'Russia, India and the Persian Gulf' [‎5v] (10/46)

6 The Western Frontiers of India.
since invasion from the North is impossible. One serious
objection to such interference is that it can have no
finality. If an obligation to impose law and order on the
turbulent frontier tribes lies upon us in consequence of a
higher standard than that of other nations, which we impose
upon ourselves, why not upon similar tribes in Afghanistan?
and if there, why not in Eastern Persia, in Persia generally,
in Mesopotamia and Asia Minor ? Where, indeed, in such a
policy can the line be drawn ? The money spent in mounting
guns in solitary valleys, the treasure lavished upon fortifying
natural forts, would have sufficed many times over to supply
the loans solicited on very good security by Persia, our
refusal to grant which threw the Shah into the arms of the
all-willing Czar. Of course, the Indian and Home Budgets
are separate, and independent of one another ; but now at
any rate it is idle to deny the fact that Persia is as much a
frontier of India as is Afghanistan, but far weaker, far more
vulnerable, far more the object of a rival Power’s solicitude,
so that Indian money might be spent on the shores of the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. with as much propriety as upon cantonments,
roads, and railways in and for the benefit of Chitral, and
other robber-haunted border hills. It might be argued that
the charges in both cases more properly fall on the Imperial
Exchequer, which would, as regards expenditure in the Gulf,
to some extent be recouped in consequence of the revival
which would result in the fast falling trade with Persia.
It is useless to suggest at present that any group of interests,
however vital, can compete with those of South Africa,
though neglect of the Indo-Persian question may well lead
eventually to a conflagration beside which the war with the
I ransvaal would seem a feeble flame. Not, indeed, that
Gulf questions have of late been neglected. The action of
the Home Government and the Viceroy of India in regard
to the efforts of the French to obtain a coaling station at
Muscat, and of the Turks, whether or not of their own
motion, to seize Koweit, was prompt, firm, and effectual.
But more than this is wanted at the hands of the Home