the policy which promised to secure for himself and for
his country the apparently gratuitous protection of
Russia and freedom from the ever-present dread of the
English ; and he did not attempt to conceal his not
unnatural dislike for the shortsighted policy of the
Tsong-du, by which he now found himself as much
thwarted as by any possible interference of China. But
in their existing mood it was impossible to coerce the
members of the National Council, so for the future he
determined to use the wide powers he was able to wield
without reference to it, and he believed that their scope
was extensive enough to carry through his matured
Russophile policy, not so much by the deliberate choice
of the Tsong-du, as of necessity, and he set himself
determinedly to bring about that necessity. This was
no easy task. There was no trouble then with India,
and the self-confident Tibetans attached small value to
any inducements that Russia could hold out. Tibet
had succeeded easily in regaining her independence of
China, and could conceive no reason for putting herself
again under obligation to any man. But with shrewder
foresight the Dalai Lama saw that some such protection
from the north or from the south was ultimately inevitable.
He chose to make a truce with Russia.
Apart from the practical inducements offered by Dor-
jieff, it must be remembered in his choice of an ally that
he was acting upon a principle well known in the East.
Long before his days the worn out shoes and mouldy
bread of the men of Gibeon had persuaded Joshua that
it was safe to make a treaty of peace with so distant
a tribe. The moral effect of an alliance with either was,
as he knew well, a guarantee for the non-interference of the
other. Now India is-but a fortnight away, while Russia,
by the quickest route is full four months’ journey
distant.
So soon, therefore, as he could make the Tsong-du
recognise the necessity for outside support, he knew that
the assistance of Russia, as being the more distant
friend, would, as a matter of course, be preferred by it
to the traditional and imminent menace of Indian
influence. He set himself to bring this recognition
about, and it was clear that if friction could in some
way be established in his relations with India, he would
have gone far towards obtaining his end. In achieving
his purpose, he had neither scruples nor difficulty.
Reference has been made before to the policy of aggression
he adopted, but the acts may be briefly recapitulated
here. The frontier regulations of Sikkim
were violated in a flagrant manner ; the grazing rights
near Giao-gong were encroached upon in a way which
he was well aware we could not much longer suffer.
A customs house and a barrier were actually erected
and occupied, and British subjects kept out by force
from a small portion of the British Empire. Eventually
the arrival of a letter from Lord Curzon, in the middle
of 1902, offered him an opportunity he was not slow
to use. The letter was returned unopened, without
apology or comment of any kind. Such, it will be
remembered, was the situation immediately before the
arrival of the mission at Kamba jong.
Under this new régime the Tsong-du were little consulted.
It was Tubdan’s intention to use them afterwards,
but rather for the mere purpose of ratifying an
inevitable policy than of asking them their opinion
upon its wisdom. No definite information of their
attitude seems to have been sent to Russia. Rifles