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sooner the Russian soldiers can be dispensed with the better. Formal protection or partition is the only alternative to that. It is worth noting, however, that where trade is brisk and the standard of living relatively high, the spirit of the people is moralised, and their love of order accentuated. Further, it is indisputable that these oases of culture could be multiplied all over the country by the building of railways, which would open the gates of international commerce to the nation. It is a curious detail-curious because of the hard light it throws upon Persia's neighbours-that Iran is the only commercial country which has no railways. The necessity of building them is proclaimed by both Great Britain and Russia.

But here again we encounter divergence of views, in consequence, it is affirmed, of incompatibility of interests. Russia is eager to construct a great Trans-Persian trunk line from Astara to Resht and Teheran and on through Beluchistan to the Indian frontier. With the motives which determined her to make this proposal and to obtain two million francs for preliminary surveys, we are not now concerned. The Indian Government is understood to take exception less to the railway than to the direction which Russia proposes to give it through Beluchistan, for example. Military strategists, whose views count, hold that, in the interests of imperial defence, it should be constructed, so far as feasible, along the sea-board, so as to allow the navy to play a part in protecting it. The main consideration is that Russia takes the project so closely to heart that, unless the Indian Government assents to it, she will veto those southern railway schemes which Great Britain is anxious to see realised in order to connect the Gulf with the northern trade centres. One Russian objection to proposals of this kind is that the neutral zone, if intersected by British lines, would virtually lose its neutrality and become a British sphere. It is pointed out at the same time that if the Trans-Persian trunk line were made, Great Britain would at once be in a position to connect the Gulf with the north by branch railways.

The pith of the matter is that the British sphere of influence in Persia is ridiculously narrow, and that instinctively the Government endeavours to widen it. In Southern Persia, for instance, we have large economic interests which are impaired by anarchy. Our commercial

rival is Russia, who can flood the country with wares from the north, where the ways of communication are relatively cheap. In order to equalise the conditions of competition, railways are necessary which shall traverse the neutral zone and connect the south with the north. To this the St Petersburg Foreign Office demurs on the political ground that the neutral zone would be lost to Russia thereby, and on the economic ground that it would deprive her of a lucrative advantage which at present she enjoys over her rival. In this way the British Foreign Office is faced by the alternative of accepting Russia's scheme, opening up Beluchistan, and connecting India with Moscow and Petersburg, or else contenting itself with the insignificant sphere assigned to us by the agreement.

How came the British Foreign Office, one may ask, things being as they then were, to acquiesce in and ratify an arrangement which left such restricted scope for the development of well-established interests? The answer to this question is interesting and instructive, and the lesson it embodies is fitted to serve as a warning. At the time of the negotiations, the mistrust, which for a generation and more had alienated the British and Russian nations, was still alive in the minds of many. It inspired the military element in India with a degree of caution which, whether reasonable or excessive, swayed the British negotiators in London and St Petersburg. The leading idea in the official British mind appears to have been that it would be better to sacrifice territory than strategic position. In other words, military considerations overruled all others. Thus it is no mere flight of fancy to affirm that, if the question of spheres had been approached on its merits and without giving special and perhaps undue weight to strategic considerations, the district assigned to Great Britain would have been considerably larger. And it is, the present writer believes, a fact that the important city of Ispahan was offered by Russia but given up by England for the sake of a frontier position which seemed better suited to the requirements of Indian defence. Without questioning the wisdom of that decision, it is permissible to argue that, if the precautions were warranted, which on that occasion cost the Empire so dear, it would be folly to nullify them now by

acquiescing in the Trans-Persian railway as conceived by the Russian Government. But if the Indo-Persian enterprise receives the approval of the Indian and British Governments, then surely it was superlatively unwise to sacrifice Ispahan and much else in order to secure imaginary advantages, the renunciation of which is contemplated to-day.

Underlying the whole Persian question is one of the largest foreign interests of the British Empire. Whether the problem be scrutinised in its political, military or economic aspect, it is fraught with potential consequences, the magnitude of some of which it would not be easy to exaggerate. Those among them which might be deemed conducive to the welfare of the Empire have diminished at any rate in number, since the ratification of the AngloRussian agreements. The extent of our sphere of influence is circumscribed, and the only way in which it is now possible to extend it is by offering to Russia a full equivalent elsewhere.

This neutral zone of which it has been question, is an odd creation, as indeed is the division of the remainder of the independent Persian realm into spheres of foreign influence. It may not be generally known that the proposal to set apart a stretch of territory dividing the two domains and belonging to neither, emanated from the British Foreign Office, where the 'buffer system' had long been regarded as the pattern for all kindred territorial compromises. This sort of political vacuum has always been abhorred by the Tsar's Government. Juxtaposition for themselves and their rivals is their ideal. The marking off of the middle belt as a political Tom Tiddler's land was therefore a concession to British fears which also had to be duly paid for. And lately a suggestion was hinted at, rather than set out in clear language, to the effect that this neutral zone had better be divided like the rest of the country. One of the most salient practical consequences of this innovation would be the setting apart of a larger area over which British railways might be built and British influence wielded. On the other side of the account one might write many drawbacks, not the least of which is the painful impression which such a measure would produce on the natives at the present conjuncture, when Persia's authorised spokesmen are Vol. 219.-No. 436

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laboriously endeavouring to carry out the recommendations of the two protecting Powers.

Throughout all this Persian tangle British people have but one aim, and are ready to make sacrifices to attain it: the setting of the Persian nation on its feet. If the Shah's unhappy people could once be rendered as independent as, say, Bulgaria or Roumania, able to transact their own home and foreign business without help from outside, the British nation would be satisfied. So long as Russian troops-however beneficial their presence may now be-continue indispensable to the maintenance of order in the country, Persia cannot be deemed a sovereign State, nor will its people feel that self-respect and self-assurance whence the most efficacious stimulus to healthy endeavour is derived. And at the present moment the outlook is exceptionally dismal.

There is still one hope for this unhappy nation-the infusion into its veins of fresh vital forces through the inflow of foreign capital. And this may be effected by means of railways. The first Russian line to be built is purely local, and will connect Djulfa with Tabriz and run on to the fertile district of Urmia. It will cost no more than 1,300,000l. The next undertaking will perhaps be a line from Astara to Resht, which will be regarded as a section of the great Trans-Persian trunk railway. All the surveys for this railway have already been completed. In September the Persian Government will be asked by the Russian, French and British Ministers to grant an option for this through-connexion from frontier to frontier, and there is no doubt it will be accorded. The Regent himself favours the scheme and will see it through. Whether the British Government accepts or rejects the international project and there is little doubt it will co-operate-Russia will construct that portion of it which is to traverse her own sphere of influence with a terminus at Yezd, and wait until the Indian and British Governments have reconsidered their recent decision. In the civilising effect of these coming railways lies the last hope of the Persian people.

Art. 15.-GEORGE WYNDHAM: SOME IMPRESSIONS BY A FRIEND.*

MUCH has been written of Mr George Wyndham in a generous and ungrudging spirit since his death. His charm, his grace, both physical and mental, his versatility as soldier, man of letters and statesman have all been commemorated; his great Land Act in Ireland has received the fullest acknowledgment. People were really moved at his death, and with a few exceptions the chief organs of public opinion for a brief space gave wholehearted acknowledgment to what public opinion held that he had done well. Then the world went on its way and resumed the absorbing interests from which it had turned aside for a moment to bestow attention on the sudden extinction of a brilliant light.

Yet most of the kind things that were said might have been true of one whose gifts were immeasurably inferior to George Wyndham's. Many of us feel, as Mr Balfour said in the House of Commons, that Mr Wyndham's gifts have not received their full meed of praise, partly because they never found the theatre whence they could be so exhibited as to be unmistakable to the world at large.

'What is truth?' asked Pilate. What is fame?' is a question similar in its apparent simplicity and in its real difficulty. A man's greatness is apt to be measured by the test which is most of all affected by the chapter of accidents, namely, visible success. That is the most obvious test, but it is superficial and often wholly inadequate. William Watson has told us in memorable lines that the facile conqueror' may be less great than 'he who, wounded sore, sinks foiled yet fighting evermore.' Failure may be more splendid than success. But in the case before us the large measure of success actually achieved may be a serious obstacle to the general recognition of the splendour of the man's failures. Those who wish to discourse on this latter

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The writer has to thank Lady Grosvenor for her kindness in allowing him to print the extracts from Mr Wyndham's letters contained in this article.

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