'SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS AND MEASURES OF THE VICEROYALTY OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON, VICEROY AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA IN THE FOREIGN DEPARTMENT. I. JANUARY 1899-APRIL 1904. II. DECEMBER 1904-NOVEMBER 1905. VOLUME IV. PERSIA AND THE PERSIAN GULF.' [‎7v] (19/386)

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collision, as the case may be, between the East and the West, omens of the greatest signi
ficance to this country. Europe is so accurately parcelled out between the various States and
Powers, the balance of power is suspended on so fine a thread, and the slightest disturbance
would imperil such wide interest, that short of some serious and unforeseen convulsion, which
every one would wish to avert, great changes are not to be anticipated there. Africa is rapidly
being overrun by the few European Powers who have obtained a foothold upon that continent,
and before long its political destinies and territorial grouping will have taken something like
definite shape. But in Asia a great deal is still in fiux and solution, and there must, and there
will, be great changes. It will be well to realise what an effect those must have upon India,
and how they must add to our responsibilities and cares. Our Indian dominions now directly
touch those of Turkey in many parts of the Arabian Peninsula, those of Russia on the Pamirs,
those of China along the entire border of Turkestan and Yunnan, those of France on the
Upper Mekong. In our dealings with them, the Foreign Department in India is becoming the
Asiatic branch of the Foreign Office in England. Then round all our borders is the fringe of
Asiatic States to which I just now alluded, whose integrity and whose freedom from hostile
influence are vital to our welfare, but over whose future the clouds are beginning to gather.
In Europe we are a maritime power who are merely called upon to defend our own shores from
invasion, and who are confronted by no land dangers or foes. In Asia we have both a
seaboard and a land frontier many thousands of miles in length, and though Providence has
presented us on some portion of our land frontiers with the most splendid natural defences in
the world, yet the situation must become more and not less anxious as rival or hostile
influences creep up to these ramparts, and as the ground outside them becomes the arena of new
combinations and the field of unforeseen ambitions. All these circumstances will tend they
are already tending—to invest the work of the Indian Foreign Department with ever-
increasing importance, and they demand a vigilance and a labour of which there are
but few indications in anything that reaches the public ear or falls under the public
eye. Questions of internal development, administrative anxieties, agrarian and fiscal
problems, fill all our minds, just as they have occupied the greater part of my speech
this afternoon. But do not let the people of India think that we shall never have anything
but domestic cares in this country. Do not let them forget that there are other and not
inferior duties that devolve upon her rulers; that the safety of the Indian frontier and the
maintenance of the British dominion in those parts of Asia where it has for long been estab
lished, and where it is the surest, if not the sole, guarantee for peace and progress, are in their
hands, and that this, no less than internal reform, is part of England's duty. I ’see no reason
for anticipating trouble upon our borders and I know of no question that is at present in
an acute or menacing phase. But do not let any one, on the strength of that, go to sleep in
the happy illusion that anxiety will never come. The geographical position of India will
more and more push her into the forefront of international politics. She will more and more
become the strategical frontier of the British Empire. All these are circumstances that
should give us food for reflection, and that impose upon us the duty of incessant watch
fulness and precaution. They require that our forces shall be in a high state of efficiency
our defences secure, and our schemes of policy carefully worked out and defined Above ail
they demand a feeling of solidarity and common interest among those, and they include every
inhabitant of this country, from the raja King to the raiat, whose interests are wrapped up in the
preservation of the Indian Empire, both for the sake of India itself and for the wider ^ood
of mankind”. ®
The same subject was further alluded to by His Excellency during his
speech in the Budget debate of the following year, and no further explanation
is needed why the narrative of India’s relations with Foreign Powers fills so
much larger a space in a summary of Lord Ourzon’s Viceroyalty than it did
in the history of any of his predecessor’s administrations :
.. , “ Abont foreign affairs in their wider application, I do not propose to say much. I snoke
last year about the increasing range of our responsibilities in Asia, and a good deal 1,a.
happened in the interim to give point to those remaiks. My own view of India's
is this. She is like a fortress with the vast moat of the sea on two of her faces and wirh
mountains for her walls on the remainder, but beyond those walls, which are sometimes of
by no means insuperable height, and admit of being easily penetrated, extends a Macls of
varying breadth and dimensions. B e do not want to occupy it, but we also cannot afford
to see ,t occupied by our foes. We are quite content to let it remain in the hands of
our allies and friends, but if rival and unfriendly influences creep up to it and lodce
themselves right under our walls, we are compelled to intervene, because a danger wou!d
thereby grow up that might one day menace onr security. This is the secret of ti,.
who e position m Arabia, Persia Afghanistan, Tibet, and as far eastwards as Siam He
would be a short-sighted commander who merely manned his ramparts in India and drt
not look out beyond, and the whole of our policy during the past five years has been directed
towards maintaining our predominant influence and to preventing the expansion of h'stfle
agencies on this area which I have described. It was for this reason that I visited that clH
field of British energy and influence in rhe Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , and this also is in pa™ he explani-
tionof our movement into Tibet at the present time, although the attitude ^ T w
Government, its persistent disregard of Treaty obligations, and its contempt,mnl retort to
our extreme patience, would ,n any case have compelled a more active indication of ouxTntexeet,! '