AN AUTHORITY SPEAKS. ARTICLE BY PROFESSOR VAMBERT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1908, Page 7

AN AUTHORITY SPEAKS. ARTICLE BY PROFESSOR VAMBERT.

Professor Avmimus Vambery, the wellknown traveller, and who has been an active defender of British interests in Asia,, contributed to the December number of the Nineteenth Century a very interesting article on the Anglo-Russian Convention. As one whose name has been connected for more than fifty years with the Anglo-Russian rivalry 'question In the East, he cannot help saying that ho Is not at all delighted by it, that the stipulations do more harm than good to British interests, and that, in the form it" came out, it would have been mnch better not to have come out at all. ELEPHANT AND Yv xiALE WALKING IN BROTHERLY LOVE. "Favourably disposed critics say we must not look at tho details, but rather at the summary effect, culminating in tho decision of Russia to put an end to her enmity against England, and that consequently henceforward tho whale and the elephant tfill walk in brotherly love and affection over Asia." This mode of argument does not, however, strike the professor as being compatible with the signification of the separate articles of the convention, for they are far from being corner-stones securing tho safety of the whole building. "Let us," ho says, "begin with Persia. We learn frjjm history that British influence was powerful at the court of the great Persian King in modern times, when tha Russian Envoy had to appear at the audience in- company of grooms and ferrashes (servants). If Igo back only half a century ago, I still remember to have seen tho influence and prestigo of Britain paramount in the whole of Ivan. . . . Now it requires a good deal of equanimity to view with indifference the recent partition of spheres of influence in the said country, whero the greatest, the richest, the most fertile, and the commercially as well as industrially most important portion has been allotted to tho formerly despised Russia — whilst England, the formerly supreme Power, must bo cqntent with the south-eastern corner, consisting of an arid, barren, and sunburnt mountainous tract of very little value." The writer urges that in tho neutral zone agreed upon Russian, and, later, German, competition by no means facilitate the development of British trade, "nay, it must be looked upon as its death-stroke." "Not understood." "I am at a loss," continues ths Professor, ''to understand how people argue that tho "excessive yielding to Russia has closed the Seistan avenue to India, and lhat the narrow southeastern corner conceded to England will be quite enough to ward off any future attack against England in the Gulf. ■How naive, how childish! AFGHANISTAN. "After Persia, we shall examine tha so-called benefits derived from the convention regarding Afghanistan. Here we are told that Russia has been generous enough to concede to England the right of influence and of territorial possession acquired with blood and money during half a century, and in acknowledgement of this magnanimity, England allows to Russian officers on the borders to confer freely with Afghan olhcors in non-political matters. We may well ask what kind of lelations may ariso which ars void of any political bearing on the, mutual relations between Russians and Afghans? . . . If Russia was anxious to accord an equivalent for the loss England has sustained in Persia, she ought to have discarded acts and steps which involved a threat to England's position in north of Afghanistan." A CONCLUSION. Professor Vambery has come- to the conclusion that in Afghanistan, as in Persia, Russia i 3 deriving greater profit from the convention, and that, in fact, 'England, far from benefiting at alt, is decidedly a loser, "for we are at a loss to discover any amelioration in her former position with regard to the safety of the- north-west frontiers of India. . . . There is no doubt that the free and easy .Viuscovito guardian of the frontior will know how to avail himself of ib© new. situation. ' i