India and Tibet : vol.1 / Page 504 (Color Image)

0504	India and Tibet : vol.1

CHAPTER XXV

A FINAL REFLECTION

" THAT strange force which has so often driven the

English forward against their will appears to be in opera-

tion once more," wrote the Spectator in May, 1904 ; it

is certain that neither the British Government nor the

British people wished to go to Lhasa."

This reflection was criticized by other journals at the

time as savouring of hypocrisy. One paper said that

no mention was made of the Viceroy, and that it was

obvious that the advance was a perfectly gratuitous

move on the part of Lord Curzon." Another leading

London paper attributed the whole movement to " the

designs of the little group of intriguing officials " ; it said

that the raid was conceived and engineered as a part

of the forward policy which has always been the peril of

India and of the Empire," and added that it had been

based upon the most trivial and factitious excuses ever

invented by designing bureaucrats."

This matter is worth going into. Bureaucrats, of

whom presumably I was one, are only too painfully

aware that they have not a tithe of the power which is

attributed to them. They certainly have not the means

of making the whole British Government and British

people act against their will. I sometimes wish they had.

To attribute to them such miraculous power is as shallow

as to believe that the Lamas exercise their hold over

Tibetans and Mongols only by trickery and chicanery.

Bureaucrats and priests must have something far more

powerful behind them than intrigues and trickery. The

question is, What is it ? What does impel us ? Is there

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