Two sets of causes are responsible for the recent outbreaks of Armenian sentiment in regions where this people are an insignificant minority, separated from the natural and historical seats of their race. There is in the first place the political and social inequality between the Christians and the Mohammedans. Just as beside some stagnant pool among the recesses of the rocks the returning tide awakens the folded life of plant and shell, so our Western civilisation, recoiling upon Asia, arouses the hopes which have slept for centuries in the breasts of the Christians of the East. It is not that they are denied religious freedom, as some of their partisans are bold enough to assert. The tolerance of the reigning Sultan is active throughout his empire. The traveller marvels at the liberty, almost amounting to license, which is allowed to the votaries of the several creeds. Take the capital: there are the Greeks with their noisy carnivals, so repugnant to Mussulman austerity. Or the Moslem wayfarer is hustled from the street by some funeral procession with its bevy of priests, conducting an open coffin where the lineaments of the deceased are exposed to a curious and respectful crowd. What invisible force controls all this fermenting human material?... Nor will the favourable impression be diminished by the wider experience of a provincial tour. In the country the sound of Christian bells falls upon the landscape from some cloister nestling in the lap of the hills. In the towns the observance of Sunday effects a change in urban life which is almost as marked as in a Christian state. Trades are suspended, shops are closed, chimes ring from the churches.

What is denied to the Christians is political equality. They are tolerated and they are taxed; but they remain the unbelievers, the victims of a prejudice stronger than any law. In the case of the Armenians they are rigorously prohibited from possessing firearms, and they do not serve in the army. They are excluded from the highest administrative posts. Their share in the provincial government is almost as nothing. The edicts which have pronounced in favour of equality have been inoperative and are in abeyance. At the same time the voice of the West is heard louder and nearer; and the rebellious spirits appeal to the example of Eastern Europe, freed for ever from a Mussulman yoke.

But why did the movement fasten upon these scattered communities—hostages, as it would seem, to the Mussulman power? I think the reason is not very far to seek. Because of the severity with which the outbreaks in Armenia were quelled during 1890 and the preceding years. It was evident to the revolutionary party that the spirit of their countrymen had become cowed in the land where they are native. However real their wrongs—and I think I have testified to their reality—they had learnt by recent experience to endure them in silence without attempting to obtain redress. The movement, suppressed in its place of origin, broke out on new ground.

Sasun, a mountainous region belonging to the southern peripheral zone on the outer margin of the Armenian tableland, was the scene of the first events in the latest recrudescence of the old malady, smothered but not cured. The district extends from the southern slopes of the mountains overlooking the plain and town of Mush, situated upon their northern verge, to the neighbourhood of the town of Hazo. It formed a canton of the old Armenian province of Aghdznik, which is sometimes joined by Armenian writers with that of Korduk, the modern Kurdistan. The name of the canton, Sasun, is said to be derived from Sanasar, one of the two sons of the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib, who, after slaying their father, fled into Armenia.17 His descendants appear to have been known as the Sanasuns or Sasuns18; they were princes of Aghdznik, and occupied the very highest rank at the court of the Armenian Arsakid king.19 Their territories were no doubt occupied by an Armenian population; and the memories of that distant period still linger among the peasantry who are scattered over the wild but in places fertile land.20 But the vicinity of the region to the towns of the lowlands must have rendered wellnigh impossible the maintenance by its inhabitants of their Christian religion during the period of Mussulman expansion. We know from history that its Armenian ruler at the close of the ninth century had adopted a Mussulman name and outwardly professed the Mohammedan religion.21 At the present day some handfuls of Armenian Christians preserve with obstinacy the habits of their race and the practice of their religion among remote fastnesses. The bulk of the population have adopted Islam, are classed as Kurds, and can with difficulty be distinguished from the Kurdish people.

Strange indeed are the anomalies which are presented in these little-known districts of Turkish Kurdistan. On the southern fringe of Sasun live a tribe called the Baliki or Beleke, speaking a mixed language of Arabic, Kurdish and Armenian. Their religion cannot be classed either as Christian or Mohammedan, nor even as that professed by the Kizilbashes. When they make oath it is in the name of a church or monastery. But they possess neither churches nor mosques. Marriage is a rite which they ignore. Their women go about in perfect freedom and unveiled, wearing white trousers like the Yezidis or so-called devil-worshippers. Wives are bought or exchanged—a woman of forty for one of twenty, the owner of the latter being compensated by a few silver pieces. A girl may be purchased from them by a stranger, provided always that you take her away. These Baliki are probably a particular remnant of the old inhabitants, with whom the Armenians, dispersed among them as traders, would scarcely recognise any racial link.

Serfdom is an institution which is not unknown in the country, though its existence is softened over by the Turkish authorities, who shrink from dispensing a purely nominal sovereignty. The serfs, who are Armenians, are known as zer kurri, signifying bought with gold. In fact they are bought and sold in much the same manner as sheep and cattle by the Kurdish beys and aghas. The only difference is that they cannot be disposed of individually; they are transferred with the lands which they cultivate. The chief appropriates as much as he wishes from their yearly earnings, capital or goods; and in return he provides them with protection against other Kurdish tribes. Many stories are told to illustrate the nature of the relation. A serf was shot by the servant of a Kurdish agha who possessed lands in the neighbourhood. The owner of the serf did not trouble to avenge his death on the person of the murderer, still less upon that of the agha, his neighbour. He rode over to the agha’s lands, and put bullets through two of his serfs, the first that he happened to meet.... The serf of a chieftain residing a few hours’ distance from the town of Hazo had settled in Hazo, where he had become treasurer to the Turkish Government. One night his house was attacked by another Kurdish chief, his money carried off and he and his cousin murdered. In this case the owner was not so easily propitiated. He gathered his people together, bearded his fellow-brigand in his lair, killed him, burnt down his house, and put to death every living thing. Both these incidents occurred during the lifetime of people who are still living; the one is related by no less an authority than a British Consul, and the other by an individual in a responsible position, whose sympathies are on the side of the Turkish Government.

On the tableland of Armenia such relations between the Kurds and the Armenians are altogether unknown. Their existence in one form or another among the inaccessible retreats of Kurdistan provided material for the revolutionary propaganda of the agitator, Damadean, whose early doings in the Sasun region I have chronicled in my chapter on Bitlis, and who presents a striking and almost legendary figure even in the sober narrative of the Blue-books.22 This man and his successor Boyajean knew full well that there in Sasun they were breaking virgin ground. They were further encouraged by the fact that the Armenian peasantry of that region were in possession of arms and knew how to use them. The result of their efforts and of the ill-advised action of the local authorities was the Sasun massacre of 1894. It was followed by the massacres of 1895, which devastated the country districts and most of the great towns of the Armenian tableland, but of which the principal and new feature was the occurrence of such tragedies among the Armenian communities spread over the face of the Ottoman Empire.

I have not been able to learn that the condition of these scattered communities presents any special cause for disaffection; and I do not believe that the revolutionary movement, in which they all participated in some degree, was either spontaneous in its nature or indigenous in its growth. Few if any of them are engaged in a struggle for life and death with hordes of Kurds, let loose on territory which is not Kurdish and which is far from being suited to that race of lawless shepherds. Most of them are fairly prosperous citizens in the towns; and whatever grievances they may possess are shared in a greater or a lesser degree by all the Christian subjects of the Sultan. The Armenian cause, as a cause with a justifiable and reasonable aim, is not founded upon any such grievances. For all practical and constructive purposes it is simply a question of the proper government of the provinces of Armenia which are inhabited by Mussulmans as well as by Armenians, but which are raided and drained of their resources by tribal Kurds.

One other aspect of this part of the subject remains to be considered. The massacres of 1895 were certainly not the outcome of a spontaneous rising of the Mussulmans against the Christians. All or nearly all were organised from without. I well remember how, while taking coffee with an official high in the Turkish service in the neighbourhood of a great provincial centre, my host, pointing to the road which we overlooked from the open windows, said: “I can never look upon that road without remembering the occasion when I sat in this very room and saw strange people passing along it—immigrants, so they seemed, from the mountains in the north. Our massacre followed at no long interval.” The Mussulmans of the Armenian provinces are perfectly well aware that their own turn will closely follow upon the disappearance of the Armenians. They will not, indeed, be butchered by imported bands of ruffians; but they will be swallowed by the Kurds. Some of their villages have already been raided by this people, who are less to blame for such natural exercise of their appetites than those who have transplanted or enticed them from their native seats.... I must now pass without any preamble to the larger bearings of the Armenian Question: does it offer any scope for a practical and special solution which need not embrace the reform and rejuvenescence of the Ottoman Empire as a whole? And what are the interests of the progressive states of Europe, and of Great Britain in particular, in the settlement and disposal of the Question?

I. I must repeat with tedious persistency that what is most required is a knowledge and appreciation of the geographical conditions. These I have endeavoured in a lengthy analysis to elucidate. Collective Notes and schemes of reform are of very little value, if it be attempted to apply their provisions indifferently to regions presenting features so distinct and dissimilar as the tableland of Armenia and the mountains of Kurdistan. No solution of the Armenian Question in Turkey would be calculated to contain the elements of permanence which should not be concerned in the first instance with delimitation, and with redistribution of the existing Governmental areas.

The principles upon which such redistribution should proceed are the common-sense principles of grouping together districts which naturally belong together, and of rendering the Governments as far as possible homogeneous. I think it would be found that obedience to these principles would at the same time assist a practical solution of the Kurdish Question. They would point to the formation of three great Governments. One would be constituted by the mountainous districts between the tableland of Armenia and the Black Sea, and might be called the Black Sea Government. It would coincide to some extent with the existing area of the vilayet of Trebizond; but it might seem advisable to include within it regions at present belonging to the vilayet of Erzerum, such as Tortum and the districts on the side of Olti. The second Government would embrace the tableland itself, and its demarcation should be conducted as far as possible in consonance with the natural frontiers, such as they have been determined in the present work. The third Government would be the Government of Kurdistan. It would comprehend a considerable area, from Kirkuk and Sulimanieh on the south-east to Diarbekr and the confines of Kharput on the north-west. Mosul, Jezireh and Diarbekr would be the bases of the administration, these cities on the lowlands being situated in convenient positions to serve as centres from which to control the necessary winter migrations of the Kurdish tribes from their mountains to the agricultural regions bordering on the left or eastern bank of the Tigris. Strong military posts might be established within the mountainous area in the principal towns of Kurdistan.

Of these three Governments that of the tableland should be administered from a suitable centre, which centre would be neither Erzerum nor Van. Akhlat, Melazkert or Khinis would seem to be naturally designated to fulfil the requirements of the case. None of these towns are very far removed from the frontier line of the Kurdish mountains, on which side alone would the new Government be exposed to incursions of the lawless Kurdish element. All of them are favourably placed for intercommunication with the principal Armenian districts. Passage of the tribes from Kurdistan proper into the Governmental area should be rigorously interdicted. It could be prevented by no more formidable measures than the enrolment of a corps of gendarmerie. Such a corps would also suffice to police the districts on the tableland at present inhabited by tribal Kurds.

Reforms or changes of this nature are well within the capacity of the Government at Constantinople. They would not, I think, prejudice their general military administration; it might even be found that they would be in harmony with purely military interests. But the Turks should never forget that they are much more likely to succumb as an empire owing to defects in the civil rather than in the military arm. Europe, with all her want of squeamishness, cannot permanently tolerate civil misgovernment on so great a scale. One after another the friends or allies of the Ottoman Empire in Europe will be compelled to stand aside. Sooner or later the young German Empire will be forced by circumstances to adopt the same attitude as her elder sister of Great Britain. Meanwhile there is growing up with alarming rapidity a situation in the provinces immediately adjoining Russian territory which already invites and may soon require Russian intervention. Russian statesmen are only awaiting the favourable moment in the world movements of the time. Russian troops are already placed within striking distance of the fortress of Erzerum, immediately commanding the roads to the interior of Asia Minor and to the capital. It does not require a long memory to recall the pretexts—nay, the causes—upon which Russia justified her previous aggressions upon Turkish territory. Who shall assert that the present situation on the tableland of Armenia is less aggravated than that which prevailed in the European provinces when the Russian armies crossed the Pruth in 1877?

Administrative changes of the nature I have indicated are, of course, only feasible as a whole through spontaneous action on the part of the Government at Constantinople. Their professed friends but real enemies may try to play upon their suspicions; and will, no doubt, urge that they are being offered in a thinly veiled form the substance of an independent Armenia. But such a consummation, were it even possible in a remote future, need not alarm the well-known solicitude of Oriental rulers for the interests of posterity. If the millions of Mussulmans attached by religion and common interests to the rule of the Sultans were ever insufficient to keep within bounds Armenian ambitions, the presence of such a strong nation upon the high road of the Russian advance would surely be a blessing in disguise. It can scarcely be doubted that in that case the weight of Armenian sympathies would be on the side of the weak Ottoman Empire. But this talk about a revival of the Armenian kingdom is windy and frivolous in the extreme. The Armenians have neither leaders nor a class of leaders; and how long would it take to develop such a class? In the ninth century, when they broke loose from the expiring body of the caliphate, they had their princes and nobles of greater and lesser degree. These families have disappeared without leaving a trace. And is it certain or even probable that, if the old ideal could be again realised, the Armenians in the twentieth century would be prepared to revive a polity which would narrow their activities from the whole wide area of an empire to the confined stage of a petty state?

The example of Bulgaria, sometimes quoted with a shiver of fear in this connection, is not an example in point. There the Christians composed the bulk of the population; and they had no links, such as are present in the case of the Armenians, with the rest of the Ottoman Empire. But, even if the apprehensions of the most nervous could be justified by solid arguments, what is the alternative which they are able to suggest? If they settle the Kurdish Question they are in so far assisting the Armenians; while, if they allow it to settle itself, they are face to face with the ruin of these provinces, which Russia, in the interests of the security of her own frontier, will be constrained and will be invited by Europe to occupy.

But the regulation of Turkish Armenia is not a matter which alone concerns the rulers on the Bosphorus. Europe has always recognised her intimate interest in the affairs of Turkey, and she is specially pledged to secure good government for the Armenians. But her intervention, should it be necessary, would, I hope, be based on the broadest grounds, not in favour of the Armenians alone, but also of the Mussulmans. The constitution of a single new province on the tableland would not be tantamount to controlling the administration of Asiatic Turkey; it is a measure which can be reasonably demanded and readily executed. Moreover, if Europe were again to take up the question, she would be well advised not to recognise any limitations in respect of the qualifications of the new Governor-General. He would, of course, not be an Armenian, and he might very well be a Mussulman and a subject of the Sultan. Or a European might be appointed to the post. In a financial and administrative sense the province would be dissevered from the Central Government; and, in the present state of the country, a loan to the provincial treasury would be necessary to supply the funds for the organisation of the gendarmerie. The new Governor would rule over a somewhat heterogeneous Mussulman majority and a compact Armenian minority, very much their inferior in numbers. But his efforts would be assisted by the homogeneous nature of the provincial area; and his jurisdiction would embrace, not a tract of difficult mountain country, but some of the finest agricultural districts in the world.

The needs of the Armenians living in the capital and in the towns of Asiatic Turkey could be met by the revival of the so-called constitution granted to their nation by Sultan Abd-al-Aziz in 1863. I have thought it worth while to include a translation of this lengthy document, and it will be found in my first appendix. It has the nature of a regulating statute, like the Polojenye in Russia, rather than of what we should understand by a constitution. But, unlike the Polojenye, it is mainly addressed to the development among the Armenians of systematic management of the affairs of their communities. Those communities have always enjoyed the privilege of administering their own institutions, such as monasteries, churches, hospitals and schools. The statute of 1863 provides a complete and democratic machinery for the better organisation and control of such institutions. It wisely avoids, except in the last resort, any interference by Government in these purely internal affairs. I cannot conceive any better training for the Armenian people than that which they would receive by the application of their great intelligence to such practical and concrete ideals. The pitfall which they should avoid, were the statute ever revived, is the attempt to convert it into a political weapon.

II. Europe as a whole is concerned with the future of these Asiatic provinces on the score of her great and growing trade. The particular Powers are also interested on political grounds—to preserve the balance of power. The territory of Turkish Armenia is of first-rate importance whether from the one or the other point of view. As regards trade, it is not only the trade with Armenia that is at stake, but that with the whole of Northern Persia. The great highway of commerce between the ports on the Black Sea and the interior of Persia passes along the avenue of the Armenian plains. The possession of Erzerum by a protectionist Power would effectually stifle this important trade-route, and would cut off Persia from the Black Sea.

Not less far-reaching would be the results in a political sense of such an occupation. The strategical value of the country is difficult to overrate. Turkish Armenia is the sign-post of the Nearer Asia, commanding the roads west, south and east. These issue upon the one side at the Mediterranean seaboards, and, on the other, at the Persian Gulf. The contemporary littleness of the land has served in no small measure to blind our eyes to these facts.

Europe may elect to keep herself blind to such considerations, whether of a commercial or political nature. The question then arises, what are the interests of Great Britain, and upon what lines should her policy be shaped?

In the discussion of all such questions it is a principle of no small value to ascertain not the opinions of statesmen and diplomatists, but those of the proverbial man in the street. Of the former, few, indeed, are at the present day possessed even of an elementary knowledge of such-like Asiatic problems. Layard and Rawlinson have both been long removed from the stage of politics; and these eminent men and stately figures with their Western culture and Eastern sympathies have both already passed from our midst. We can none of us be specialists on each and every question; and it is with a feeling of deep respect that those among us who have, perhaps, acquired some small knowledge of a particular problem, should endeavour to select among their friends those possessed of the divine average, and use them as foolometers—the gauge of common sentiment.

Several different kinds of opinion will be registered. “It is very sad, those poor Armenians; but we are not knight-errants, and there are hard blows going about.”... “Why can’t we leave the Turks alone—they are in possession. Turkey belongs to the Turks and China to the Chinese.”... “So we are to hark back to the miserable policy of bolstering up the Turks! Let them go bag and baggage to the quickest possible perdition; and, if Russia will do the work and remove the nuisance, so much the better for us and the whole world.”... “We can’t expect to have a finger in everybody’s pie. We have already more than we can manage on our hands.” The one conclusion which you may draw from these conflicting utterances is that the balance of common sentiment is, perhaps, in favour of standing aside.

In England the actions of Governments are based on common sentiment. There is no Government in the sense of an enlightened administration, with a reasoned foreign policy and what the French would call a politique de longue vue et de longue haleine. Even our great Indian Empire is ruled on principles which, so far as they relate to external affairs, are little better than the proverbial methods of the ostrich. What Indian Foreign Secretary is even conversant with the affairs of Persia, his next-door neighbour, as one might say? The Indian Government are at the present day sensible of great constriction in their finances, and what are the methods which they pursue? In every direction they draw in their horns, saving a few pounds here and a few there, and pointing with pride to the forcible retirement of a pair or two of distinguished teachers in a great educational establishment. What vigilance and strict economy! But business, at least in the City, is not as a rule conducted by the clerks. There our suspicions are excited by such pettifogging manœuvres, and we keep our eyes open in expectation of the inevitable failure, not less certain than in the case of inflation and extravagance.

At home widespread prosperity, a long start in the industrial race and the complexity of our world-wide transactions have grown like weeds and flowers around the margin of a salubrious well, screening the view and almost the sound of the life-giving waters. We forget the commercial basis of all our wealth and power; and few among us are sensible of a thrill if some vast province of the Chinese Empire be walled round against our trade. Yet foreign commerce is the most delicate of national activities, slow, shy, easily disturbed and swiftly killed. The essential peacefulness of its methods, and the fact that few of the homes it helps to support are even aware of the destination of the goods they contribute to produce—such characteristics are little calculated to compete with the clamour of other interests, such as gold-mines, colonies, pan-Germandom or pan-Saxondom, or any other of the popular cries of the day.

The spirit of adventure lying at the foundation of the British character has been enlisted into African enterprise. One cannot help admiring the undoubted ability with which the organisers of the movement towards South Africa have at once appealed to the imagination of the British people, and won over to their side by careful preparation both the elements in the body politic capable of exercising quiet pressure and the recognised mouthpieces of public opinion. The prettiest women, the most ancient titles have all their share in the movement; and a Press, which cannot be bought, has been successfully persuaded of the excellence of the cause which in full chorus they uphold and applaud. On the Continent similar methods have been pursued by our Boer adversaries; and the result has been a war in print and a war in feeling with our neighbours in Europe of far greater moment than the African battles we have won or lost. For such outbursts, produced by a clever imitation of South African methods, or, perhaps, by spontaneous appreciation on the part of the Boers of the new-born forces of advertisement on a huge scale, the organisers in England can scarcely be held responsible. They have done their work well, however we may judge its effect on character; and we cannot blame them if, absorbed in their own particular problem, they have at the same time thrown cold water on all questions concerning Asia. The prudence of our people, once committed to an important struggle, has also been a factor on their side.

But Africa, this Syracuse of modern Europe, will not always, let us hope, be at our doors. The moment our hands are free I trust they may be directed to the disentangling of some Asiatic knots. Now the interests of Great Britain, under which we may include those of British India, are, I think there can be no doubt, most intimately bound up with the Asiatic provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Starting from the base of the Persian Gulf we have built up by laborious methods, extending over a period of getting on for a century, a commercial system which reaches far into the interior of Mesopotamia and embraces the whole of Southern Persia. At the same time we have erected that northern trade-route of which I have spoken, giving access to our goods from the coast of the Black Sea to the markets of Northern Persia.

What a long and patient struggle in face of almost overwhelming difficulties has been successfully conducted and inch by inch pursued by these various enterprises! With them are associated the names of Brant in the north and of Chesney and Lynch in the south. The correspondence of Consul Brant with his distinguished chief, Stratford Canning, will, I trust, be some day given to the world.23 It displays on its face a union of ideas with the much rarer capacity of translating them into practice by unwearying attention to the minutest details, which, whether the quality may have been inspired by the ambassador or his able subordinate, reflects lustre upon both names. It serves to remind us that the Russian policy of building walls round their possessions is not a policy of recent date. We may regard with legitimate pride the readiness of our ancestors to take advantage of the throwing open of the Black Sea and of the facilities offered by the introduction of steam power; the old land-routes through Asia Minor were rapidly superseded, and a new commercial avenue between Trebizond and the interior of Persia was gradually opened up by a series of patient efforts which would have done credit to the Genoese.

In the south the expeditions of Chesney (1835–37)24 and of Lynch (1837 and following years) were directed to the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris and of the countries through which they flow. The former took his vessels in pieces from the coast of Syria to the Euphrates, while those of the latter—the Nitocris, Assyria and Nimrod—were conveyed by sea to the estuary of the Shat-el-Arab. The labours of these pioneers were thrown away by the British Government, and the project of an overland route from the Mediterranean to India somewhat suffered from the undertaking of the Suez Canal (1860 and following years). It is certain to be revived. On the purely commercial side something was saved by individuals; and, starting from the knowledge acquired by the two eminent explorers, a trade with an annual value at the present day of about a million sterling has little by little been built up. It is carried by river steamers, which also convey the British mails, from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad. These steamers have to contend with a variety of disabilities imposed by the Turkish Government. Their voyages are confined to the Tigris; the Euphrates is kept closed, and they are not suffered to proceed a mile above Baghdad. But the magnificent country through which they pass is growing in wealth through the facilities they provide; and the force of circumstances will sooner or later open wide the doors.

Of even earlier date are our trade-routes from the Gulf seaboard to the tableland of Persia. Indeed it may be said without exaggeration that from Kirmanshah on the north to Beluchistan upon the south the zone of mountains which support that tableland are threaded by a number of arteries, diffusing over the vast body of the Iranian highlands the life-blood of reciprocal commerce. Such facts have not escaped the notice and solicitude of competent observers; but it seems to me that their logical bearing upon the problems of the Nearer Asia has not been examined with sufficient thoroughness. There can be little doubt that the acquisition by Russia of a port on the Persian Gulf would not be tolerated by any British Government.25 Apart from all considerations of a commercial nature, it would imply the necessity of maintaining a powerful fleet in the Gulf, with additional strain on the finances of India. But what if the northern Power were to occupy Turkish Armenia? Would it merely entail the loss of our northern trade-route? I should like to examine in a temperate spirit the possibilities of such a hypothesis, not fearing to look them in the face, but endeavouring to divest my remarks of any alarmist or sensational character.

My reader who may have mastered the facts of the geography will call to mind the intimate connection of the system of tablelands with one another from the borders of India to the Mediterranean. The capital of Persia and her greatest cities are situated upon the tableland; and I cannot conceive that the empire of the Shahs could long maintain its independence after Russia had become possessed of Turkish Armenia. Not less certain would be the fate of Asia Minor, west of the Euphrates; and, indeed, in the contingency which we are discussing, the German Empire might be well advised to bargain away the important railways which she has recently constructed in that country in return for substantial advantages elsewhere. As regards England, I cannot admit, after careful consideration, that the loss to her trade of Turkish Armenia and the presence of Russia on the tableland of Persia would necessarily endanger India. Such a consummation—regrettable as it must be, and avoidable as I believe it is—would deal a hard blow at her trade in the south. But one has to face that common sentiment of which I have spoken, and the corresponding lukewarmness of our rulers in the domain of Asiatic affairs.

It would be a very different thing if we were to suffer any encroachment on the part of Russia upon the zone of mountains supporting on the south the tablelands of Armenia and Persia, and drawn like a long succession of chevaux de frise around the lowlands of Mesopotamia. Her occupation of any part of that zone of mountains would necessarily entail sooner or later the occupation of the whole. The lowlands themselves, the field of our trade, and appointed by Nature as a granary for India with her teeming millions and uncertain harvests, would be at her mercy without striking a blow. Distance is a factor of little importance on the lowlands; they are flat as the sea, and traversed from one end to the other by two magnificent navigable rivers. A Power stationed at Diarbekr is already stationed on the Persian Gulf, with a country of immense potential wealth at her back. For these reasons it would be well that we should recognise as soon as possible that the bedrock of British policy in the Nearer Asia should be the preservation of the integrity of the lowlands with their frame of mountains from Syria to the borders of India.

The conclusion at which I arrive is that the possession by Russia of Turkish Armenia would be attended by consequences which have scarcely been appreciated at all by the majority of my countrymen. I would fain hope that, if this event be indeed inevitable, it may not take us by surprise. Our own path is clearly indicated by the finger of Nature; and the Russian Empire, established in Armenia, would be quite as accessible to attack from the lowlands as our Indian Empire to hostile approach on the side of Asiatic Russia. But in order to safeguard our interests and provide for future contingencies we must accustom ourselves to think a little ahead. It will not be sufficient to beat time, and endeavour to entice Germany into our own particular domain. As a natural commercial ally in her own field of Asia Minor, that Power may render assistance to the common cause. As a competitor in our sphere she would be very much more likely to make her own terms with the northern Empire. Finally—for after all it is as much a question of men as of measures—I should like to contribute my vote as a traveller—whatever it may be worth—in favour of a proposal recently made by a well-informed writer. And the only amendment which one might desire to the proposition he has well expressed is that it should be accompanied by a recognition of what our Foreign Office has already accomplished with the imperfect system which it at present dispenses:—“The machinery of the Foreign Office is not adjusted to perform the new and strange duties which belong to Oriental diplomacy. The ministers and secretaries who are competent officials in Vienna or Rome are lost among the tortuous political pathways of Bangkok, Teheran and Pekin. Never shall we hold our own in Asia until an Asiatic Department is formed, under the charge of an experienced minister of Cabinet rank, with an independent diplomatic staff, trained in the methods, and speaking fluently the languages of the East.”26