unwise to run any risk, for reports have reached us that an attempt is now made to drill the Tibetan troops at Lhasa, and that breech-loaders and other munitions of war have actually already been secretly imported into the capital. At the same time the most emphatic assurances might be given to the Chinese and Tibetan Governments that the mission was 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 at present rests upon all trade between Tibet and India, and to establishing those amicable relations and means of communication which ought to subsist between adjacent and friendly Powers.
(B)
From the Secretary of State for India to the Viceroy, dated May 28, 1903.
(Telegraphic)
Your proposals of the 7th and 2 ist May regarding Tibet have been considered with great care by His Majesty's Government. They agree with you in desiring the promotion of trade facilities in Tibet, and a guarantee that the Tibetans shall be prevented from evading or rejecting engagements made on their behalf in any new treaty or convention. A procedure, therefore, whereby both the Chinese and Tibetan Governments will be bound by the acts of their representatives has their approval. They wish, however, that the negotiations should be restricted to questions concerning trade relations, the frontier, and grazing rights; and they desire that no proposal should be made for the establishment of a Political Agent either at Gyangtse or at Lhasa. Such a political outpost might entail difficulties and responsibilities incommensurate, in the judgment of His Majesty's Government, with any benefits which, in the circumstances now known to exist, could be gained by it. The Foreign Office have recently received assurances that Russia has no intention of developing political interests in Tibet. Moreover,
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