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0326 Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1
チベットとトルキスタン : vol.1
Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 / 326 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000231
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The grape-vine telegraph had long ago reported
to Lhasa the strange composition of the innocent
commercial mission, which was intended, by the
Chinese suzerains who had permitted it, only to
discuss details of trade relations—of those relations
which had been suspended since the Goorkhas,
friends of the British, had shown that conquest, not
trade, was uppermost in their minds. Already the
Lhasa authorities had felt a reasonable fright—the
Under-Secretary's frankness was scarce needed to
put them on guard. So great was the resistence in
Tibet to the incoming of such a monstrous miscel-
lany of people, without a special commercial repre-
sentative, that it was thought best to abandon the
project. The mission was disbanded. Its oganisa-
tion was a blunder. To disband it without making
a manly statement of the original error was another
blunder. In 1886 a new convention with China
reflected the check by insertion of a clause which
released China from any positive engagement to
give Tibetan passports and relegated the whole
matter to the limbo of "China shall use her best
endeavour," or such like empty generality. The
armed attack upon Tibet's frontiers, in 1888, did
not fail, we may well believe, to further convince
the Tibetans that missions of all sorts must be kept
out at all hazards.
This seizure of Sikkim not only completed the
white man's hold upon the southern crest line of
the Himalayas, but it gave control of the easiest
roadway over the mountains, down into the Chumbi
valley. That the trap should be sprung in due
course of time was obvious enough. Something