e North-East frontier by
overtures to a foreign Power; the demonstration to the Tibetans that
this Power is unable to support them in their policy of defiance to
Great Britain, and that their capital is not inaccessible to British
troops.

We have been to Lhasa once, and if necessary we can go there again. The
knowledge of this is the most effectual leverage we could have in
removing future obstruction. In dealing with people like the Tibetans,
the only sure basis of respect is fear. They have flouted us for nearly
twenty years because they have not believed in our power to punish their
defiance. Out of this contempt grew the Russian menace, to remove which
was the real object of the Tibet Expedition. Have we removed it? Our
verdict on the success or failure of Lord Curzon's Tibetan policy
should, I think, depend on the answer to this question.

There can be no doubt that the despatch of British troops to Lhasa has
shown the Tibetans that Russia is a broken reed, her agents utterly
unreliable, and her friendship nothing but a hollow pretence. The
British expedition has not only frustrated her designs in Tibet: it has
made clear to the whole of Central Asia the insincerity of her pose as
the Protector of the Buddhist Church.

But the Tibetans are not an impressionable people. Their conduct after
the campaign of 1888 shows us that they forget easily. To make the
results of the recent expedition permanent, Lord Curzon's original
policy should be carried out in full, and a Resident with troops left in
Lhasa. It will be objected that this forward policy is too fraught with
possibilities of political trouble, and too costly to be worth the end
in view. But half-measures are generally more expensive and more
dangerous in the long-run than a bold policy consistently carried out.

We have left a trade agent at Gyantse with an escort of fifty men, as
well as four or five companies at Chumbi and Phari Jong, at distances of
100 and 130 miles. But no vigilance at Gyantse can keep the Indian
Government informed of Russian or Chinese intrigue in Lhasa. Lhasa is
Tibet, and there alone can we watch the ever-shifting pantomime of
Tibetan politics and the manoeuvres of foreign Powers. If we are not
to lose the ground we have gained, the foreign relations of Tibet must
stand under British surveillance.

But putting aside the question of vigilance, our prestige requires that
there should be a British Resident in Lhasa. That we have lef