcing that he had subdued certain districts. He said he did not wish to quarrel with Tibet, but if they had a mind for war he let them know he was well prepared, and he would desire them to remember he was a Rajput. He wished to establish factories at places upon the Tibetan border, where the merchants of Tibet might pur- chase the commodities of his country and of Bengal, and he desired the concurrence of the Tibetans. He also further desired the Tibetans " to have no connection with
22 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
Fringies or Moghuls, and not to allow them into the country, but to follow the ancient custom, which he was resolved likewise to do." A Fringy had come to him upon some business, and was now in his country, but he intended to send him back as soon as possible, and desired the Tibetans to do the same with Bogle.
Thus were Bogle's difficulties still further increased. And in one respect, at least, we have advanced since his day ; for the Mission to Lhasa in 1904, instead of being hampered, was warmly supported by the Nepalese. The Dewan of Nepal wrote strongly to the Lhasa authorities, urging them to reason, and his agent at Lhasa was of the greatest assistance to me in my negotiations with the Tibetans.
Besides China and Nepal thus entering into this Tibetan question, there was also some mention of Russia even so far back as that. The Tashi Lama had already questioned Bogle about the Empress of Russia. He now told Bogle that there was a quarrel between the Russians and the Chinese over some Tartar tribe. The Russians had not yet begun hostilities, but he imagined they would soon go to war about it. Bogle told him that as the Russians were engaged in a very heavy war with the Turks —how far back that other story reaches ! — he supposed they would hardly think of entering into another with the Chinese. He said the Russians were a very hardy and warlike people, capable of great efforts, and he doubted whether the Chinese would be able to cope with their troops.
Bogle then had conversations with the Kashmiri traders, who had been sent to him by the Tashi Lama, and who wanted to be allowed to trade with Bengal through Bhutan. They stated the difficulties which the Bhutanese placed in their way, and said that the Chief of Bhutan would soon remove these if the Company would threaten him with war, as after the last war he was in
TIBETAN MERCHANTS 23
great dread of the English. It is a point which should be specially noted by those who believe that Warren Hastings' policy was aggressive, that Bogle, in reply to this hint, told the merchants* that he had no power to use such language to the Bhutanese, and that whatever he did with the Raja must be by peaceable and friendly means. The Company had entered into a treaty of peace with them, " which, according to the maxim of the English Government, would . . . remain for ever inviolate."
Tibetan merchants also came, at the Tashi Lama's request, to see Bogle. They dealt chiefly in tea, some of them to the extent of two or three lakhs of rupees a year — of the then value of £20,000 to £30,000. They said the Lama had advised them to send agents to Bengal, but they were afraid to go into the heat of the plains. They had a tradition that about eight hundred years ago people of Tibet used to go to Bengal, but that eight out of ten died before their return. Bogle told them that if they were afraid of sending their servants thither, the Kashmiri would supply them with what they wanted. They said that formerly wool, broadcloth, etc., used to come through Nepal, but since the wars in Nepal the trade had diminished. They added that people imagined from gold being produced in Tibet that it was extremely rich, but that this was not the case, and if extraordinary quantities of gold were sent to Bengal, the Emperor of China, who was Sovereign of the country, would be displeased.
At his farewell interview Bogle said that Warren Hastings would send letters to the Lama by his own servants, upon which the Lama said : " I wish the Governor will not at present send an Englishman. You know what difficulties I had about your coming into the country, and how I had to struggle with the jealousy of the Gesub Himpoche (the Regent) and the people at Lhasa. Even now they are uneasy at my having kept you so long. I could wish, therefore, that the Governor would rather send a Hindu. 1 am in hopes my letter to the Regent will have a good effect in removing his jealousy, and I expect in a year or two that the government of this country will
* Markham, p. 162.
24 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
be in the Dalai Lama's hands, when I will inform the Governor, and he may then send an Englishman to me and to the Dalai Lama."
The Tashi Lama repeated his concern at Bogle's departure and the satisfaction he had received in being informed of the customs of Europe. He spoke all this, in and with a look very different from the studied compli- ments of Hindustan. " I never could reconcile myself," continues Bogle, " to taking a last leave of anybody ; and what from the Lama's pleasant and amiable character, what from the many favours and civilities he had shown me, I could not help being particularly affected. He observed it, and in order to cheer me mentioned his hopes of seeing me again."
Of Bogle's own warm-hearted and affectionate feelings to the people of Tibet there can be no question. On the eve of his departure he wrote in a letter to his sister : " Farewell, ye honest and simple people ! May ye long enjoy the happiness which is denied to more polished nations ; and while they are engaged in the endless pursuits of avarice and ambition, defended by your barren mountains, may ye continue to live in peace and content- ment, and know no wants but those of nature."
At the close of Bogle's Mission we may review its results. He was sent by Warren Hastings to establish relationship and intercourse of trade with the Tibetans. How far did he succeed in carrying out that object ?
It is sufficiently clear that, as regards personal relation- ship, he was eminently successful, and that was about as much as he could have expected to establish at the start. As we have already seen, Warren Hastings never expected any very striking result from the first communication. He wished to lay the foundation for neighbourly intercourse, and in this much he succeeded. He had had experience enough of Asiatics in other quarters to be aware that they are very naturally suspicious of a European Power, then by some apparently irresistible process gradually expanding over smaller Asiatic peoples. As the instance of the Gurkha
RESULTS OF MISSION 25
Raja's letter showed, there are few Asiatic rulers who, if they have the power to subdue a weaker neighbour, will not as a perfectly natural course proceed to bring that neighbour under subjection. This is looked upon by most Asiatics as a quite normal and inevitable proceeding. Naturally, therefore, the Tibetans would assume that it would only be a matter of time before the English Governor of Bengal would attack Tibet. He had the power to subdue the country ; he would therefore subdue it. In the first instance he would, of course, send up an agent to spy out the land, to see what it was worth, and to find out the best way into it ; and such an agent doubtless Bogle was, in their opinion. It was inevitable, therefore, that Bogle should be viewed with suspicion, and that the Tibetans should not, at the first jump off, throw their country freely open to trade. How much wiser, in their opinion, would be the views of some shrewd old counsellor who said : " Keep the English at a distance; don't let one into our country; stay behind our mountain barrier and have nothing whatever to do with anyone beyond it. This is the ' ancient custom.' Do not let us depart from it. Let us be civil to this Bogle now he is here, lest we offend his powerful master, but for God's sake let us get rid of him as soon as we can, and put every polite difficulty we know of in the way of any other Englishman coming amongst us."
We can imagine how sound such an opinion would seem to the generality of the old greybeard's hearers, and how difficult it would be for anyone — even the Tashi Lama— to contend against it. And with such a feeling in existence Bogle could not do more than produce a favourable personal impression, and put in an argument or two, whenever he had the opportunity, to show that there were also some advantages in having relationship with the English, in the hopes that these arguments might gradually sink into the Tibetan mind, and when the opportunity should arise, bring forth fruit. And this much he did most effectively in carrying out the Governor's policy.
CHAPTER II
TURNER'S MISSION, 1782
WARREN HASTINGS was not content with a single effort to reopen the commercial and friendly intercourse which in former times had subsisted between Tibet and India. As he had expected little from the first move, so he had always intended to work continuously with the same end in view, hoping to eventually gain that end by repeated efforts over long periods.
Bogle returned to Calcutta in June, 1775, and in November of the same year Hastings deputed Dr. Hamil- ton, who had accompanied him to Tibet, on a second mission to Bhutan. Hamilton spent some months in Bhutan, inquiring into and settling certain causes of dis- pute ; and in July, 1777, he was sent on a third mission to Bhutan to congratulate a new Deb Raja on his succes- sion. Thus, as Markham points out, Warren Hastings, by keeping up a regular intercourse with the Bhutan rulers, by maintaining a correspondence with the Tashi Lama, and by means of an annual fair at Rangpur, prevented the opening made by Bogle from again being closed.
Warren Hastings also intended to send another mis- sion to Tibet itself, and in 1779 Bogle was appointed Envoy for a second time. But in the meanwhile the Tashi Lama had decided to undertake a journey to Peking to visit the Chinese Emperor. Bogle, therefore, was to have been sent to Peking to meet the Lama there, but, most disastrously for all friendly intercourse between Tibet and India, the Lama died in Peking in November 1780, and Bogle himself died at Calcutta in April, 1781.
The success of Asiatic affairs depends so much on the
26
PERSISTENCE OF WARREN HASTINGS 27
influence of personalities that the death of these two men, who had conceived such a real respect and affection for one another, was an almost fatal blow to Warren Hastings' plans for the improvement of the relationship between Tibet and India. Nevertheless, he kept steadily on with his deliberate policy, and watched for some other opportunity of carrying it to fruition. Persistency of aim and watchfulness for opportunities, making the most of the occasion offered, and decisiveness of action — these were always Hastings' guiding principles. So when, in Feb- ruary, 1782, news reached Calcutta that the Tashi Lama, in accordance with the Tibetan ideas of reincarnation, had reappeared in the person of an infant, he resolved to send another mission to Tibet to congratulate the Regent.
For this duty he selected Captain Samuel Turner, an officer who had distinguished himself at the Siege of Seringapatam and on a mission to Tippoo Sultan, and who was then thirty- three years of age.
Turner himself was very favourably received at Shigatse, and at his first interview informed the Regent that Warren Hastings had an earnest solicitude to preserve and cultivate the amicable intercourse that had so happily commenced between them ; that tips corre- spondence, in its earliest stages, had been dictated by the purest motives of humanity, and had hitherto pointed with unexampled sincerity and steadiness towards one great object, which constituted the grand business of the Tashi Lama's life — peace and universal good ; that the Governor- General, whose attention was always directed towards the same pursuits, was overwhelmed with anxiety lest the friendship which had been established between himself and the Regent might undergo a change, and he had therefore sent a trusted agent to convey his congratulations on the joyful reappearance in the world of the late Tashi Lama, and to express the hope that everything that was expected would at length be effectually accomplished.
To this the Regent replied that the present and the
28 TURNER'S MISSION, 1782
late Tashi Lama were one and the same, and that there was no manner of difference between them, only that, as he was yet merely an infant, and his spirit had but just returned into the world, he was at present incapable of action. The Regent assured Turner of the firm, un- shaken attachment which the Tashi Lama had entertained for Mr. Hastings to his latest breath, and he was also loud in his encomiums on the occasion that gave birth to their present friendship, which originated entirely in his granting peace to the Bhutanese in compliance with the intercession of the Tashi Lama.
In other interviews the Regent assured Turner that during the interview of the late Tashi Lama with the Emperor of China, the Lama had taken several opportuni- ties to represent in the strongest terms the particular amity which subsisted between the Governor- General and himself. The Regent said that the Lama's conversation had even influenced the Emperor to resolve upon com- mencing a correspondence with his friend. Turner was also assured that the Tashi Lama particularly sought from the Emperor liberty to grant admission to Tibet to what- ever person he chose, without control. And to this the Emperor is said to have consented ; but, owing to the death of the Tashi Lama and the jealousy of the Chinese officials, nothing resulted.
The power and influence of these Chinese officials in Tibet was evidently very great, for in his intercourse with the Tibetan officials Turner could plainly trace, though they were averse to own any immediate de- pendence upon the Chinese, the greatest awe of the Emperor of China, and of his officers stationed at the Court of Lhasa, who had usurped even from the hands of the Dalai Lama the greatest portion of his temporal power. When Turner offered to attend a certain ceremony, the Regent excused himself from accepting the offer of his company on account of the Chinese, whose jealousy of strangers was well known, and to whom he was par- ticularly anxious to give no occasion for offence. On a
TRADERS ADMITTED 29
subsequent occasion the Regent told Turner that many letters had passed between himself and the Dalai Lama, who was always favourably inclined towards the English ; but he attributed the discouragement and obstruction Turner had received to the Chinese officials at Lhasa. " The influence of the Chinese," adds Turner, " overawes the Tibetans in all their proceedings, and produces a timidity and caution in their conduct more suited to the character of subjects than allies." At the same time, they were very jealous of interference by the Chinese, and uneasy of their yoke, though it sat so lightly upon them. And while they respected the Chinese Emperor, and had this fear of Chinese officials, they " looked upon the Chinese as a gross and impure race of men."
And now again, as in Bogle's time, we see traces of Russian influence. The Regent and the Ministers told Turner that they were no strangers to the reputation of the reigning Czarina, Catherine, her extent of dominion, and the commerce carried on with China. Many over- tures, they told him, had been made on the part of Russia to extend her commerce to the internal part of Tibet, but the disinclination of the Tibetans to enter into any new foreign connection, and the watchful jealousy of the Chinese, had hitherto defeated every attempt of that nature.
Turner spent nearly a year in Tibet, and though he was unable to visit Lhasa owing to the antipathy of the Lamas, he was able to obtain some substantial concessions from the Regent of the Tashi Lama at Shigatse. He obtained* " his promise of encouragement to all merchants, natives of India, that may be sent to traffic in Tibet, on behalf of the Government of Bengal," and he reports to Warren Hastings that his authority alone is requisite to secure these merchants the protection of the Regent, who had promised to grant free admission into Tibet
* Turner, p. 374.
30 TURNER'S MISSION, 1782
to all such merchants, natives of India, as shall come recommended by the Governor of Bengal ; to yield them every assistance requisite for the transport of their goods ; and to assign them a place of residence for vending their commodities, either within the monastery at Shigatse, or, should it be considered as more eligible, in the town itself. He did not consider it consistent with the spirit of Warren Hastings' instructions, he reports, to be impor- tunate for greater privileges than those to native traders. Such as he had obtained he hoped would suffice to open the much- wished -for communication. When merchants had learnt the way, tasted the profit and established intercourse, the traffic might bear a tax, which, if laid upon it in its infancy, might suppress its growth.
Turner rejoined Warren Hastings at Patna in March, 1784, and I remember seeing, among some original letters of Warren Hastings in the Indian Foreign Office, an enthusiastic appreciation of Turner's work, and an ex- pression of the great pleasure the meeting afforded him ; for Hastings was as warmly appreciative with some men as he was coldly reserved with others.
As long as Hastings remained in India our intercourse with Tibet prospered. But soon after his departure a contretemps occurred, and all his work was undone. In 1792 the Nepalese invaded Tibet, sacked Shigatse, and carried off all the plunder of the monasteries. The Lamas had to flee across the Brahmaputra and apply for protection to the Chinese. A Chinese army was despatched to their assistance. The Nepalese were defeated and driven back across their own frontier, and peace was only concluded upon the conditions of an annual tribute to the Emperor and the full restitution of all the spoils which they carried off.
By an unfortunate circumstance, through the first British Envoy having arrived in Nepal just about the time of this invasion, the Chinese commander formed the impression that we had instigated, or at least encouraged, the Nepalese in their attack on Tibet; and the representa-
TRADE AGAIN STOPPED 31
tions which he made to his Government, coupled, says Turner, with our declining to afford effectual assistance to the Lamas' cause, had considerable weight. As a conse- quence, all communication between Tibet and India was stopped, and " the approach of strangers, even of Bengal and Hindustan, was utterly prohibited." The Hindu holy men were charged with treachery in acting as spies and guides for the Nepalese, and were forbidden to remain any longer in Shigatse ; and " from this period," con- tinues Turner, "unhappily is to be dated the interrup- tion which has taken place in the regular intercourse between the Company's possessions and the territory of the Lama."
It was a sad ending to what had begun so promisingly, and one is tempted to reflect what Warren Hastings would have done if he had still held the reins of govern- ment in Bengal, and whether he would have been able to restrain the Gurkhas, to assist the Lamas, and to reassure the Chinese. Certainly it is a most unfortunate circum- 1 stance that we so often are unable to help our friends just I when they most need our help, and press our friendship \ upon them just when they least want it.
Thus the results of Warren Hastings' forethought and careful, steady endeavour were all lost. Yet it must be conceded by the sturdiest advocate of non-interference that those endeavours were not merely statesman-like, but humane. There was never any attempt to aggress. No threats were ever used ; no impatience was shown. Warren Hastings, as the representative of a trading com- pany, looked, firstly, to improve trade relations ; but as the ruler of many millions of human beings, he knew that trade or any other relationship must be based on mutual good feeling, and he knew that good feeling with a suspicious people can only be established by a very, very slow process. He therefore took each step deliber- ately, and he strove to secure permanently the advantages of each small step taken ; arid, having done this, he had some right to expect that when he himself had shown
32 TURNER'S MISSION, 1782
so much restraint and moderation, those who followed after would continue the same deliberate policy.
Unfortunately, as we have seen, the policy of drift and inaction in regard to Tibet set in on Warren Hastings' departure. The promotion of intercourse had proved a difficult business ; and with so much on hand elsewhere in the building up of the Indian Empire, it was perhaps natural that the ordinary Governor- General should let the matter drop.
CHAPTER III
MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA
Now when statesmen were most lukewarm about Tibet the inevitable English adventurer came to the front. And it is a curious circumstance that it was just when our relations with the Tibetans were at their coldest that the only Englishman who ever reached Lhasa before the Mission of 1904 achieved this success. He was not an accredited agent of Government sent to bring into effect a deliberate policy such as that conceived by Warren Hastings. He was a private adventurer, and he went up in spite of, and against the wishes of, the Government of the time.
His name was Manning. At Cambridge he was the friend of Charles Lamb, and was of such ability that he was expected to be at least Second Wrangler, but he was of an eccentric nature, and "had a strong repugnance to oaths," and left the University without a degree. He conceived, however, a passionate desire to see the Chinese Empire. He studied the Chinese language in France and England, afterwards made his way to Canton, remained there three years, and in 1810 procured a letter of introduction from the Select Committee of Canton to Lord Minto, then Governor- General of India, asking him to give him every practicable assistance in the prosecution of his plans. But he received little or no aid from the Government, and was left to his own resources, without official recognition of any description.
Manning, attended by a Chinese servant, proceeded to Tibet through Bhutan, and on October 21, 1811, arrived at Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley. His descrip- tion of the Jong then precisely corresponds with our own
33 3
34 MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA
experiences in Tibet on many an occasion since: "Dirt, dirt, grease, smoke. Misery, but good mutton."
A Chinese Mandarin arrived there about the same time, and Manning gave him two bottles of cherry-brandy and a wineglass. This, and probably Manning's very original mariners, evidently unfroze his heart, for he asked him to dinner, and promised to write immediately to the Lhasa Mandarin for permission for him to proceed. Manning also received applications to cure soldiers, and his medicines " did wonderfully well, and the patients were very grateful." They even petitioned for him to go with the Mandarin towards Gyantse, and the Mandarin granted their request.
Altogether, Manning made a very favourable impression on the Chinese who, he remarked, lorded it in Tibet like the English in India, and made the Tibetans stand before them. And he considered then that there were advantages in having the Chinese in this superior position. " Things are much pleasanter now the Chinese are here," he says ; " the magistrate hints about overtures respecting opening a commercial intercourse between the Chinese and the English through Bhutan. I cannot help exclaiming in my mind (as I often do) what fools the Company are to give me no commission, no authority, no instructions. What use are their Embassies when their Ambassadors cannot speak to a soul, and can only make ordinary phrases pass through a stupid interpreter ? No finesse, no tournure, no compliments. Fools, fools, fools, to neglect an oppor- tunity they may never have again ! "
Poor Manning experienced very severe cold, and travelled to Gyantse in great discomfort, and felt these discomforts acutely, so that the greater part of his diary is filled with quaint denunciation of his Chinese clerk ; of a vicious horse which kicked and bit him; of the " common horse-furniture," which was " detestable " ; of the saddle which was so high behind and before that he sat
INTERCOURSE WITH CHINESE 35
in pain unless he twisted himself unequally ; of another pony "which sprang forward in a full runaway gallop, with the most furious and awkward motion he ever experienced " ; of yet another that was " so weak, so tottering, and so stumbling, and which trembled so whenever he set his foot on a stone, which was about every other step," that he could " hardly keep up with the company " ; of his being " so eaten up by little insects " that he had to sit down in the sunshine and get rid of as many as he could, for he " suffered a good deal from these little insects, whose society he was not used to " ; of his at last finding " a very pleasant-going horse with a handsome countenance," which he was tempted to buy, " but was checked by the prudent consideration that he might encumber me at Lhasa," and too much disencumber his lean purse. Strange that the first Englishman ever to visit Lhasa should have been incommoded for want of a five-pound note with which to buy a rough hill pony.
At Gyantse the Chinese Mandarin and General, in whose train Manning had come, appointed him a little lodge in the courtyard of the principal house, and what- ever he required was soon supplied by the Chinese soldiers and others who wished rriedical treatment from him. " One brought rice, one brought meat, another brought a table, another brought a little paste and paper and mended a hole in the window, another brought a present of a pen and candles." Every Chinaman in the town came to see him. The General was "vastly civil and polite," and invited him to dinner. But though he was " very much of a gentleman," Manning concluded that he was " really no better than an old woman." The dinner was tolerably good, and the wine excellent, but the cooking was indifferent.
On the other hand, the Mandarin was impressed by Manning's beard. He had known men with better moustaches than Manning's, for he had, " for convenience of eating, song, and drink," cut his short in India, and it had not yet grown again. But the beard never failed to excite the General's admiration, and he declared he had never seen one nearly so handsome. The General, like-
36 MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA
wise, approved of his " countenance and manner." He pretended to skill in physiognomy and fortune -telling, and foretold very great things of Manning.
Manning also visited the Tibet Mandarin, who lived " in a sort of castle on the top of a hill," the Jong, which General Macdonald attacked and captured in 1904, and they discussed Calcutta and Tibet together for half an hour, but what they said Manning does not record. The Tibetan intimated that he would return the visit the next day, and he sent " some rice and a useful piece of cloth, but did not come himself."
With his medical practice Manning had a greater success. To one Chinaman and his wife, who were suffering from " an intermittent fever," he gave " opium, Fowler's solution of arsenic, and afterwards left them a few pages of bark. The mother-in-law, also, who had the complaint of old age, he cheered up with a little comfort- ing physic."
The General often came to see him, " for, like many other Generals, he had nothing to do, and was glad of a morning lounge." He managed, however, to foist a Chinese servant on to Manning as cook. This man's cooking was bad, but " in drying and folding up linen he saved him infinite trouble," for, says Manning, " I never could to this day fold up a shirt or other vestment. A handkerchief or a sheet I can manage, but nothing further."
Manning, hearing that the General was fond of music, and " no bad performer," took the opportunity " one day, while he was smoking his pipe in my courtyard, of intro- ducing the subject, and paying my court to him by requesting the favour of hearing music. This brought me an invitation to take an evening repast and wine with him, which was just what I liked. He gave us a very pretty concert. . . . The Chinese music, though rather meagre to a European, has its beauties. . . . The General insisted upon my giving him a specimen of European (Calcutta) music on the Chinese flute. I was not ac- quainted with the fingering of that instrument, but I managed to produce something, which he politely praised."
VISITS THE GRAND LAMA 37
The answer from the Lhasa magistrate to his request to be permitted to proceed to Lhasa arrived a few days after his arrival at Gyantse. A passport was given him, transport and supphes furnished, and as he neared Lhasa he was met by a " respectable person on horseback, who dismounted and saluted," and who had been sent out by the Tibetan authorities to welcome him and conduct him to Lhasa.
The view of the Potala, " of the lofty, towering palace, which forms a majestic mountain of a building," excited his admiration, but if the palace had exceeded his expec- tations, he says, the town as far fell short of them. There was " nothing striking, nothing pleasing, in its appearance. The habitations were begrimed with smut and dirt. . . . In short, everything seemed mean and gloomy, and excited the idea of something unreal."
His first care was to provide himself with a proper hat, and, having found one, he proceeded to pay his respects to the Chinese Mandarin. Coming into his presence, he for the first time in his life performed the ceremony of ketese, or kneeling. The Mandarin received him politely, and said he had provided him with quarters. On the following day he visited two of the chief Tibetan officials.
On December 17, 1811, he went to the Potala to salute the Grand Lama. He took with him as an offering some broadcloth, two pair of china ewers, and a pair of good brass candlesticks, which he had " clean and furbished up," and into which he put " two wax candles to make a show." He also took "thirty new bright dollars, and as many pieces of zinc," and, besides this, " some genuine Smith's lavender-water . . . and a good store of Nankin tea, which is a rarity and delicacy at Lhasa, and not to be bought there."
Arrived in the great hall he made due obeisance, touching the ground three times with his head to the Grand Lama, and once to the Ti-mi-fu. While he was bowing, " the awkward servants contrived to let fall and
38 MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA
break the bottle of lavender-water." Having delivered his present to the Grand Lama, he took off his hat, and " humbly gave his clean-shaved head to lay his hands upon."
This ceremony over, he sat on a cushion, not far from the Lama's throne, and had suche brought them. But "the Lama's beautiful and interesting face arid manner engrossed almost all his attention." His face was, he thought, poetically and affectingly beautiful. He was at that time about seven years old, and had the simple and unaffected manners of a well-educated, princely child. Sometimes, particularly when he looked at Manning, his smile almost approached to a gentle laugh. " No doubt," naively re- marks Manning, "my grim beard and spectacles somewhat excited his risibility."
The little Grand Lama addressed a few remarks to Manning, speaking in Tibetan to the Chinese interpreter, the interpreter in Chinese to Manning's Chinese Munshi, and the Munshi in Latin to Manning. " I was extremely affected by this interview with the Lama," says Manning. " I could have wept through strangeness of sensation."
Here in Lhasa, as at Gyantse, Manning had many applications made to him for medicine, and he treated both Chinese and Tibetans. But spies also came, and "certainly," says Manning, "my bile used to rise when the hounds looked into my room." The Tartar General detested Europeans. They were the cause, he said, of all his misfortunes. Sometimes he said Manning was a missionary, and at other times a spy. " These Europeans are very formidable ; now one man has come to spy the country he will inform others. Numbers will come, and at last they will be for taking the country from us." So argued the Mandarins, and, indeed, there were rumours that the Chinese meant to execute Manning. He had always fully expected this possibility, and writes: "I never could, even in idea, make up my mind to submit to an execution with firmness and manliness."
Yet, on the whole, he was not badly treated. He
RETURN TO INDIA 39
remained on at Lhasa for several months, paying many visits- to the Grand Lama, and eventually orders came from Peking for him to return the way he came. He left Lhasa on April 19, and reached Kuch Behar on June 10, 1812.
Manning's own object was " A moral view of China, its manners, the degree of happiness the people enjoy, their sentiments and opinions so far as they influence life, their literature, their history, the causes of their stability and vast population, their minor arts and contrivances ; what there might be in China to serve as a model for imitation, and what to serve as a beacon to avoid." Having been foiled in this his main object, he does not appear to have regarded the subsidiary circumstance that he had reached Lhasa as of particular interest. And he seems to have been so disgusted witli the Government's refusal to support him, that when he returned to Calcutta he would give no one any particulars of his journey. The account which Markham published sixty years later was only discovered long after his death.
It is a meagre record of so important a journey, yet it exemplifies one or two points which are worthy of note. It showed that an individual Englishman, with delicacy of touch and with a real sympathetic feeling towards those among whom he was travelling, could find his way even into the very presence of the Dalai Lama in the Potala itself. It showed, too, that he could get on perfectly well with the Chinese personally. But it showed likewise that at the back of the minds of both the Tibetans and Chinese was a strong dread of the British power, which made them fear to allow a single English- man to remain in Tibet or even pass through the country.
Yet Manning confirmed what Bogle and Turner had also noticed — that, while the Tibetans dreaded the Chinese, they disliked them intensely. He says that the Chinese were very disrespectful to the Tibetans. Only bad-charactered Chinamen were sent to Tibet, and he could not help thinking that the Tibetans " would view
40 MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA
the Chinese influence in Tibet overthrown without many emotions of regret, especially if the rulers under the new influence were to treat the Grand Lama with respect ; for this is a point in which those haughty Mandarins are some- what deficient, to the no small dissatisfaction of the good people of Lhasa." These words would be very fairly applicable to the situation at the present day.
After Manning, no Englishman, in either a private or official capacity, visited Lhasa till the Mission of 1904. This seems to show want of enterprise on the part of Englishmen in India ; but some did make the attempt, and many more would have if they could have obtained the necessary leave from all the authorities concerned. British officers in India are keen enough to go on such adven- tures, but leave can very rarely be obtained. I had myself planned out such a journey in 1889. I had interviewed the Foreign Secretary, now Sir Mortimer Durand, and not only obtained permission, but even some pecuniary assistance, when, at the last moment, I was refused per- mission by the Colonel of my regiment. Such restric- tions must, I know, have prevented many another besides myself. Still, efforts were made by individual officers, unsupported by Government, to explore Tibet, and, if possible, reach Lhasa. Moorcroft explored Western Tibet, and, according to some reports, actually reached Lhasa and died there ; Richard and Henry Strachey visited the sources of the Brahmaputra and the Sutlej ; Carey, Littledale, Bower, Wellby, Deasy, and Rawling explored in Northern Tibet; and native surveyors mapped even Lhasa itself, to which point Sarat Chandra Das also pene- trated at great risk and brought back most valuable information.
These and other efforts to explore the country by the Russian travellers Prjevalsky, Pievtsoff and Kozoloff ; by the Frenchmen Hue and Gabet, Bonvalot, Prince Henri d'Orleans, Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard ; and by that indefatigable and courageous Swedish traveller, Sven Hedin, have all been brought together by Sir Thomas
SUBSEQUENT EXPLORATION 41
Holdich in his recent work on exploration in Tibet. It is not necessary here to do more than refer to the fact that efforts to gain a knowledge of the country were almost continuously being made through the second half of last century ; my object is rather to describe the effort, not so much to explore the country, as to regularize and foster the intercourse which already existed with its people.
CHAPTER IV
THE BENGAL GOVERNMENT'S EFFORTS, 1873-1886
IT was not till a century had elapsed since Warren Hastings had begun his attempts to form a friendship with the Tibetans that the Government in India again made any real effort to come into proper relationship with their neighbours. For a century they were content to let things take their course, in spite of their informality, and in spite of the fact that Indian subjects were having all the worst of the intercourse, for while Tibetans were allowed to come to India when and where and how they liked, to trade there without duty and without hindrance, to travel and to reside wherever they wished, on the other side, obstructions of every kind were placed in the way of Indians, and still more of British, trading, travel- ling, or residing in Tibet. But in the year 1873 the Indian Government began to stir, and take stock of the position, and to reflect whether this one-sided condition of affairs might not be changed to the advantage of Indians and Europeans without hurting the Tibetans.
In that year the Bengal Government addressed the Government of India a letter, a copy of which was sent to the Royal Geographical Society, in which they urged that the Chinese should be pressed "for an order of admittance to Tibet," and that " the authorities at Peking should allow a renewal of the friendly intercourse between India and Tibet which existed in the days of Bogle and Turner." The Bengal Government said that the Govern- ment of India and the Secretary of State had repeatedly expressed the great interest which they took in this subject, and the wish that no favourable opportunity should be neglected of promoting the development of
42
NEED OF INTERCOURSE 43
commercial intercourse between British India and those trans-Himalayan countries which were then practically closed to us. If only the Chinese and Tibetans would remove the embargo at present imposed upon the entry of our trade, there were, by routes under our own control, no serious difficulties or dangers of any kind to overcome, and none of the risks of collision which existed else- where.
Tibet, the Bengal Government said, was a well- regulated country with which our Hillmen were in constant communication. When Europeans went to the frontier and tried to cross it, there was no display of violence or disturbance. They were civilly turned back, with an intimation that there were orders not to admit them. All the inquiries of the Lieutenant-Governor led to the belief that the Tibetans themselves had 110 objections to intercourse with us. The experiences of the great botanist, Sir Joseph Hooker, who in 1849 had travelled to the Tibetan border, and Blanford among the recent travellers, and of Bogle and Turner in the past, were singularly at one upon this point. The Commandant of Khamba Jong, who had met Mr. Blanford on the frontier in 1870, assured him that the Tibetans had no ill-will to foreigners, and would, if allowed, gladly receive Europeans. The fact appeared to be, the Lieutenant-Governor said, that " the prohibition to intercourse with Tibet is part of the Chinese policy of exclusion imposed on the Tibetans by Chinese officials and enforced by Chinese troops stationed in Tibet." He fully sympathized with the Chinese desire to keep out foreigners in China. " But," he said, " in Tibet there is not wealth enough to attract many adventurers ; there is room only for a moderate and legitimate commerce ; " and among a people so good and well regulated as the Tibetans there would be no such difficulties as existed in China. If the road were opened, it would be used only by fair traders and by responsible Government servants or travellers under the control of Government.
In seeking to press the Chinese for admittance to Tibet, he said, the most emphatic declaration might be made that, having our natural and best boundary in the
44 THE BENGAL GOVERNMENT'S EFFORTS
Himalayas, we could not, and would not in any circum- stances, encroach on Tibet, and we might offer to arrange that none save Hillmen or classes domiciled in Tibet should be allowed to go in without a pass, which would be given under such restrictions that Government would be responsible for the conduct of the holders.
The Lieutenant- Governor adduced as a further reason for entering into formal relationship with the Tibetans that, if we had an understanding between us, we should together be able to keep in order the wild tribes inhabiting the hilly country between British territory and Tibet. And he instanced the case of the Mezhow Mishnies, who for murdering two French missionaries in 1854 were punished both by us and by the Tibetans, and who, in consequence, ever after had " a most salutary dread of using violence."
The Bengal Government also contended then in 1873, as they are still contending now, for the admission of our tea. Indian tea is grown in large quantities on the hills in British territory bordering Tibet. But, said the Lieu- tenant-Governor, nearly forty years ago : " The Tibetans, or rather their Chinese Governors, will not, on protectionist principles, admit our tea across the passes. An absolute embargo is laid on anything in the shape of tea." The removal of this, he thought, might well be made a sub- ject of special negotiation. And besides tea, the Bengal Government thought that Manchester arid Birmingham goods and Indian indigo would find a market in Tibet, and that we should receive in return much wool, sheep, cattle, walnuts, Tibetan cloths, and other commodities.
Thus, thirty years before the Tibet Mission started the local Government had made a real effort to have the Chinese pressed to abandon their policy of exclusion so far as Tibet was concerned. The lineal official descendant of Warren Hastings in the Governorship of Bengal neither attempted nor advocated any high-handed local measures. He stated his case calmly and reasonably, and advocated the most correct course — the attempt to settle the matter direct with the Chinese.
DELAYS OF CENTRALIZATION 45
Local officers are often told that they are too im- patient, and that they too frequently want to settle a matter by local action, when it might be so much better disposed of by correspondence from headquarters ; by negotiations, for instance, between London and Peking, or London and St. Petersburg. They are urged to take a wider view, and to display a calmer spirit, and greater con- fidence in the wisdom and sagacity of their London rulers. But when thirty years after this very moderate and perfectly reasonable request was made by the local authority, the matter was still no nearer settlement than it was when the request was made ; and when the House of Commons, which controls the destinies of the Empire, was still asking why we did not apply to the Chinese, the local officer's faith in the superior efficacy of headquarters treatment is somewhat shaken. And he often questions whether matters which, after forming the subject of voluminous correspondence between the provincial Government and the Government of India, between the latter and the India Office, between the India Office and the Foreign Office, between the Foreign Office and the Ambassador abroad, between him and the Foreign Government, which are discussed in the Cabinet, and form a subject for debate in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and for platform speeches and newspaper articles in- numerable, do not in this lengthy process assume a magnitude which they never originally possessed ; whether, having assumed such magnitude, they ever really do get settled or only compromised ; and whether, after all, they might not have been settled expeditiously and decisively on the spot before they had been allowed to grow to these alarming proportions.
There are, one knows, many cases which can only be settled by the Central Government, and which are so settled very satisfactorily, but I am doubtful if Tibet is one of these, and whether we have been wise in the instance of Tibet, and in many others connected with China, to make so much of, and expect so much from, the Chinese Central Government, which has so little real control over the local Governments. Perhaps if the
46 THE BENGAL GOVERNMENT'S EFFORTS
Government of Bengal, with the countenance and support of the Imperial Government, had long ago dealt directly with the Lhasa authorities, Chinese and Tibetan matters might have been arranged more expeditiously and satis- factorily. At any rate, it cannot be safely assumed that the Central Government method is necessarily the best.
In this case, for instance, all that resulted was that the Chinese Government, in the Chefu Convention con- cluded three years later, undertook to protect any mission which should be sent to Tibet — an undertaking which was literally valueless, for when a mission was actually sent to Tibet they were unable to afford it the slightest protec- tion, and the Chinese representative in Lhasa confessed to me in writing that he could not even get the Tibetans to give him transport to enable him to meet me.
The Government of Bengal had therefore to content themselves with improving the road inside our frontier, and with doing what they could on our side to entice and further trade.
But in 1885 a renewed effort was made to come to an understanding with the Tibetans. The brilliant Secretary of the Bengal Government, Colman Macaulay, visited the frontier to see if any useful relationship could be established with the Shigatse people by the route up the head of the Sikkim Valley. The Tashi Lama, who resides at Shigatse, had always been more friendly than the Lhasa people, and this seemed more promising. Macaulay saw a local Tibetan official from the other side, entered into friendly inter- course, and found, as Bogle and Turner had found, that apart from Chinese obstruction there was no objection on the part of the Tibetan people themselves to enter into friendly relationship. Macaulay was filled with en- thusiasm. He threw his whole soul and energy into the matter. He secured the support of the Government of India. And, more important still, he fired the Secretary of State for India with ardour. Never before had such enthu- siasm for improving our relations with Tibet been shown. And as it happened that this Secretary of State was the best
47
the India Office have ever had — the man who without any faltering hesitation annexed Burma, to the lasting benefit of the Burmese, of ourselves, and of humanity — there seemed now a real prospect of success. Lord Randolph Churchill and Colman Macaulay were something of kindred spirits, and Macaulay was sent to Peking with every support and encouragement to get the necessary permit for a mission to Lhasa. The Chinese assented. Per- mission was granted. Macaulay organized his mission, hought rich presents, collected his transport, and was on the eve of starting from Darjiling when " international considerations " came in and Government countermanded the whole affair.
" Everything had gone so fairly," wrote Macaulay to Sir Clements Markham from Darjiling in October, 1886, " that it was difficult for us here to believe that we should be shipwrecked within sight of the promised land." Yet so it was, and he took his disappointment so deeply to heart that he completely broke down in health, and died a few years later.
Immediately following on the abandonment of the mission came the most unprovoked aggression on the part of the Tibetans. They crossed the Jelap-la, the pass from Chumbi into Sikkim and the frontier between Tibet and our feudatory State, and they occupied Lengtu, eighteen miles on our side of the frontier, building a guard-house there, and turning out one of our road over- seers, placed there to superintend the road which Sir Richard Temple had made when Lieutenant- Governor of Bengal. And on hearing that the mission had been countermanded, they became so elated that they boasted that they would occupy Darjiling, only seventy-eight miles off, and something like a panic ensued in this almost unprotected summer resort. At the same time, on the opposite side of Tibet they were still more actively aggressive, expelling the Roman Catholic missionaries from their long-established homes at Batang, massacring many of their converts, and burning the mission-house.
48 THE BENGAL GOVERNMENT'S EFFORTS
This is a very essential fact to bear in mind in the consideration of the Tibetan question — that after both Tibetan and Chinese susceptibilities had been given way to on every occasion, it was the Tibetans who invaded us. It was a Bhutanese invasion of the plains of Bengal, followed by a letter from the Tashi Lama, that had initiated our relations with Tibet in the time of Warren Hastings. And it was this invasion of Sikkim that forced upon us the regularization of our relations with the Tibetans.
When the Tibetans thus invaded the territory of our feudatory, we should have been well within our right in forthwith expelling them by force ; but, in accordance with the policy of forbearance we had so consistently pursued, we referred the matter to the Chinese, and requested them to procure the withdrawal of the Tibetans. We also allowed the Chinese ample time, a year, within which to bring their influence to bear. Then, at the end of 1887, we wrote to the Tibetan commander that unless he evacuted his position before March 15, 1888, he would be expelled by force. This letter was returned unopened. In February we wrote to the Dalai Lama himself to the same effect, but again we received no reply. It was only on March 20, 1888, that a British force assumed the offensive, and advanced upon the Tibetans in the position they had occupied within our frontier at Lengtu.
The Tibetans, for the time being, offered no resistance, and retired to Chumbi, on their own side of the frontier, and our troops occupied a position at Gnatong, on our side. Two months later, however, the Tibetans again showed truculence, and with 3,000 men attacked our camp at Gnatong. They were repulsed, and once more withdrew. But in September they, for the third time, advanced across our border, and in a single night, with that skill in building for which they are so remarkable, threw up a wall three miles long and from 3 to 4 feet high in a position just above Gnatong, and some miles within our border.
TIBETANS EXPELLED 49
This position General Graham attacked on the follow- ing day, and drove the Tibetans from it over the Jelap-la Pass, and in the ensuing days pursued them into the Chumbi Valley. But here again, in accordance with our principle of respecting Chinese susceptibilities, our troops did riot remain in Chumbi a single day, but returned at once to Gnatong. For two years now the Tibetans hadf been encroaching on our side of the frontier, but not for one day would we permit our troops to remain on the Tibetan side. Forbearance could scarcely go further than this, but yet it was to be still more strained on many a subsequent occasion.
CHAPTER V
THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
THE Chinese Amban, or Resident, at Lhasa now appeared upon the scene to effect a settlement, and during 1889 we endeavoured to have the frontier line properly fixed and our exclusive supremacy in Sikkim, which was recorded in well-known treaties, definitely recognized. We also wished, if possible, to have trade regulated. Considering that we had abandoned the proposed mission to Lhasa out of deference to Chinese and Tibetan susceptibilities, that the Tibetans had assumed the offensive, and that the Chinese had shown themselves utterly unable to control them, this was not an unreasonable expectation to hold. We made no demand for indemnity or for any accession of territory. We merely asked that the boundary and trade should be regulated. Yet a year of negotiation passed and no result was obtained, and the Government of India told the Chinese negotiators that they had decided " to close the Sikkim incident, so far as China is concerned, without insisting upon a specific agreement."
But now that the Indian Government, knowing that they could perfectly well hold their own up to their frontier, and finding that the Chinese were of little use in controlling events beyond it, were quite prepared to drop negotia- tions, the Chinese themselves came forward and pressed for their conclusion. This is an important point. It was now the Chinese who were pressing for an agreement. Further, and this is still more important, they stated that " China will be quite able to enforce in Tibet the terms of the treaty," and they asked the Government of India to depute officers to meet the Chinese Resident at Gnatong. For the agreement which was subsequently reached the
50
CHINESE DESIRE A TREATY 51
Chinese are therefore in the fullest sense responsible. They had themselves sought it, and they had themselves undertaken to control the affairs of the Tibetans.
Agreement was eventually reached in 1890, and a Con- vention was signed by Lord Lansdowne and the Chinese Resident in Calcutta on March 17. It laid down that " the boundary of Sikkim and Tibet shall be the crest of the mountain range separating the waters flowing into the Sikkim Teesta, and the affluents from the waters flowing into the Tibetan Mochu, and northwards into other rivers of Tibet." It admitted the British protectorate over the Sikkim State. By it both the Chinese and British Governments engaged "reciprocally to respect the boundary as defined in Article I., and to prevent acts of aggression from their respective sides of the frontier." The three questions of providing increased facilities for trade, of pasturage, and of the method in which official communications between the British authorities in India and the authorities in Tibet should be conducted were reserved for discussion by joint Commissioners from either side, who should meet within six months of the ratifica- tion of the Convention.
This Convention proved in practice to be of not the slightest use, for the Tibetans never recognized it, and the Chinese were totally unable to impress them. But it was at least a start towards effecting our ultimate object of regularizing our intercourse with Tibet, and for another three years we solemnly occupied ourselves in discussing the three reserved points ; the Chinese Resident, Sheng, being himself the joint Commissioner on the side of the Chinese, and Mr. A. W. Paul representing the British Government.
Our principal aim was to get some mart recognized, to which our merchants could resort and there meet Tibetan merchants. We did not attempt to gain permission for our traders to travel all over Tibet, as Tibetan traders can travel all over India. We merely sought to have one single place recognized where Indian and Tibetan traders could meet to do business with each other. And the place we sought to get so recognized was not in the centre
52 THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
of Tibet, or even in Tibet proper at all. It did not lie on the far side of the Himalayan watershed. It was Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley, on the southern side of the main Himalayan range. Yet to even this the Chinese and Tibetans would not agree, and eventually Yatung, at the extreme southern end of the Chumbi Valley and immediately on our border, was agreed upon.
Having made this concession, and having refrained from pressing for permission to allow British subjects to travel beyond this or to buy land and build houses there, we had hoped that the Chinese would meet our wishes in regard to the admission of tea. Speakers in Parliament scoffed at the idea of pressing tea upon the Chinese, but for the Bengal Government it is an important point. All along the low hills bordering Tibet there are numerous tea-plantations, affording both an outlet for British and Indian capital and employment for many thousands of Indian labourers. To a responsible local Government it is of importance to encourage and foster this industry. Now, just across the frontier are three millions of tea- drinkers. Tea is just the kind of light, portable com- modity most suited for transit across mountains, and it was perfectly natural, reasonable, and right that the Bengal Government should press for its admission to Tibet, that the Tibetans might at least have the chance of buying it or not, as they pleased. But the Chinese, in spite of concessions in other matters by the Government of India, remained obstinate, and still remain obstinate, in regard to the admission of tea, and eventually only agreed to admit Indian tea into Tibet "at a rate of duty not exceeding that at which Chinese tea is imported into England," which, as the latter rate of duty is 6d. per pound, and the tea drunk in Tibet is very inferior, was in reality the imposition of an ad valorem duty of from 150 to 200 per cent., and was therefore a concession of not the slightest value.
On December 5, 1893, the Trade Regulations were signed at Darjiling. The trade-mart at Yatung was to
TRADE REGULATIONS SIGNED 53
" be open for all British subjects for purposes of trade from the first day of May, 1894," and the Government were to be " free to send officers to reside at Yatung to watch the conditions of British trade." British subjects were not at liberty to buy land and build houses for themselves, but were to be free " to rent houses and godowns (stores) for their own accommodation and for the storage of their goods," and "to sell their goods to whomsoever they please, to purchase native commodities in kind or in money, to hire transport of any kind, and, in general, to conduct their business without any vexatious restrictions." Goods other than arms, liquors, and others specified, were to be " exempt from duty for a period of five years " ; but after that, if found desirable, a tariff might be " mutually agreed upon and enforced." The Political Officer in Sikkim and the Chinese Frontier Officer in conference were to settle any trade disputes arising.
No arrangements for communication between British and Tibetan officials were made, but it was laid down that despatches from the Government of India to the Chinese Resident should be handed over by the Political Officer in Sikkim to the Chinese Frontier Officer.
And as to grazing, it was agreed that at the end of one year such Tibetans as continued to graze their cattle in Sikkim should be subject to such regulations as the British Government might lay down.
May 1, 1894, had been fixed as the date upon which the trade-mart at Yatung was to be opened, and at the appointed time Mr. Claude White, the Political Officer in Sikkim, was sent to visit Yatung, to attend the opening of the mart, and to report on the general situation as regards trade. He was instructed not to raise the question of demarcating the frontier, but to undertake, if the subject was mooted by the Chinese officials, that their views and suggestions should be laid before the Government of India.
Mr. White, writing on June 9 from Yatung, reported that, in the first place, the site of the mart had been
54 THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
" exceedingly badly chosen." It will be remembered that it was chosen by the Tibetans, and simply accepted by us out of deference to their feelings. It was at the bottom of a narrow valley, shut in by steep hills, with no room for expansion. He further reported that the godowns (stores), or shops, built for the trade would answer the purpose of native shops, but were quite inadequate for the storage of goods or for the use of European merchants, and that the rent proposed was exorbitant, being Rs. 25 a month, when a fair rent would be from Rs. 4 to Rs. 5. He found the Tibetans most discourteous and obstructive, and he believed that the Lhasa authorities had issued orders that the free-trade clauses of the treaty were not to be carried out. The local official at Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley, charged 10 per cent, on all goods passing through Phari, both imports and exports ; and this action, in Mr. White's opinion, certainly did away with any freedom of trade, as provided for in the treaty, for it was obviously useless to have provided by treaty that Indian goods should be allowed to enter Tibet free of duty if a few miles inside the frontier, and on the only road into Tibet, a heavy duty was to be imposed upon them.
Mr. White also reported that the Chinese, though friendly to him, and apparently willing to help, had " no authority whatever." They admitted that the treaty was not being carried out in a proper spirit, and Mr. White gathered that the Tibetans actually repudiated it, and asserted that it was signed by the British Government and the Chinese, and therefore they had nothing to do with it. In any case, they maintained that they had a right to impose what taxes they chose at Phari so long as goods were allowed to pass Yatung free. The Chinese con- fessed that they were not able to manage the Tibetans. The Tibetans would not obey them, and the Chinese were afraid to give any orders. China was suzerain over Tibet only in name, was Mr. White's conclusion. Nego- tiation was, therefore, he said, most difficult, for though the Chinese agreed to any proposal, they were quite unable to answer for the Tibetans, and the Tibetans, when spoken to,
TIBETANS BREAK THE CONVENTION 55
either sheltered themselves behind the Chinese or said that they had no orders to give any answer for Lhasa, and could only report.
Mr. White's immediate superior, the Commissioner of the Rajshahi Division, agreed with him that the levying of a duty of 10 per cent, ad valorem at Phari was a clear breach of the main article of the Trade Convention. He contended that by Article IV. of the Regulations it is provided that goods entering Tibet for British India across the Sikkim- Tibet frontier, or vice versa, shall be exempt from duty for a period of five years, and that this meant a general exemption from all duties, wherever imposed, the place of realization being altogether irrelevant. He recommended, therefore, that this breach of the main article of the treaty, to which all the other provisions were ancillary, should be made the subject of a representation to the Chinese Government.
The Government of Bengal took the same view. They thought the levy of the duty at Phari undoubtedly seemed to be inconsistent with the terms of the treaty, which provided for free trade for a period of five years. And the Lieutenant-Governor felt that no time should be lost in making this matter the subject of a representation to the Government of China.
And in this view our Minister at Peking, Mr. (afterwards Sir Nicholas) O'Conor, Ambassador at St. Petersburg and Constantinople, thoroughly concurred, and suggested to the Viceroy that the imposition of a 10 per cent, ad valorem duty at Phari should be very strongly protested against as contrary to treaty stipulations.
The Government of India, however, " recognizing the necessity for extreme patience in dealing with the Tibetans, decided that it would be premature to make any formal complaint of their obstruct! veness."* They wrote to the Government of Bengal that " The information in regard to the levy of duty at Phari and to the obstructiveness of the Tibetans was certainly unsatisfactory, but the Regulations
* Blue-book, p. 24.
56 THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
only laid down that goods entering Tibet from British India across the Sikkim-Tibet frontier, or vice versa, shall be exempt, etc. Phari is a considerable distance from the frontier, and unless it could be shown that the duty to which Mr. White referred was a special one newly imposed it appeared doubtful whether the Government of India could enter a valid objection." " It has always been recognized," continues the despatch, " that the utmost patience is necessary in dealing with the Tibetans, and having regard to the short time which has elapsed since the date fixed for the opening of the Yatung mart, the Governor- General in Council would prefer to make nothing in the nature of a complaint to the Chinese Government at the present stage."*
The Viceroy, accordingly, merely wrote to the Amban that he had been sorry to learn from Mr. White's reports that he was disappointed at the existing conditions of trade between Tibet and Sikkim ; that it would seem that Mr. White was of opinion that trade was unduly hampered by the action of the Tibetan officials at Phari ; that His Excellency (the Amban) would be interested to hear the views which Mr. White had formed ; and that he, the Viceroy, was confident that traders will, under the Amban's directions, be allowed all the freedom and privi- leges permissible under the Regulations, and he hoped that before long they might be able to congratulate each other on successful trade development at Yatung. Certainly nothing could have been milder, more patient, and more forbearing — and also, as it proved, less effectual.
It was not only in trade matters that the Tibetans had shown a disregard of the treaty. In the matter of the frontier also they proved troublesome, and during his stay at Yatung Mr. White was informed that certain places in the north-east of Sikkim, and within the boundary laid down in the Convention of 1890, had recently been occupied by Tibetan soldiers. The Viceroy wrote to the Amban in August, ^99j pointing out that
* Blue-book, p. 31. x^0<^,,V\
TIBETANS CROSS TREATY-BOUNDARY 57
such incidents were not unlikely to occur as long as the frontier officials had no practical acquaintance with the actual border-line, and suggesting that it would probably be convenient to arrange that Frontier Officers should meet before long on the border and travel together along the boundary fixed by the Convention.
To this the Amban replied, in October, that the Tibetan Council raised objections to our officers " travel- ling along " the frontier, and were unable to agree that British officers should travel on the Tibetan side of the frontier, but that they considered the proposal to send officers to define the frontier was one with which it was proper to comply. The Amban had, accordingly, deputed a Chinese Major commanding the frontier troops, and the Tibetan Council had deputed a General and a Chief Steward, to proceed to the frontier to meet the officer appointed by the Viceroy, " there to inspect the border between Sikkim and Tibet as defined by the Convention, and to make a careful examination in order that boundary pillars might be erected, which shall be for ever respected by either side." In conclusion, the Amban asked to be informed what officer had been deputed by the Viceroy for this duty, and the date on which he would arrive on the frontier, in order that he might instruct the Chinese and Tibetan deputies " to proceed at the appointed time for the work of demarcation."
This seemed clear and business-like enough. Mr. White pointed out to Government that, with winter coming on, it would be impossible to commence demarcation before May the 1st in the following year, so there was plenty of time in which to make all preliminary arrangements. He also said that the Chinese deputy was an official whom he had met at Yatung, and who had been most courteous to him. And the Commissioner and Bengal Government agreed that the Tibetan objection to British officers travel- ling within the Tibetan borders might be respected, and that it would be sufficient to erect pillars at the passes, which could be approached from the Sikkim side. So the Viceroy replied, in December, that he thought a start should be made any time between May 1 and July 1 ; that
58 THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
Mr. White had been deputed for the purpose, and would meet the other deputies at whatever point on the frontier might be convenient ; and would be strictly enjoined not to travel on the Tibetan side of the boundary, as it would be sufficient if boundary pillars were erected at the passes which can be approached from the Sikkim side.
^ The Amban replied on January 13^189^) that he had
sent orders to the deputies " to hold themselves in readi-
V-^ ness to commence work at the time suggested by the
v- <;- Viceroy," and he suggested that the respective officers
k d^jshould " come together at Yatung, where they can decide
^ upon the best place for beginning operations, and where
** t^ the three parties (Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan) can
p v agree upon a date for starting together on the work of
demarcation."
Everything was then carefully and deliberately arranged, and there seemed good prospect of a settle- ment of the frontier ; but when, in the following May, Mr. White approached the frontier to meet the Chinese deputy, in accordance with an arrangement they had made between them, he was met by a letter, written by direction of the deputy, and stating that the Lamas were obstinate in their refusal to supply transport, and that he was much disturbed at his failure to keep his appointment, but had laid his difficulties before the Amban. On May 19 Mr. White and the Chinese Major met — a
, different one from the deputy originally appointed, for the latter had since died. He asked for more delay, but
^ Mr. White refused, as he had already been kept waiting
' with his escort at inclement altitudes, and Mr. White and he fixed the site of the pillar on the Jelap-la (pass), which is a spot where the site of the watershed forming the boundary, according to treaty, is quite unmistakable,
. as it runs along a very sharply- defined ridge. Mr. White erected a pillar here, and arranged with the Chinese deputy to meet him at another pass, the Dokala, on June 1, while Mr. White should in the interval erect a
TIBETANS REMOVE BOUNDARY PILLARS 59
pillar at the Donchukla, to be afterwards inspected by the Chinese.
At this time Mr. White also received a letter from the Amban, saying that a day for the beginning of the work having been decided upon, it was, of course, proper that a commencement should be made on that day, and he had already received the consent of the Tibetan State Council to that end. But the Lamas of the three great monas- teries, the Amban proceeded to explain, were still full of suspicion, and were pressing certain matters upon him, which made it necessary for him to enlighten them further.
He therefore requested Mr. White kindly to postpone commencing work for a time, in order to avoid trouble on this point. But Mr. White replied that his letter had arrived too late, as the work of demarcation had already commenced before its receipt, and he urged Government to grant no further delay, for the Chinese had had five years since the treaty was signed within which to settle with the Tibetans.
The Government of India, however, thought that no serious inconvenience had apparently arisen through the frontier being undemarcated, and that if the Chinese delegate failed to meet him at the Dokala on or about June 1, he should write to the Chinese Resident, explain- ing that he had proceeded so far under arrangements with the Chinese deputies at the Jelap-la ; but as they had not joined him, he wrould return to Gantok. He was further to ask the Resident whether work could be jointly pro- ceeded with that season, and giving latest dates for recommencement.
A few days later came the news that the pillar which Mr. White had erected on the Jelap-la had been de- molished by the Tibetans, and the stoneware slab on which the number of the pillar had been inscribed had been removed by them. And on June 11 Mr. White telegraphed that the pillar he had erected on the Donchuk-la had been wilfully damaged, and as this was an unfrequented pass he considered the outrage must be
60 THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
deliberate. He subsequently stated that the numbered slab here also had been taken away, and that the destruc- tion of the pillar was most probably the work of three Lamas sent from Lhasa to watch the proceedings of the Tibetan Commissioners at Yatung.
This was brought to the notice of the Chinese Resident by the Viceroy, and a reply was received that the Council of State had sent no orders for the destruction of the pillar, and that he had given orders that a strict examina- tion should be made into the affair, and the people who stole the slab from the pillar be severely punished. At the same time, the Amban suggested that the work of delimiting the frontier should be postponed " until after the expiry of the free period when the treaty was to be revised."
When informed of this proposal, our Minister at Peking stated his opinion that it would be best to be firm in the refusal of a postponement, and he solicited the Viceroy's authority to repeat to the Chinese Government what he had previously informed them, that, if obliged, the British Commissioner would proceed alone.
The Bengal Government also urged that Mr. White " should be authorized to proceed with his own men alone to lay down the boundary and set up pillars on the passes along the eastern frontier where no dispute was known to exist." But the Lieutenant- Governor was informed that the Government of India were not prepared to insist upon the early demarcation of the frontier, and directed that Mr. White should return to Gantok forthwith, or, at any, rate withdraw at once from the immediate neighbourhood of the border.
The Lieu tenant- Governor, Sir Charles Elliott, acknow- ledged that it was difficult for Mr. White to remain indefinitely in his camp on the frontier, but declared that it was impossible to disguise the fact that a return to Gantok practically meant the abandonment of the demar- cation. He believed that the authorities in Peking were anxious that the delimitation should continue without
SUGGESTED OCCUPATION OF CHUMBI 61
delay, but it was plain that the Amban at Lhasa was unable to give effect to the wishes of his Government in consequence of the opposition manifested by the Lamas, who exercised the real authority in Tibet. The contem- plated withdrawal of Mr. White to Gantok would un- doubtedly, he thought — and events proved him to be absolutely right — cause a loss of prestige, would be looked upon by the Tibetans as a rebuff to British authority, and would encourage them in high-handed acts and demands, and possibly outrages. He had no doubt that if the British Government had only to deal with Tibet, the wisest policy would be to give them warning that unless they at once made arrangements to co-operate in the work of delimitation it would be done without them, and that unless they appointed a ruler on their side who could protect the pillars set up, the British Government would march in and hold the Chumbi \ralley in pawn, either temporarily or permanently. Such a brusque and high- handed line of conduct, added the Lieutenant-Governor, was the only one that frontier tribes who have reached the stage of civilization of the Tibetans could understand. But the affair, he allowed, was complicated by the relations ofjj Government with China, and our desire to uphold th< weak and tottering authority of the Chinese in Lhasa, th< result of which was that the people who were in real power were not those we dealt with, and that the people we dealt with had no power to carry out their engage- ments with us. In the circumstances, Sir Charles Elliott advocated such negotiations with the Chinese Govern- ment as would leave the British Government free to march in and hold the Chumbi Valley, with their consent, and without any detriment to the Chinese suzerainty, but with the object of assisting them to establish their authority more firmly at Lhasa. At any rate, we ought, he considered, to intimate in a firm and friendly way to the Peking Government that either they must get their orders carried out or we must. He reminded the Government of India that nothing had been exacted as the result of the British victories at Lengtu and on the Jelap-la — not even compensation for the cost of the cam-
62 THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
paign — and he urged that we should now insist that we would protect our own interests if China could not carry out her engagements.*
These, in the light of future events, appear reasonable and sensible proposals ; but the Government of India, in pursuance of their policy of forbearance and moderation, would not accept them. They ordered Mr. AVhite definitely to return to Gantok. They noticed that the returns of trade between British territory and Tibet showed a marked increase, and they hoped that the continued exercise of moderation and patience would gradually remove Tibetan suspicions as to our aims and policy.
A few months after this was written, in November of 1895, Mr. Nolan, the Commissioner of Darjiling, an officer who had for many years been conversant with the Tibetan question, and who held civil charge of that division of Bengal which adjoins Sikkim and Bhutan, and who supervised our relations with those two States as well as our trade with Tibet, visited Yatung, and had conver- sations with Chinese and Tibetan local officials. His report of the state of affairs there is one of the most inter- esting published, t He found that the imposition of the 10 per cent, duty at Phari was no new exaction, but had existed for a long time. He found, also, that the reason the Tibetans did not meet Mr. White in the previous summer to delimit the boundary was that they wished the general line of the frontier should be agreed upon, in the first instance, with reference to maps, and the ground visited only after this was done. But he found, too, that the Tibetans repudiated the treaty. The " Chief Steward," the sole Commissioner on the part of the Tibetan Government for reporting on the frontier matter, "made the important statement that the Tibetans did not consider themselves bound by the Convention with China, as they were not a party to it." He reported further, that the Tibetans had prevented the formation of a mart
* Blue-book, p. 44. t Ibid., p. 54.
FEEBLE CHINESE INFLUENCE 63
by building a wall across the valley on the farther side of Yatung, by efficiently guarding this and by prohibiting their traders from passing through. Mr. Korb, a wool merchant from Bengal, had come to Yatung to purchase wool from some of his correspondents on the Tibetan side, who had invited him thither ; but the Tibetans prevented his correspondents from coming to do business with him. Tibetan merchants were similarly prevented from seeing Mr. Nolan.
Mr. Nolan's conclusion was that, even though the duty which was collected at Phari was neither special nor newly imposed, yet exaction was inconsistent with the treaty provision that trade with India should be exempt from taxation ; and also that the first clause in the Trade Regulations, providing that " a trade-mart shall be established at Yatung," which " shall be open to all British subjects for the purposes of trade," had not been carried into effect.
The failure to carry out the treaty he attributed entirely to the Tibetans. He was quite satisfied that the Chinese officials in Tibet, whatever might have been their prepossessions in favour of the policy of seclusion, then sincerely desired to see the Convention carried out, being afraid that they would be disgraced by their own Govern- ment if it were not. The Tibetans were the real as well as the ostensible opponents. And Mr. Nolan believed their true motives in opposing the treaty were correctly expressed by a monk, who said that if the English entered Tibet, his bowl would be broken, meaning that the influence of his Order would be destroyed, and its wealth, typified by the collection of food made from door to door in bowls, would be lost. And this opposition on the part of the Lamas the Chinese had not the means of overcoming. They certainly had an acknowledged social superiority, and they were feared to a certain extent on account of their power to send an army through the Himalayas, as they had done on several occasions with surprising success. On the other hand, their present forces in Tibet were ridicu- lously small, and from Yatung to Gyantse they only had 140 soldiers, and at Lhasa only a few hundreds, while
64 THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
the monks at Lhasa numbered 19,100, of whom 1(5,500 were concentrated in three great monasteries, and they were vigorous arid formidable in a riot, having attacked the Chinese in 1810 and 1844 and the Nepalese in 1888.
Mr. Nolan, with his long experience on this frontier, had, as events have shown, most accurately gauged the situation. The Lieutenant- Governor, Sir Charles Elliott, considered that his report showed that the improvement hoped for from conciliation and forbearance had not taken place in the two seasons during which the mart had nominally been opened, and by the systematic obstruction of the Tibetans the object of the treaty with China had been frustrated. He therefore renewed his recommendation that a diplomatic reference should be made to China, pointing out how completely the Tibetans had violated the spirit of the treaty and Trade Regulations, and had refused to be bound by their terms.
But the Government of India again replied that they wished to pursue a policy of conciliation, and did not wish to make any serious representations to the Chinese Government. They repeated that trade had increased, and as regards demarcation of the frontier, they understood from a further report of Mr. Nolan's that the Tibetans claimed a strip of territory near Giagong, in the north of Sikkim, and these claims the Government of India con- sidered it would not only be impolitic but inequitable to ignore. The Viceroy therefore wrote to the Chinese Resident, suggesting that Chinese and Tibetan delegates should be sent to Gantok, the capital of Sikkim, to meet Mr. White there, and proceed with him to Giagong to make a local inquiry, but that no actual demarcation should take place until the reports of the results of the inquiry had taken place.
And so the game rolled on, and nothing whatever resulted. The Chinese Resident was superseded, and the Chinese asked that action should be deferred till the new one arrived. The new Resident came, and wrote that the Tibetans are " naturally doltish, and prone to doubts
RESULT OF FIVE YEARS' EXPERIENCE 65
and misgivings," and it would be best therefore that they should " personally inspect the line of demarcation men- tioned in the treaty," though a Tibetan representative had been with the Chinese Amban when the Convention was made, and had ample opportunity during the years that agreement took in negotiating to inspect and to give the views of his Government upon it. And so it resulted that when, at the conclusion of five years from the signing of the Trade Regulations, the Secretary of State asked the Government of India for " a full report, both on the progress made since the date of that agreement towards the settlement of the frontier, and on the extent to which the trade stipulations of the treaty and Convention had been operative," the Bengal Government had to reply* that the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet, as laid down in Article I. of the Convention, had not yet been demarcated, owing to the refusal of the Tibetans to abide by the terms of the Convention, and to their claiming a tract of land to the north of Donkya-la, Giagong, and the Lonakh Valley ; and that the trade stipulations contained in the Regulations, had been inoperative. The Tibetans had prevented Yatung becoming a real trade-mart ; abso- lutely no business was transacted there, and it was merely a registering post for goods passing between Tibet and India, and the proclamation of the place as a mart had in no way influenced the trade between the two countries, for what small increase there was appeared to be mainly due to, and might have been expected from, the restora- tion of peace between the British Government and Tibet. This was the net result of the policy of conciliation and forbearance towards the Tibetans and of reliance on the Chinese Central Government, which had been pursued from 1873.
* Blue-book, p. 92.
5
CHAPTER VI
SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS
Now that fiye^years had elapsed since the Trade Regula- tions were concluded, and they were, according to their provisions, subject to revision, the Government of India began to consider any practical measures for securing fuller facilities for trade. The Convention of 1890 and the Trade Regulations of 1893 were intended to provide these facilities, but so far none had been obtained ; and the Indian Government thought that, as the Tibetans attached great importance to retaining the Giagong piece of territory in Northern Sikkim, and as we had no real desire to hold it, there might be advantage in conceding that point if the Tibetans would, on their side, make some equivalent concession. They might, it was thought, con- cede to us the point for which we had contended when negotiating the Trade Regulations, and recognize Phari as the trade-mart in place of the quite useless Yatung. Lord Salisbury* agreed that some action was necessary, but it seemed to him that, as during recent years Chinese advisory authority in Tibet had been little more than nominal, and the correspondence of the Government of India even seemed to show that it was practically non- existent, it would be preferable to open direct communica- tion between the Government of India and the Tibetan authorities.
Lord Curzon therefore commenced, in the autumn of 1899, a series of attempts to open up direct communica- fion^with them. Ugyen Ka"zi, the Bhutanese Agent in Darjiling, who was accustomed to visit Tibet for trade
* Blue-book, p. 101. 66
VICEROY'S LETTERS DECLINED 67
purposes, was first employed to write a letter on his own behalf to the Dalai Lama, suggesting, in general terms, that a high Tibetan official should be sent to discuss the frontier and trade questions. This letter met with an unfavourable response. Captain Kennion, the Assistant to the Resident in Kashmir, who annually visits Leh and the Western Tibet frontier, was then charged with a letter from the Viceroy to the Dalai Lama, which he was to give to the Tibetan officials in Gartok ; but six months after this was returned to Captain Kennion, with the intimation that the officials had not dared, in the face of the regulations against the intrusion of foreigners into Tibet, to send it to Lhasa. These two methods having failed, Ugyen Kazi was entrusted with another letter from the Viceroy to the Dalai Lama, which he was himself to present at Lhasa. In August, 1901, he returned from Lhasa, reporting that the Dalai Lama declined to reply to it, stating as his reason that the matter was not one for him to settle, but must be discussed fully in Council with the Amban, the Ministers, and the Lamas, and the letter was brought back with the seal intact.
A factor of determining importance now suddenly thrust itself into the situation. At the very time when the Vice- roy was making these fruitless efforts to enter into direct communication with the Dalai Lama came the information that this exclusive personage had been sending an Envoy to the Czar. Our Ambassador at St. Petersburg forwarded to the Foreign Office an announcement in the official column of the Journal de Saint Pdershourg of October 2 (15), 1900, announcing the reception by His Majesty the Emperor of a certain DorjiefF, who was described as first Tsanit Hamba to the Dalai Lama of Tibet. And, some months later, our Consul- Genera] at Odessa forwarded to the Foreign Office an extract from the Odessa Novosti of June 12 (25), 1901, stating that Odessa would welcome that day an Extraordinary Mission from the Dalai Lama of Tibet, which was proceeding to St. Petersburg with diplomatic instructions of importance. At the head of
*
68 SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS
the mission was the Lama, Dorzhievy (Dorjieff), and its chief object was a rapprochement and the strengthening of good relations with Russia. It was said to have been equipped by the Dalai Lama, and despatched with auto- graph letters and presents from him to His Imperial Majesty. And, among other things, it was to raise the question of the establishment in St. Petersburg of a per- manent Tibetan Mission for the maintenance of good relations with Russia.
This Dorjieff, it appeared from an article in the Novoe Tremya of June 18 (July 1), 1901, was a Russian subject, who had grown up and received his education on Russian soil. He was by birth a Buriat of Chovinskaia (in the province of Verchnyudinsk, in Trans-Baikalia, Eastern Siberia), and was brought up in the province of Azochozki. He had settled in Tibet twenty years before his present visit to Russia. " This reappearance of the Tibet Mission in Russia proved," said the Novoe Jeremy a. " that the favourable impressions carried back by Dorjieff to his home from his previous mission have confirmed the Dalai Lama in his intention of contracting the friendliest rela- tions with Russia. ... A rapprochement with Russia must seem to him [the Dalai Lama] the most natural step, as Russia is the only Power able to frustrate the intrigues of Great Britain,"
Count Lamsdorff, however, in conversation with the British Ambassador* on July 3, 1901, characterized "as ridiculous and utterly unfounded the conclusion drawn in certain organs of the Russian press, that these Tibetan visitors were charged with any diplomatic mission." He said Dorjieff was a Mongolian Buriat of Russian origin, who came occasionally to Russia with the object, he believed, of making money collections for his Order from the numerous Buddhists in the Russian Empire. Count Lamsdorff added that on the occasion of Dorjieff's visit in the previous autumn to Yalta, the Emperor had received him, and he himself had had an opportunity of learning some interesting details from him of life in Tibet ; the Russian Geographical Society also took an interest in his
* Blue-book, p. 166.
DALAI LAMA'S MISSION TO RUSSIA 69
visit, which had, however, no official character whatever, although he was accompanied on this visit by other Tibetans.
But, in spite of this declaimer, Dorjieff was still styled an Envoy Extraordinary, and the Messager Offidel of June 25 (July 8, 1901) had the announcement that his Majesty the Emperor had received on June 23, in the Grand Palace at Peterhof, the Envoy Extraordinary from the Dalai Lama of Tibet. And as the Russian press announced that the Envoys had paid visits^to Count LamsdorfF and M. Witte, Sir Charles Scott, the British Ambassador, took an opportunity at an interview with Count LamsdorfF of ascertaining some further particulars.* The latter said that, although the Tibetan visitors had been described as Envoys Extraordinary of the Dalai Lama, their mission could not be regarded as having any political or diplomatic character. The mission was of the same character as those sent by the Pope to the faithful in foreign lands. Dorjieff had some post of confidence in the Dalai Lama's service, but Count Lamsdorff believed that he still maintained his original Russian nationality. He had brought the Count an autograph letter from the Dalai Lama, but this letter merely expressed a hope that Count Lamsdorff was in the enjoyment of good health and was prosperous, and informed him that the Dalai was able to say that he himself enjoyed excellent health.
These proceedings naturally enough attracted the attention of the Secretary of State for India, who on July 25 pointed out to the Foreign Office t that the Dalai Lama had recently refused to receive the communications^ addressed to him by the Viceroy, and that while the\ Viceroy was thus treated with discourtesy a mission was J publicly sent to Russia, and the publicity given to the I Tibetan Mission which had recently arrived in St. Peters-/ burg could not fail to engender some disquietude in the/ minds of the Indian Government as to the object and/ result of any negotiations which might ensue. The Secretary of State for India suggested, therefore, that our Ambassador should be instructed to inform Count
* Blue-book, p. 117. t Ibid., p. 123.
70 SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS
Lamsdorff we had received his assurance with satisfaction, as any proceedings that might have a tendency to alter or disturb the existing status of Tibet, would be a movement in which His Majesty's Government could not acquiesce. This suggestion was adopted, and on September 2, 1901, our Ambassador informed Count Lamsdorff that His Majesty's Government would naturally not regard with indifference any proceedings that might have a tendency to alter or disturb the existing status in Tibet. The Russian Minister repeated his assertion that " the mission was chiefly concerned with matters of religion, and had iicj political or diplomatic object or character."
For the time being the Government of India itself took no action in regard to this new factor, though in concluding a despatch to the Secretary of State on February 18 of the following year (1902) they declared that it was desirable that the unsatisfactory situation in Tibet should be brought to an end with as little delay and commotion as possible, since there were factors in the case which, at a later date, might invest the breakdown of the unnatural barriers of Tibetan isolation with a wider and more serious significance.
They continued to plod steadily along at the settle- ment of the frontier, and corresponded with the Secretary of State and the Bengal Chamber of Commerce about the introduction of tea to Tibet now that the five years, during which it was to be excluded had expired. But they acted with much more decision than previously, and instead of waiting year after year for the arrival of Chinese or Tibetan deputies to meet our representatives, they sent Mr. White, in the summer of 1902, to Giagong, to reassert British rights to the tract of country which the Tibetans had been occupying in contravention of the treaty of 1890, and, if necessary, to expel them from the British side of the frontier. Mr. White had suggested that an effective and simple way would be to occupy the Chumbi Valley, but the Government of India, though they considered grounds for strong action were far from
TIBETANS EXPELLED ACROSS BORDER 71
lacking, were not for the time in favour of such a proposal. And another alternative of stopping all Tibetan trade they thought would be hard on our own traders, and might drive trade permanently away to Nepal and Bhutan. They accordingly adopted the above-mentioned course.
Mr. White went to Giagong on June 26, 1902, with 200 men, and camped half a mile from the Tibetan wall, where the Khamba Jongpen and 40 men were stationed. He gave them twenty-four hours' notice in which to move to the other side of the boundary. On the following morning, after some protests, the Tibetans removed across the boundary. On July 4 a number of Tibetan officials visited him, and said they had come under instructions from the Tashi Lama to show him the Giagong boundary. Mr. White told them that his orders were to lay down the boundary as shown in the Convention of 1890, which had been signed by the Chinese Amban on behalf of the Tibetans. To which they replied that they had heard of the treaty, but that it was invalid, as it had not* been signed by any Tibetan. The Tibetans, however, asked for a copy of the treaty and for the names of the passes, and Mr. White told them they could see for themselves if the water ran into the Sikkim Valley or into Tibet, and where the water parted into Sikkim and Tibet was the boundary. He found on the tract 6,270 sheep, 737 yaks, out of which only 1,143 sheep and 80 yaks belonged to the Sikkimese, and the remainder were Tibetan. Near the top of the Naku La he found a Tibetan wall running across the valley, with a blockhouse on the east.
The immediate consequence of this action was, that at the end of July the Viceroy received a letter from the Chinese Resident at Lhasa, asking for an explanation of the object and reasons of Mr. White's proceedings, and saying that he had appointed Mr. Ho Kuang-Hsi to proceed to Giagong, and had further arranged with the Dalai Lama for the despatch of a Tibetan official to act conjointly with Mr. Ho in any discussion with Mr. White which should arise.
The Viceroy, in reply, wrote to say that the object
72 SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS
of the journey from which Mr. White had recently returned was to inspect the boundary as laid down in the Convention of 1890, and to compel the withdrawal from Sikkim territory of any troops which the Tibetans might have established in violation of that Convention. He reminded the Chinese Resident that he had offered to make concessions with respect to these frontier lands, on the understanding that matters as to trade would be put on a proper footing. But Lord Curzon pointed out that the negotiations for the improvement of trade relations between India and Tibet had made no real progress during the past twelve years. In these circumstances, he had no alternative but to compel the observance of the boundary as prescribed by the Convention ; and until matters as to trade had been placed on a satisfactory footing, he must continue to insist on the boundary being observed, though any proposals which the Chinese , Resident would make for the improvement of trade relations would receive careful consideration, and Mr. (White had been instructed to discuss with the Com- tissioners appointed by the Amban any suggestions which :hey might put forward.
As a fact, the Commissioner never did meet Mr. White. Mr. Ho was prevented by " ill-health " from pro- ceeding to Gantok. Then he was recalled to Lhasa. Then the Chinese Resident himself was to be replaced, and the new one would not reach Lhasa till the following summer. And so on, with the usual and unfailing excellent reasons for doing nothing.
But, in the meanwhile, the new factor in the situation was assuming significant proportions and causing the Government of India anxiety. I have already related how the Dalai Lama was sending missions to the Czar, with autograph letters to the Russian Chancellor, at the very moment when he was declining all communications from the Viceroy of India. And now, from a totally different quarter, came rumours that China was making a secret agreement with Russia in regard to Tibet.
RUMOURED RUSSIAN AGREEMENT 73
Our Minister at Peking, on August 2, 1902, tele- graphed* to Lord Lansdowne that there had been going the rounds of the press an agreement in regard to Tibet, alleged to have been secretly made between Russia and China. In return for a promise to uphold the integrity of China, the entire interest of China in Tibet was to be relinquished to Russia. This rumour, said our Minister, seemed to have originated in a Chinese paper published in Satow. Fuller information was sent by letter. According to this, among other things, Russia would establish Government officers in Tibet to control Tibetan affairs.
On Sir Ernest Satow making, in accordance with Lord Lansdowne 's instructions, a representation to the Chinese Foreign Board about this, the President of the Board strongly denied that there was any such agree- ment, and declared that no such arrangement had ever formed a subject of discussion between the Chinese and Russian Governments. But the rumour seems to have had a wide prevalence and to have been regarded seriously, for our Ambassador at St. Petersburg reported in October that the Chinese Minister there had told him that several of his colleagues had been making inquiries from him respecting this pretended agreement, which had appeared in several Continental as well as Russian news- papers, and which he, the Chinese Minister, had first seen in the Chinese newspapers. The Government of India; also, reported to the Secretary of State that circum- stantial evidence, derived from a variety of quarters, all pointed in the same direction, and tended to show the existence of an arrangement of some sort between Russia and Tibet.
It may be asked — and, indeed, it was asked — why the Government of India should have been so nervous about Russian action in Tibet. The Russian Government had said that the mission which the Dalai Lama had sent to St. Petersburg was of a " religious " nature, and the Chinese Foreign Board had said there was no agreement
* Blue-book, p. 140.
74 SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS
with Russia about Tibet. Why not, then, have disre- garded these idle rumours ? Such lofty disregard is easy for irresponsible persons at a comfortable distance in England to display. But the responsible Government in India cannot dismiss such rumours with so light a heart. Russia might not have had any agreement about Tibet, and the Tibetan Mission might have been purely religious ; but that she was extremely interested in Tibet was unquestionable. She had for years been sending semi-official, semi-scientific expeditions into the country. These had always reported on the richness of Tibet in regard to gold, and the desirability of getting concessions there. There was at the very moment one of these expeditions with an armed escort in Tibet. Apart from this, the interest of Russiain Tibet was thoroughly natural. The Dalai Lama was regarded with superstitious reverence by many thousands of Russian Asiatic subjects. Moreover, at that time it was generally looked upon as inevitable that Russia would shortly absorb Mongolia, and all Mongols look upon the Dalai Lama as a god. It was, indeed, because of his immense influence over the Mongols that the Chinese had for centuries, and at great cost to themselves, secured and maintained a dominant influence in Lhasa. It is easy to understand, therefore, that the Russians would be glad enough of any opportunity of gaining an influence with the Dalai Lama. The mission of the latter to the Czar might, as the Russian Chancellor said, be mainly religious, and similar to missions which the Pope sends out. But even in Europe it is often difficult to distinguish between religion and politics, and in Asia the two are almost indis- tinguishable. A religious understanding between the Dalai Lama and the Czar might by the former be regarded as a political agreement. And whatever might have been the intentions of the Russian Government at the time, they might on some subsequent occasion have sent a mission to Lhasa, as they had sent a mission to Kabul in 1879 and caused an Afghan War.
Even so, why should we trouble ? What possible harm could a few Russians do in Lhasa ? Russia might
RUSSIAN DANGER TO INDIA 75
invade India through Afghanistan, but she could never invade India across Tibet and over the Himalayas. Why, then, should we be so touchy about her action there ? Why not let her send as many missions and officers as she liked ? This also seems a broad-minded attitude, such as a platform orator in the heart of England might safely take up. But, again, it was not so easy for those away on the frontier of the Empire, with immediate responsibilities on their shoulders, to feel so complacent. If Russia had been the friend she is now, and if our influence in Lhasa had been unmistakable, it would have been easier to take such a view, and it is, indeed, in my opinion, the right view now to take. But in 1902 she was still on the crest of a great advancing wave of expansion. She had not yet been checked by Japan. She had spread over Manchuria with startling rapidity. Where, at the time of my journey there with Sir Evan James, no Russian had ever been seen, there were now Russian railways and Russian can- tonments. She had expanded in Western Turkestan and annexed the Pamirs, and it was generally looked upon only as a matter of time before she would absorb Chinese Turkestan and Mongolia. If, then, we complacently, and without a protest, allowed her to establish herself in Tibet, we could hardly expect those States dependent on us and bordering Tibet to think otherwise than that this was the real Power in Asia, and this, therefore, the Power to look up to.
A full-dress Russian invasion of India, through Tibet, no responsible person ever dreamed possible. But, without a real invasion, Russia established in Lhasa, while we were unrepresented there, could cause Government a great deal of anxiety. In practical detail it would mean the increase of our army on the North- East frontier by several thousand men.
It was obviously prudent, therefore, to prevent her acquiring a more predominant influence than our own in Tibet. While it was quite natural that she should be glad to have an influence at Lhasa, it was still more natural that we should be jealous of her having more influence than we had. For, while our border was contiguous with
76 SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS
Tibet for 1,000 miles, from Kashmir nearly to Burma, the Russian border nowhere touched or even approached Tibet. The whole breadth of Chinese Turkestan lay in between the Russian frontier and the nearest frontier of Tibet, and Lhasa itself was 1,000 miles distant from the nearest point on the Russian frontier. To appreciate the position, let the reader draw out the map at the end of this volume. /^
The Government of India, accordingly, recommended prompt action. / The attempts to negotiate an under- standing with the Tibetans through the Chinese had proved a failure. It had been found impossible to open up direct communications with the Tibetans. The result of the exclusion of the Tibetans from the pasture lands at Giagong, though it had materially improved our position on the border, was not in effect more than a timely assertion of British authority upon the spot. These different rumours from such varied sources tending, in the opinion of the Government of India, to indicate the existence of some kind of an arrangement between Russia and Tibet, necessitated dealing with the situation far more drastically and decisively than it had ever been dealt with before. Continuously since 1873 the Government of India had been trying by every correct and reasonable method to regularize their intercourse with Tibet. Their patience was now exhausted, and, instead of trifling about on the frontier with petty Chinese or Tibetan officials, they proposed, in the very important despatch of January 8, 1903,* to send a mission, with an armed escort, to Lhasa itself, there to settle our future relations with Tibet, and to permanently establish a British representative.
This proposal, when it reached England, seems to have caused considerable surprise. But Warren Hastings, a century - before, had meant to do this very thing; and the Russians had a Consular representative in Chinese Turkestan alongside their frontier, so there seemed no particular reason why we should not have had a similar representative in Tibet alongside our frontier. The risk had to be considered, it is true, but why the case of
* Blue-book, p. 152.
PROPOSED MISSION TO LHASA 77
Cavagnari's murder at Kabul should be everlastingly brought up as an argument against sending an officer outside our frontier it is difficult to understand. It is ignoble to the last degree to be scared for all time by what happened then. Cavagnari was murdered. What then ? I agree with my old chief and first master in Central Asian politics, Sir Charles Macgregor, that if our agent A was murdered we should have sent up B, and if B was murdered we should have sent up C. Our whole Afghan policy for thirty years past has been frightfully ignominious, and the day will come when we shall bitterly regret not having had an agent at the capital of a country for whose foreign policy we are responsible. At any rate, the fact of barbarian Afghans murdering our representative at Kabul in 1879 was no adequate reason for not sending a representative to Lhasa in 1903.
These, however, are merely my own views. / The contention of the Government of India was that, in suggesting a mission to Lhasa, they were merely reviving a proposal which had been supported as far back as 1874 by Sir T. Wade, then British Minister at Peking, arid which was almost taking definite shape in 1885-86, when the importance of a Burmese settlement appears to have so impressed itself upon all parties that the Lhasa Mission was sacrificed in order that the signature of the Chinese Government to the Burmese Convention might be obtained. The Government of India considered it a grave misfortune that they should have been diverted from a project of unquestionable importance by the exigencies of political considerations that had not the remotest con- nection with Tibet. They recommended, therefore, the revival of this precedent, and the firm pursuance of the policy which was then abandoned.
The Government of India regarded the so-called suzerainty of China over Tibet as a constitutional fiction. China was always ready to break down the barriers of ignorance and obstruction and to open Tibet to the civilizing influence of trade, but her pious wishes were defeated by the short-sighted stupidity of the Lamas. In the same way Tibet was only too anxious to meet our
78 SECURING THE TREATY RIGHTS
advances, but she was prevented from doing so by the despotic veto of the suzerain. The Government of India wished to put an end to this " solemn farce," and would have preferred to deal with Tibet alone. But they recognized that China could not be entirely disregarded, and only asked that, if the Home Government trusted to the interposition of China, this might be accompanied by a resolute refusal to be defeated by the time-honoured procedure, and that if and when a new treaty was concluded, it should not be signed by the British and Chinese alone, but by a direct representative of the Tibetan Government also.
At the same time, said the Government of India, the most emphatic assurances might be given to the Chinese and Tibetan Governments that the mission w^as of an exclusively commercial character, that we repudiated all designs of a political nature upon Tibet, that we had no desire either to declare a protectorate or permanently to occupy any portion of the country, but that our intentions were confined to removing the embargo that then rested upon all trade between Tibet and India, and to establishing those amicable relations and means of communication that ought to subsist between adjacent and friendly Powers.
These proposals the Government of India commended to the favourable consideration of His Majesty's Govern- ment, in the firm conviction that if some such step were not taken, "a serious danger would grow up in Tibet, which might one day, and perhaps at no very distant date, attain to menacing dimensions." They regarded the situation, as it seriously affected the frontiers which they were called upon to defend with Indian resources, as one in which their opinion was entitled to carry weight with His Majesty's Government ; and they entertained a sincere alarm that, if nothing was done and matters were allowed to slide, they might before long have occasion gravely to regret that action was not taken while it was still relatively free from difficulty.
CHAPTER VII
NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA
I WOULD again recall the fact that when the Government of India wrote the above-quoted despatch, Russia was not yet at war with Japan, and was very much in the ascendant and active in Asia. She had recently occupied Port Arthur, and run a railway through Manchuria ; and she was in a dominant, almost domineering, position at Peking. And as showing the interest she took in Tibet, there came, just after the receipt by the India Office of Lord Curzon's despatch, a representation from the Russian Charge d'Affaires in London, founded apparently upon our very humble efforts of the previous summer within our own frontier. In this representation, which was made in the form of a memorandum* communicated to the Foreign Office, it was stated that, according to the infor- mation which the Russian Government had received from an authoritative source, a British military expedition had reached Komba-Ovaleko, on its way north by the Chumbi Valley, and that the Russian Government would consider such an expedition to Tibet as likely to produce a situation of considerable gravity, which might oblige them to take measures to protect their interests in those regions.
It was impossible to trace what place was intended by Komba-Ovaleko. Mr. White and his little escort of 150 men had never gone outside the limits of Sikkim, and had long since returned to their headquarters. There was no difficulty, then, in giving the Russian Ambassador the assurance that this " authoritative " information was without the smallest foundation. And Lord Lansdowne went further than merely refuting the false information.
* Blue-book, p. 178. 79
80 NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA
He told the Ambassador^ that the language of the com- munication had seemed to him unusual, and, indeed, almost minatory in tone. He referred especially to the state- ment that the Imperial Government might, in consequence of our action in a country which immediately adjoined the frontiers of India, find it necessary to take measures to protect Russian interests in those regions. Lord Lans- downe said he could not conceive why it was necessary for Russia to evince her interest in this manner.
Count Benckendorff expressed his opinion that these exaggerated rumours had been spread designedly in order to foster ill-feeling between Great Britain and Russia, and thought we should spare no pains in order to dissipate them. There was, he said, no reason whatever why the two Governments should have trouble over Tibet. Russia had no political designs upon the country, and he presumed we had not.
Lord Lansdowne replied that if he was invited to say that we had no desire to annex Tibetan territory, he would unhesitatingly answer in the affirmative, but he was bound to be careful how he gave general assurances, the import of which might hereafter be called in question, as to our future relations with Tibet. It was natural that the Indian Government should desire to promote Indian trade in that country, and they would no doubt take whatever measures seemed to them necessary for that purpose. The Ambassador admitted that this was only natural.
s/^& few days later, on February 18, Lord Lansdowne, in a further conversation with the Russian Ambassador, recurred to the same subject. f He said that the Indian Government had been seriously perturbed by the com- munication made to the Foreign Office. The interest of India in Tibet was, Lord Lansdowne said, of a very special character. With a map of Central Asia before him, he pointed out to the Ambassador that Lhasa \yas within a comparatively short distance of the Indian frontier, while, on the other hand, it was considerably over 1,000 miles from the Asiatic possessions of Russia, and
* Blue-book, p. 180. t Ibid., p. 181.
RUSSIAN PROTESTS 81
any sudden display of Russian interest or activity in the regions immediately adjoining the possessions of Great Britain could scarcely fail to have a disturbing effect upon the population, or to create the impression that British influence was receding, and that of Russia making rapid advances into regions which had hitherto been regarded as altogether outside her sphere of influence.
Lord Lansdowne added that he had received from apparently trustworthy sources reports to the effect that Russia had lately concluded agreements for the establish- ment of a Russian protectorate over Tibet, and also that, if she had not already done so, she intended to establish Russian agents or Consular officers at Lhasa, and he thought it of the utmost importance that as the Ambas- sador had disclaimed on the part of Russia political designs upon Tibet, he should be in a position to state whether these rumours were or were not without foundation.
Count BenckendorfF replied that he did not believe that there was any foundation in them, but he expressed his readiness to make special inquiries of the Russian Government as to the truth of the statements referred to.
Lord Lansdowne then went on to say that as we were much more closely interested than Russia in Tibet, it followed that, should there be any display of Russian activity in that country, we should be obliged to reply by a display of activity, riot only equivalent to, but exceeding that made by Russia. If they sent a mission or an expedition, we should have to do the same, but in greater strength. As to our dealings with Tibet at the moment, Lord Lansdowne stated that we were endeavouring to obtain from the Tibetan authorities the fulfilment of pledges which had been given to us in 1890 in regard to the location of the frontier, and in regard to trade facilities on the borders of Sikkim. We had found that it was of no use to deal with Tibet through China, owing to the dilatory methods of the Chinese Government and the slenderness of their influence over Tibet. It was abso- lutely necessary that these local questions should be disposed of to our satisfaction, and we should continue to take the necessary steps for that purpose.
6
82 NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA
x ^53^ rtf
Some delay occurred in getting a reply from the Russian Government, but on April 8, 1903, the Russian Ambassador informed Lord Lansdowne* that he could " assure him officially that there was no convention about Tibet, either with Tibet itself, or with China, or with any- one else ; nor had the Russian Government any agents in that country, or any intention of sending any agents or missions there. But, although the Russian Government had no designs whatever about Tibet, they could not remain indifferent to any serious disturbance of the status quo in that country. Such a disturbance might render it necessary for them to safeguard their interests in Asia ; not that even in that case they would desire to interfere in the affairs of Tibet, as their policy ' ne viserait le Tibet en aucun cas,' but they might be obliged to take measures elsewhere. They regarded Tibet as forming part of the Chinese Empire, in the integrity of which they took an interest."
Count Benckendorff went on to say that he hoped that there was no question of any action on our part in regard to Tibet which might have the effect of raising questions of this kind, and Lord Lansdowne told him that we had no idea of annexing the country, but he was well aware that it immediately adjoined our frontier, that we had treaties with the Tibetans, and a right to trade facilities. If these were denied us, and if the Tibetans did not fulfil their treaty obligations, it would be absolutely necessary that we should insist upon our rights. In cases of this kind, where an uncivilized country adjoined the posses- sions of a civilized Power, it was inevitable that the latter should exercise a certain amount of local pre- dominance. Such a predominance belonged to us in Tibet. But it did not follow from this that we had any designs upon the independence of the country.
With these very definite assurances from Russia, it might well be asked why we should still have desired to take pronounced measures in Tibet. Anxiety in regard to Russian action in Tibet was the main reason why the Government of India sought to take action in Tibet.
* Blue-book, p. 187.
"TIBETAN RELIANCE ON RUSSIA ss
Now that we were reasonably assured that Russia had no intention of interfering in Tibet, why should we still have thought it necessary to send a mission into the country ? The answer is that we had not yet settled those questions of trade and intercourse which had existed years before the Russian factor intruded itself into the situation ; besides which we had always the consideration that, although it might be true enough that the Russians had no mind to have any dealings with the Tibetans, yet the Tibetans might still think they could rely on the Russians in flouting us. The Germans had officially no intention of interfering with the Boers, yet it was because Kruger thought he could rely upon German support that he went to war with England. He was much too astute an old gentleman to have fought us if he had thought he would have had to fight us by himself. So it was with the Tibetans. The Russian Government might not have the remotest intention of helping them in any possible way, yet the Tibetans might, and did, think they could count upon Russian support. The Dalai Lama's Envoy Extraordinary had been very well received by the Czar and by the Russian Chancellor and others. Doubtless, he had collected some very handsome subscriptions and received valuable presents. A little Oriental imagination would soon expand these ordinary amenities into a promise of thick-and-thiii support against the English. We had still this erroneous impression to reckon with. .,
CHAPTER VIII
A MISSION SANCTIONED
/ WHILE the negotiations with Russia were proceeding the Home Government would come to no final decision as to the action to be taken. The question at issue, they in- formed the Indian Government^ in February, was no longer one of details as to trade and boundaries — though on these it was necessary that an agreement should be arrived at — but the whole question of the future political relations of India and Tibet. They agreed with the Indian Government that, having regard to the geographical posi- tion of Tibet on the frontiers of India, and its relations with Nepal, it was " indispensable that British influence should be recognized at Lhasa in such a manner as to render it impossible for any other Power to exercise a pressure on the Tibetan Government inconsistent with the interests of British India." They admitted, also, the force of the contention that the interest shown by the Russian Government in the action of the Government of India on the Tibetan frontier demonstrated the urgency of placing our relations with Tibet on a secure basis. They recognized that Nepal might be rightly sensitive as to any alteration in the political position of Tibet which would be likely to disturb the relations at present existing between the two countries, and that the establishment of a powerful foreign influence in Tibet would disturb those relations, and might even, by exposing Nepal to a pressure which it would be difficult to resist, affect those which then i existed on so cordial a basis between India and Nepal. They regretted the necessity for abandoning the passive attitude that had hitherto sufficed in the regulation
* Blue-book, p. 184. 84
VIEWS ON H.M.'S GOVERNMENT 85
of affairs on the frontier, and were compelled to recognize that circumstances had recently occurred which threw on them the obligation of placing our relations with the Government of Lhasa upon a more satisfactory footing. And they acknowledged that the proposal to send an armed mission to enter Lhasa, by force if necessary, and establish there a Resident, might, if the issue were simply one between India and Tibet, be justified as a legitimate reply to the action of the Tibetan Government in returning the letters which on three occasions the Viceroy had addressed to them, and in disregarding the Convention with China of 1890. But they stated that they could not regard the question as one concerning India and Tibet alone. The position of China in its relations to the Powers of Europe had been so modified in recent years that it was necessary to take into account those altered conditions in deciding on action affecting what still had to be regarded as a province of China. It was true that we had no desire either to declare a protectorate or permanently to occupy any portion of the country. But measures of that kind might become inevitable if we were once to find ourselves committed to armed intervention.
For the above reasons, the Home Government thought it necessary, before sanctioning a course which might be regarded as an attack on the integrity of the Chinese Empire, to be sure that such action could be justified by the previous action of Tibet, arid they had, accordingly, come to the conclusion that it would be premature to adopt measures so likely to precipitate a crisis in the affairs of Tibet as those proposed by the Government of India. They would await, therefore, the result of their reference to the Russian Government, and after those explanations had been received they would be in a better position to decide on the scope to be given to the negotia- tions with China, and on the steps to be taken to protect India against any danger from the establishment of foreign influence in Tibet. #
/ When the Russian assurances were at length received, the purport of the conversation Lord Lansdowne had held with the Russian Ambassador was at once communicated
86 A MISSION SANCTIONED
by telegram to the Viceroy; /and/on April 14 the Secretary of State, presuming that it would be necessary to include in the scope of the negotiations with China and Tibet the entire question of our future relations with Tibet, com- mercial and otherwise, asked the Viceroy for his views as to the form which these negotiations should now take, with special reference to the means to be adopted to insure that the conditions that might be arrived at would be observed by Tibet./^
/ The Viceroy on April 16 replied that he had recently received from the delegate deputed by the Chinese Resi- dent an intimation that if Yatung was not considered a suitable locality, they were willing to negotiate at any place acceptable to us. And he proposed, accordingly, to invite the Chinese Resident to depute delegates to meet our representative at Khamba Jong, which was the nearest inhabited place on the Tibetan side to the frontier in dispute near Giagong. The Viceroy proposed that our representative, with an escort of 200 men, should proceed to that place, while reinforcements were held in reserve in Sikkim, and that, should the Chinese and Tibetan repre- sentatives fail to appear, or should the former come with- out the latter, our representative should move forward to Shigatse or Gyantse, in order that the arrival of the deputations from Lhasa might be accelerated.
/ The Secretary of State telegraphed on April 29 that there was no objection to the Chinese, Tibetan, and Indian representatives meeting at Khamba Jong or to the military arrangements recommended ; but His Majesty's Government considered that without previous reference to them the Mission should not advance beyond that place, as in existing conditions, even in the event of the failure of the Chinese and Tibetan parties, any sudden advance to Lhasa was not, in their opinion, justified. /
In regard to the subject-matter of the forthcoming negotiations,/the Viceroy telegraphed on May 7 that, having regard to the stultification of existing treaty provisions, and to the unsuitability of either Yatung, Phari, or any other place in the Chumbi Valley, for a trade-mart, in which business could be transacted directly
OBJECTS OF THE MISSION 87
between British and Tibetan merchants, without incurring the monopoly of local traders, it was necessary to insist upon opening a new trade-mart and upon having a British agent at Gyantse. The Viceroy thought that having a British representative at Lhasa, which would be the best possible security for the future observance of the con- ditions, would be far preferable ; but assuming the un- willingness of His Majesty's Government to press this claim, the proposal for an agent at Gyahtse was a suitable alternative. In any case, the fullest facilities should be given to the British representative for direct communica- tion with the Tibetan Government, and if he met with obstruction, it would be necessary to resort to the alternative of moving him forward to Lhasa. Further- more, it would be necessary to secure for British Indian subjects the same freedom for trade and travel in Tibet as was enjoyed by Kashmiris and Nepalese, and to insist that all British subjects duly authorized by the Government of India should be allowed to proceed by recognized routes to Gyantse, beyond which a pass from the Tibetan Govern- ment would be required.
As Commissioner, the Viceroy proposed to appoint Major Younghusband, Resident at Indore. He could confidently rely on his judgment and discretion, and he had great Asiatic experience. With him he would associate as Joint Commissioner Mr. White, Political Officer in Sikkim.
The Secretary of State hesitated to accept at once the proposal regarding Gyantse, and wished before coming to any decision to be informed whether the Viceroy could propose any alternative in place of the extreme course of advancing by force into Tibet ; and the Viceroy said the only alternatives were (a) the costly and ineffectual measure of blocking all trade-routes and excluding Tibetans from British India, and (b) an occupation of the Chumbi Valley.
^/The final decision of the Home Government on the whole matter was telegraphed to the Viceroy on May 28. They approved a procedure by which both the Chinese and Tibetan Governments would be bound by the action
88 A MISSION SANCTIONED
of their representatives, but they wished that the negotia- tions should be confined to questions concerning trade relations, the frontier, and grazing rights, and that no proposal should be made for the establishment of a Political Agent at Gyantse or Lhasa, as such a political outpost might entail difficulties and responsibilities incom- mensurate with any benefits which would be gained by it. They had recently received assurances that Russia had no intention of developing political interests in Tibet, and they were unwilling to be committed by threats to any definite course of compulsion to be undertaken in future.
While the Home Government and the Indian Govern- ment were thus deliberating as to the final action which should be taken, communications with the Chinese were being exchanged. The Chinese Government had, in December, informed our Minister at Peking that " the Throne, attaching deep importance to international re- lations, and regarding the Tibetan question of great importance, had specially appointed Yu Tai to be Imperial Resident in Tibet, with orders to proceed with all speed, and negotiate with Mr. White in an amicable spirit." This newly-appointed Resident called on the British Minister on January 5, and informed him that he had hoped to be able to travel to his new post by way of India, but that, in order to avoid arousing the suspicion of the Tibetans, it had been decided that he should travel by the Yangtse River and Szechuan, and would not be able to reach Lhasa much before July. He did not, in fact, reach it till six months later still, till thirteen critical months had elapsed since the Chinese Government had told us that he was to proceed to Lhasa with all possible speed. //
/ Mr. Townley, the British Charge d' Affaires at Peking, on May 12, informed the Chinese Government that the Government of India would invite the Resident at Lhasa to send Chinese delegates to meet the repre- sentatives of the British Government at Khamba Jong,
CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE CHINESE 89
for the settlement of pending questions, and would inform the Resident that the Chinese delegates should be accom- panied by a duly accredited Tibetan representative. The Chinese Government were told that we attached great importance to this latter point, for the Tibetans had more than once intimated to the British authorities that they did not consider themselves bound to observe the pro- visions of the treaties previously made between the British and Chinese representatives, because no representative of the Dalai Lama had taken part in the negotiations.
The Chinese Government, on receipt of this, tele- graphed to the Resident at Lhasa, asking him again to admonish the Dalai Lama, and to persuade him not to fail to send, with speed, a Tibetan official to be associated with the deputy Ho in his discussion with Mr. White. /ym reply, the Chinese Government received, on July 18, a telegram from the Resident, saying that he had at once com- municated these instructions to the Dalai Lama, "directing him to send a Tibetan [lit., barbarian] official of fairly high standing and despatch him to the frontier, provided with credentials as a negotiator, in order to concert with the Prefect Ho and his colleagues, to await British officials, and effect a harmonious and sincere settlement."
The Resident at Lhasa had also at this time submitted to the Throne a memorial, which furnishes exceedingly instructive reading. He said he had summoned the Tibetan Councillors to his office, and admonished them in person to the effect that the English intended to bring troops to Tibet, and that it was difficult to fathom their objects. All this, he said, was the result of their obstructing last year a deputy with his retinue, so that a favourable opportunity was lost. If the English did make this long march, it would, of course, be the duty of him, the Imperial Resident, to proceed in person to the frontier and find some way of persuading them to stop. But the Tibetans, on their side, must not show their previous obstinacy ; and if the English did not stop, and insisted on entering Tibet, they must on no account repel them with arms, but must discuss matters with them on the basis of
90 A MISSION SANCTIONED
reason. Thus he hoped a rupture might be avoided, and things brought back to a satisfactory conclusion. But if, as before, the Councillors allowed themselves to be guided by the three great monasteries, and hostilities once began, then the horrors of war would be more than he could bear to think of, and even the mediation of him, the Imperial Resident, would be of no avail.
Such, said the Resident, were the admonitions which he addressed to the Tibetan Councillors, and as he did so he watched their demeanour. It was submissive certainly, but obstinacy was engrained in the character of the Tibetan barbarians, and whether, when matters should become pressing, they would consent to obey and discuss questions in a friendly spirit, it was difficult for him to tell in advance.
The laconic observation by the Emperor on this curious document, which correctly described the Tibetans, and which incidentally depicted both the contempt of the Chinese for these "barbarians" and the ineffectiveness of their control over them, was — " Seen."
But the Resident had also written to the Viceroy, on x April 6, saying that he had deputed Mr. Ho and Captain Parr for the discussion of affairs, and they were waiting at Yatung. The deputy appointed by the Viceroy might, he said, either come to Yatung, or the Chinese deputies would proceed to Sikkim, or such other place as might be decided on by the Viceroy. /
/To this the Viceroy replied, on June 3, 1903, that, as the Resident had already clearly recognized, it would be useless to negotiate upon matters affecting Tibet without insuring the full and adequate representation of the Dalai Lama's Government throughout the proceedings. He was nominating as his Commissioner Colonel Young- husband, who, accompanied by Mr. White, Political Officer in Sikkim, as Joint Commissioner, would proceed, to meet the Commissioners appointed by the Resident, who should, of course, be of equivalent rank, and must be attended by a Tibetan officer of the highest rank, whose authority to bind the Tibetan Government was absolute and unquestioned. On this understanding, that the Lhasa authorities would be duly and fully represented, the
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE COMMISSIONER 91
Viceroy was prepared to accept the Resident's invitation that the Commissioners should meet at a very early date, and discuss, not only the exact position of the frontier under the Convention of 1890 and the mutual rights of grazing to be allowed on either side of that frontier to the people of Tibet and British territory, but also the method in which our trade relations could be improved and placed upon a basis more consonant with the usage of civilized nations and our direct and predominating interests in Tibet. And as the Resident was prepared to let his deputies meet the British representative at any place which the Viceroy might select, and as Khamba Jong, being the nearest inhabited place to the frontier in question, seemed to be the most suitable place for the meeting, he had directed Colonel Younghusband to f proceed thither as soon as he conveniently could, and he trusted that the Resident would secure the attendance of the Chinese and Tibetan representatives at Khamba Jong on, or as soon as possible after, July 7.
On the same date as this letter was written I also received my own formal instructions.* I was informed that a strict insistence on the boundary-line as laid down in the Convention of 1890 was, perhaps, not essential either to the Government of India or to the Sikkim Durbar, and I was directed to give my opinion on this point after inspecting the tract in question. The matter of grazing rights was not one of great importance, and after discus- sion with the Chinese and Tibetan delegates 1 was to submit my proposals as to the agreement which might be come to in this matter. The revision of the Trade Regu - lations and the recognition of Gyantse as a trade-mart in place of Yatung were to form the subject of discussion with the Chinese and Tibetan delegates, and the provision of guarantees for the observance of such agreements as might be concluded were to be considered a matter of the first importance. It was further considered very desirable that arrangements for free communication between the Government of India and the authorities at Lhasa should be made, and possibly also annual meetings between
* Blue-book, p. 198.
92 A MISSION SANCTIONED
British and Tibetan officials for the due settlement of the trade and frontier difficulties which might occur.
In conclusion, I was warned to be very careful to abstain from using any language or taking any action which would bind the Government to any definite course hereafter without first obtaining the sanction of the Government of India.
All was now prepared for the start of a mission. In this extraordinarily complex and intricate matter the many different lines had at last been made to converge on one point. The manifold communications which had taken place for thirty years between the Bengal Government and the Government of India, between local Indian officers and local Chinese and Tibetans ; the correspondence between Simla or Calcutta and London, between the India Office and the Foreign Office, between the Foreign Office and the Russian and Chinese Governments, and between the Viceroy and our Minister at Peking and the Chinese Resident at Lhasa, had all been boiled down into the definite act of the despatch of a mission to a place a bare dozen miles inside Tibet to discuss trade-relations, frontier and grazing rights.
This was not, after all, any remarkably bold or out- rageously aggressive act. Such as it was, was it justified ? The narrative of the causes which led to the move has been long, but, even so, it has been hard to put their true significance so that it may be appreciated by people un- acquainted with Orientals. Still, there are some fairly plain facts and considerations which emerge from the long narrative, and which all who are accustomed to the conduct of affairs may be expected to understand.
The first fact is this — that it was aggression on the part of the Tibetans or their vassals which led to action on our part, and that before ever a single soldier of the British Government had crossed the frontier into Tibet Tibetan troops had crossed it to the Indian side. It was the irruption of the Bhutanese into the plains of Bengal which caused Warren Hastings to send Bogle to Tibet in
JUSTIFICATION OF THE MISSION 93
1774. It was the invasion of Sikkim by the Tibetans which made the necessity for the treaty of 1890. And it was because the Tibetans repudiated that treaty, and occupied territory inside the boundary therein laid down, that we had to take measures to see it observed.
But even supposing they were aggressive, it may be said that we ought to have treated the Tibetans with leniency, gentleness, and consideration, because of their ignorance. So we ought, and so we did. Warren Hastings conceded the request of the Tashi Lama. And though the Tibetans for a century have been free to come down to India, with no restrictions on their trade or on their travel, we for years never pressed for any ordinary rights of trade and travel for our own subjects, whether British or Indian. We allowed the Tibetans to come down where, and when, and how they liked. For a century we let the principle of heads they win, tails we lose, continue. Even when we at last stirred, and thought of sending Macaulay to Lhasa to make some less one- sided arrangement, we gave up the idea when we saw that the Tibetans raised objection. And even, again, when the Chinese asked us to make a definite treaty with them on behalf of the Tibetans, and guaranteed its observance by them, and when the Tibetans broke it, and repudiated it, and refused to meet our officers, we continued for ten years showing them forbearance and patience. It was only at last when the Tibetans, having broken the treaty,, Q <UC having declined to have any communication with us, yet\ sent Envoys to the Russians, that we took high action,) and despatched a mission with an escort into Tibet. If we had shown no inclination to hold the Tibetans and Chinese to their engagements, others might well think that they also would not be held to theirs, and our authority and influence would slacken in proportion as this impression got abroad. No Government can conduct the affairs of contiguous States if it allows a treaty to be broken with impunity.
My personal view is that the local question would have been better settled, arid much subsequent international complications would have been saved if, at an earlier stage
94 A MISSION SANCTIONED
in the proceedings, when it first became amply clear that our treaty was valueless ; that the Tibetans repudiated and ignored it, and that the Chinese were unable to have it observed, we had at once resumed the proceedings where we had left them when we drove the Tibetans across our border, and had again advanced into the Chumbi Valley, and stopped there till we had effected a properly recognized and lasting settlement. This was the course recommended by Sir Charles Elliott, the then Lieutenant- Governor of Bengal, and whether that would have been a wise course or not, I do not see how anyone who has care- fully considered the whole course of transactions which at last led up to the despatch of a mission to the first inhabited place across the border can deny that such a course was justified.
Whether the mission was conducted with due con- sideration or with unnecessary harshness, and whether any good came of it, either to ourselves or to the Tibetans or to anyone else, are matters for separate review, and to that purpose I will now address myself in the following narrative of the course of the mission.
CHAPTER IX
SIMLA TO KHAMBA JONG
THE previous chapters have been necessarily, though perhaps somewhat tediously, filled up with a narrative of the many intricate considerations which went towards the final determination to send a mission to Tibet. But of all that had been going on — of the voluminous correspondence in the great offices, of the meetings and attempts at meetings on the frontier — I was wholly ignorant. Anglo-Indian papers seldom contain informa- tion on such happenings. And for some years past, in accordance with the well-intentioned, but, as it has since turned out, thoroughly unsound, advice of a previous Viceroy, that it would be to my advantage in the Political Department not to remain for ever on the frontier, but to acquire experience of internal affairs as well, I had been serving in the interior in political agencies in Rajputana and Central India, and had heard nothing of any intention to send a mission to Tibet. Nor had I ever had any connection with Tibet, though as long ago as 1888 the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal had, I dis- covered many years after, asked the Government of India for my services, as I had then just returned from a journey around Manchuria and across Central Asia, from Peking to Kashmir, and it was thought that, knowing Chinese customs, I might be of use, in addition to the Chinese interpreter. This request was twice made, it appears ; but I was then a young subaltern, still in military employ, and in the throes of examination, and the Government of India replied that I was not available, as I was about to go up for examination, and, if sent away then, would fail to qualify for promotion. So 1 went up for one of those
95
96 SIMLA TO KHAMBA JONG
examinations of which such a fetish is made, and never till now had been near the Tibet frontier. I made, indeed, an abortive effort in 1889 to go to Lhasa, disguised as a