THE INDO-RUSFIAN PLOT. ITS PROSPECTS. (Pionee Mail, February 4.) No II.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1989, 7 April 1885, Page 3

THE INDO-RUSFIAN PLOT. ITS PROSPECTS. (Pionee Mail, February 4.) No 11.

Tiih gf-neial bearings of Mr Vambe'ry 1 article in the ynxttinth Ctntinu ha\ beea noticed in these columm already but since the good effect of such essay can only be seemed by a widespreat appreciation of the facts on winch • coitect estimate of Russia's futun policy must depend, it may be woitl while to run over the main points of M Vambe'ry 's retrospect The commence ment of the mo<lern eia of Russia' O'enttal Asian pohev he dates from thi captuie of Tashkcnd in 1864. 'I'hei Russia fii^t sucueds in bit akin; through the sand belt ot Centra Asia on the notth "defeiting witl a small band of advuiluieis tin hostile array of the natives who out numbered them twenty —nay tln'itj times." Genual TchcnnjilF tiien W roto : — "The \ oil which Ins Intlie.K coveied the conqutst of Jndi.i . . is beginning to lift it.s- If kf<»e m;, eyes." To secure Ta>hkend tlip Rusv.u Government saw that it would be nucs sary to push fin thei M>ut!i, and in t!i.> manner followed m 18">Sthe o\eithi.>w of Bokhaia. The pu-ent I'.inii is "f mere shadow," a ikuited v,v-il— -bui Russia is the \ 11 tv il owm i of lis|im,ii p.ihty ; ' Khiva was ovt-t.ikiji i>y tm fate of Hukh.ua in 1^73 ' M- ;<• .11.1.1 Russia ptofencd t') l.mi' the lot, 1 1 U>> veinment just so nincii sh.idow ot autlm rity as lelieved the tonqiuii q St.iU from tl>e lieLe-s-iiy of a'.siinuim itfinancial bmdeiis The Khan '"e-tn >,- liimself foitun.ite, if aftei having wuli great tionble collected the t;i\e^ an I paid off the animal instalment of th- «,u indemnity tlieie is euoujh left him tro-n the revenues ot the country to co\li*!lk exp<nses of his household." " Kho'.'.and's (the ancient Feihina's) turn cam- in 187G '" Hire also Russ.si would have prefeued to arrange matters on the Khiva and Bokhaia plan. Hei object is not to bent fit annexed countrie< by pood adniinntiatu n, but '.imply t(. under them hopclcs-, instalments of hei own .\:iibition But the sjstem woul 1 not w oik in KltoKaitd. T)>e thioiic of the Khan could not be upheld, and the conquering powtr had at last to step in ni.iUc a f>t/)t(ta i ft* t of c\c;j thuiir, and incoi poiate the Khana'e u ith the Russian Empire. Expectations, however, th.it had been formed in Russian society befoie IS7O, which regauled the tei i itory thus bei/ed on as an Asiatic Pern, in Which abundmt opportunities of ac quiiing wealth wcie supposed to exist, wete disappointed "Central Asia proved to be no America, e\ ccpt for the officials who practise the most impudent extortions " The region which had at first been Hoarded with a nnsdiiectid gieed for its own >ake, was now seen to be useless except as a stepping stone to something else. The whole purpose of Russia in Central Asia was row tinned towards the frontiers of India. The attack was fiist directed agjinst the Turcomans on the eastern shoiesof the Caspian. The respect cunningly paid to the Atrek as a Persian boundary, 'saved Russia the embarrassment of an encounter with the large masses of the Yamut Turcomans. The country in which she really wished to operate lay further east, across a dreary desert in which whole regiments were swept away by tho privations of the mai eh. It was in order to " avoid tho tremendous hardships of the communication between the Akhal territory and the eastern coast that the Russians conceived the bold idea of building a 1 ailway there," the first ever put down on the bottomless sand steppes of Central Asia. Though only 217 veists in length, or about 130 miles, and on a nanow gaupe, it co-t £018,000, and the bneiifices of all kinds that li.nl to lie ma le to constiuct it weie teiuble, but " neither Geneial SkohelelT, who was ;it the head of the expedition, noi Geneul Annenkow, who planned and constructed tiie t,hmt railway, wete the men to sin ink badfiom any saeiitiees." Abundantly furnished with supplies by means of the railway, Skobek ft sti uck his blow iit'ainst the Akh.il Mckkcs at Geok Tepe " Tlie ajred, the sick, and the very children took pait in the <'e f ence About 3,000 Tuiconiiuis paid the penalty of diaMi for hay im» ventured to cope with the might of the White Czar." It will be aeon that Mr Vambcry's survey of c\ents is quite unassociatcd with any examination of tl.o diplomatic treachery in its relations with the Government of Gieat Biitian, which has maiked the progress of the Uus-sian conquest But, apart altogether from this, th* bare facts as they stand are vividly illustrative of the spit it in which Russian pi ogress in Central Asia has been accomplished By apologists this progies>s is constantly spoken of as a process of growth, analogous to that by which the autlionty of Great Birtain has expanded in India, but it would be impossible to imagine processes bearing less resemblance to one another in these essential characteristics than these two. As Professor Seelev hns pointed out, "our acquisition of India was made blindly Nothing great that has ever been done by Englishmen was done so unintentionally, so accidentally as the conquest of India. . . . The nations of India have been conquered by an aimy of which on the average about a fifth part was English From what race where the other four fifths of thearmy drawn ? Fiom the natives of India themselves India can h<wdly be said tohavebepn conqueied at all by foreigneis ; she has rather conquered herself." The whole process was simply the acquisition of power in the State by that element of the mixed population which proved itself best fitted to rule. Contiast this state of thing* with the nakedly aggiessive character of the Russian operations against the Akhal Tekkes, associated as it was with the ruthless slaughter of the populations who were invaded by a compact military force from afar, and marked out for attack in the interest of avast tchetnc of territonal bugandage which the unprovoked seizure of Geok Tepe was merely designed to subseive. We say again that in .spite of the enormous masses of armed men which Russia may be in a position to manipulate, in spite of the hordes of irregular horse which she will now industriously set to work to organise, and the futuie services of which constitute part of the lewaid she will have secured by the last of her achievements at Merv, this countiy would have no reason to fear the ultimate developments of that unprincipled scheme if the eyes of our own Government could but be opened to the truth, and if mca sures foi the adequate protection of the Indian Empire were not unhappily barred by the consideration that to undertake them now would be a practical confession that the partial safeguards already secured by the late Government were. only thrown aside to keep faith with the dupes of an electioneering trick. But as long as the British people permit the Government to postpone that oonfession io long indeed does the Indian Empire stand exposed to the further developments of the Russian plot. We may all have to pay » frightful price soont-r or later for the reluctance of the public at home to study in a spirit of honest impartiality, like that in which Vambdry writes it, tho history of RiiHßian policy in Central Asia during the last fifteen yeais. From the independent action of a Government steeped in Pa.liamentary intrigue, and struggling for existence, though buoyed up by its enoimous majority against the failure of it* policy in Ireland, the ignominy of its colonial mismanagement, the absuul entanglements of its relations with Egypt, and its incapacity even to administer the navy at a time when peace reign» over the seas — qne can expect nothing. It is only from eternal pressure that the most glaring duties can be forced upon the d!su>idant Ministry, absorbed in the fi- rce ami laborious frivolity of an uncalled for dgraeitic reform. Th« Press ia the ouly

agency by means of which measures of national, as distinguished from those of paity inteient*, cnn now be set on foot, and a« yet the politics of Central Asia aie only discussed in the nidga/iocs When will some energetic newspaper rouse the woild to a perception of "The Truth about the Imlo-Rn«sian plot?"