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0244 India and Tibet : vol.1
インドとチベット : vol.1
India and Tibet : vol.1 / 244 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000295
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which were not only beyond my purview, but also beyond
the purview of the Government of India. They expected
me, therefore, to do my utmost to carry out the present
plans until there was unquestionable proof that they were
impracticable. It was impossible, I was told, to argue
the political necessity for remaining at Lhasa during the
winter until I had arrived there and gauged the situation ;
and the military objections were great and obvious.

My reply to this is not published, so I will not quote
it. I will only say that I pretty well despaired of getting
this business through. Lord Curzon was away in England,
and evidently now military, and not political, considerations
were having the upper hand. I knew about the "inter-
national relations" and the "wider view," for copies of all
the important despatches to our Ambassadors were sent
to me. But there were dozens and scores of men to repre-
sent those "wider" views, which need not, as is so often
imagined, be wiser simply because they are wider, whereas
there was only one person, and that was myself, to repre-
sent the narrower view, but which, because it was local,
need not be inferior or less important.

The narrow local point of view was, then, that for
thirty years continuously we in India had been trying
to settle a trumpery affair of trade and boundary with
a semi-barbarous people on our frontier, and time after
time we had been put off by these "considerations of
international relations wider than the mere relations
between India and Tibet." But now we had the chance
of a century of settling this business once and for all.
We had, after years of negotiations and correspondence,
made our effort. We had taken immense trouble and
gone to great expense. And all I wished to do was to
represent from my restricted point of view that I ought
to have plenty of time to make the most of this oppor-
tunity. I should have represented my views in less
provocative language, I admit ; but the main contention
was, I am sure, sound, and it would have been better now
if it had been acted on. If I had not been rushed at
Lhasa, but had had plenty of time to gauge and report
the situation there, and to receive the orders of Govern-