PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2815, 26 February 1908, Page 85

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT.

Last week's Witness and this contain cabled news showing that this agreement has been subjected to adverse criticism in, the Home Parliament. It was ratified last September. The treaty embodies three distinct agreements, denning the position of Great Britain and Russia in (a) Persia, (b) Afghanistan, and (c) Thibet ; but the main criticisms are launched against the concessions made to Russia in Persia. As the treaty involves geographical and historical information, and may also come under that catch-all net the "General Information (not 'inflammation,' as I happen to know a boy wrote it) Paper," I'll write a few lines upon it. I might 6ay at the outset that some of my information has

been obtained fiom Hazell's Annual, the Daily Mail Year-book, and the Practical Teacher. "You 6it on its bead and I'll sit on its tail, and we'll both stroke the small of its . back," seems to be the attitude of both i nations to Persia, for that helpless country does not seem to have been consulted in the matter. Get your atlas and see if you can define the following boundaries. Find Yezd, about the centre, and from it draw a line north-east through Khakh to the Afghan frontier, touching it north-west of Herat. Then returning to Yezd, draw a line from it through Ispahan to the- western frontier. The whole of Persia north of the obtuse angle formed by these tiro lines has been declared to be outside the British sphere of influence and under Russian influence. "6rea> Britain engages neither to seek nor to support on behalf of British subjects, or of the subjects of any third Power, any commercial or_ political concession, such , as railways, banks, tele-^ graphs, roads, tianeport, or insurance ;" then follows -the boundaries, but a little j moje in detail than I have given them; I

"and Russia into a corresponding engagement framed in indentic terms within a zone," and then follows details. Roughly stated, if a curved line be drawn through Bandar Abbas on the Straits of Ormur, Kerman, Birjand, and Gazik. and continued, it 'will strike the Afghan border south-west of Herat. The territory between this line and the borders of Afghanistan and Baluchistan represents the concession to Great Britain. Each contracting Power has undisputed sway in its own | area. The rest is open to anybody- and everybody. You will see by these, details that" there has been, in effect, a partitioning of Persia, though the preamble affects to be very proper, for it says : "The Go* vernments -of weat Britain and Russia, having mutually engaged to respect ihe -integrity and independence of Persia, and j sincerely desiring th&jjreservation of order throtighout ..that country and its peaceful development." etc. Territorially, Russia is the gainer. Bu£ otherwise? Apparently, commercially also. Teheran, the capital, is practically closed to British trade, ana so is Meshed ; and i Ispahan and Yezd, which have trade along ■ routes from Basra and Bushfre, ar* also ; within the Russian cordon; Northern I Persia is one of Britain's "lost markets."

! The only gain, if gain there be, is the ! strategical one of placing Bandar Abbaa under British control. .One authority say? that 95 T>er cent, of the trade of the Persian Gulf is British, most of which., of i course, is connected wjth India. That' being so, Bandar Abbas, which is th£ Gibraltar, or Suez, or Dardanelles of th-: > . Gulf, occupies a very important position. But as the trade of the Shet-el-Arab has been developed through long years by British perseverance and capital, it mights ; be reasonably asked why the head of the ; Gulf and the Delta were not declared •within the British, sphere of influence. , Nearly all the trade is hers ; she has de- | veloped it, she has policed the Gulf and ' put down piracies, and she has built the lighthouses." If the territory south of the; Caspian Sea was allotted to Russia, be-, cause she had such predominant influence; why did not Britain get what she had evetf I a greater right, to? One says, or infers, because the "mailed fist" of Germany was in evidence, for Germany is hoping some t day to get a railway through from jSmyrna, in Asia Minor, or from Palestine somewhere to Bagdad and the Gulf. It is a matter of history that the basin of the Tigris and the Euphrates were at one timt; under a high state of cultivation by meant: of a magnificent system, of irrigation, ,an^ that then Babylon and other cities thW were centres of empire. It is a dream o\ Germany's, so come cay, to re-people thos* basins with German colonies. Further, it is even said that Germany aims at control-" ling Austria, Turkey, Asia Minor, and ths Tigris and the Euphrates. And who shall say, in time, that she shall not? AFGHANISTAN AND TIBET. These need not occupy much space. In regard to Afghanistan, Russia formally declares Afghanistan outside <^f the sphere of Russian influences, and Britain agrees i not to annex- any part of Afghanistan as long as the Ameer fulfils the 1905 agree- • ment with Great Britain. In regard to Tibet, the suzerainty of China is recognised, and it is closed to Russia or Great) Britain, politically, commercially, or financially, though there are slight modifications in -favour of Britain, the out* come of the war of .1904. Buddhist subjects of either power are to be allowed to have intercourse with the Buddhist authorities in Tibet, but no one else itf allowed to penetrate the land. Even \

scientific expeditions are forbidden for some time. The war of 1904 was the outcome of Russian plotting, and evidentlj; all we gained, at -that time, or nearly all, has been sacrificed. As far as I car see the treaty is a British surrender. A WORD OR TWO ON RHODESIA. When unveiling a monument a week ago in memory of the Boers who .died! fighting against our troops, ex-General de la Key declared that the Afrikanders had emerged more than conquerors, ■ and) a professor said that the monument is a "beacon of blood." I imagine that in Russia or Germany such remarks would be regarded as treason. It isn't the Transvaal, however, but Rhodesia, to the north of it, that I &xn going to 2nak« a brief note upon. In the outposts oi the Empire, colonisation goes on quietly^ £ud it is only now and then, through some unusual -occurrence, that we remember such places exist. Take ; how many of us have looked upon this territory, as more than four times the area of our Dominion? And it has a population of about a million and a-half — by far the greater

number, however, »n.tives. iTet this great territory is controlled by a company. About 20 years ago "this go-ahead offspring of % great mane brains (the late Cecil Rhodes] was an unknown land." In 1890 the famous pioneering expedition went through, and since then year by year the country has been opened up. Look at the following figures: — 1897 — Bulawayo connected with Capetown, 1360 miles away. 1899— Salisbury connected with Beira (374 miles). 1903 — Bulawayo and Salisbury joined (301 miles). 1904 — Bulawayo connected with Victoria Falls (282 miles), passing through Wankie, which is said to produce the finest coal in South Africa. 1905 — Zambesi railway bridge built (650 ft long and 420 ft above the rivpr). Now — Victoria Falls to Broken Bridge line open (374 miles'). x Besides these trunk-line sections, there are feeding lines. The rate of railway construction must be much faster there than here judging by the progress made in the North Island with the Trunk line. There remains under 20 miles to be laid down to connect railheads, yet this is to take pretty well all this year. If you take the map of South Africa and connect the towns named,- you will find a little geographical information, and have it ready for future use.