RUSSIAN SPIES IN INDIA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 95, 25 April 1894, Page 4

RUSSIAN SPIES IN INDIA.

Tunes of India.

The Russian Government have no accredited representatives in India ; but ifc is no secret that they have long had an informally constituted corps of emissaries who supply them with abundance of information concerning a good deal that goes on in this country. It may be that Bncb. information is more remarkable for quantity than for quality, and we happen to know that one eminent authority on Russian affairs, who knows India as well as he knows Russia, holds that, though tho Russian Government pay less for their informal representation in India thon they would have to pay for a properly constituted consular corps, the information they send is worta a good deal less than is paid for it. Mr Lanin, when he wrote in tho Fortnightly Review about the activity of Russian spies who are " making exhaustive studies of the country, from Quetta to Madras, and froinTrevandrum to Darjeeling." might have given a thought to tho qualitative no less than to the quantitative side of the question. r ihe amateur spy has always been peculiarly prone to send home something in the nature of travellers' tales. There gentlemen have a way of remembering that they are paid by the piece and not by time, and knowing that they are expected to send in as much as they can for their money, they are under Btrong temptation to bring imagination to the aid of knowledge. Thus we have Mr Lanin telling us of a member of the Slavonic Society who paid several visits to the various cities, provinces, and Native fctates of India, investigating many problems and political questions, and among other things " inquiring into the truth of an extraordinary story told, and into the value of extensive rights ceded, to the White Czar, by the descendants of one of the most blood-thirsty tyrants that ever rose up in rebellion against the Crown.' It is tantalising to be put off, in this connection, with the footnote that "this is an interesting story, and may be told one day in full." If the descendants of Tippu— shall we say ? — including among them the mild mannered Humayun Jah who died the other day, have been promising to *' cede " Mysore to the Czar, or if, peradventure, some one belonging to Nana Sahib has undertaken to put the Emperor in the place of the Peishwas, it is hard upon us that Mr Lanin and a certain peripatetic member of the Slavonic Society should keep so moving a story to themselves. Meanwhile this sidelight upon tho doings of the Russian spy in India will strengthen the belief that much of the so-called information that goes to the Foreign Office in it. Petersburg from India ia worth rather less than the Russian Government have to pay for it. Missionaries have met and conversed with many of these spie3 in various parts of India, without ever feeling moved to give information to the authorities, The authorities, however, are in most cases at least well informed as to the presence and purpose of these interesting strangers as the missionaries, and we do not know that much is lost through their reticence. Remembering how closely Madame Blavatsky was shadowed across India during one of her tours, not by a mahatma but by a policeman, it is hardly likely that the Russian spy who comes here in the guise of a scientist or a scholar so completely escapes the attention of the authorities as Mr Lauin supposes. There ie, however, one terrible personage against whom we must surely bo on our guard — "an Indian Hannibal sworn , to devote his life to the work of wreaking vengeance upon the enemies of the people, a clover and unscrupulous individual who has beeu at every and in almost every council room of the East ; successfully intriguing in Persia, laying snares for us in Afghanistan, fomenting disaffection in India, and stimulating his associates in Nepal." True, he has "stimulated his associates in Nepal" to small purpose, since the relations of the British Government with Nopal, which five years ago were something ehorfc of cordial, have since then become of the friendliest, and tho authorities at Khatmandn have in recent years shown increased willingness to assist in ;the recruiting of Goorkhas for service in India.

Aa to the snares which this *' Indian Hannibal" has been laying for us in Afghanistan, Mr Lanin is unaccountably reluctant to believe that things are going well with us in that country. The active support o£ Afghanistan, he says, is looked Tjpon in Knssia as a certainty, and " there is not one statesman in England who. being acquainted with the East, would stake his reputation for penetration on the fidelity of the Afghans to the Indian Government." Perhaps not, but we must not ignore the most obvious symptoms of the disposition of the Ameer and his people towards us, and through these symptoms may possibly begmeresurface indications, the fruits of our diplomacy at Cabul are certainly more tangible than those of the intrigues of this terrible person. Is he, after all, a more formidable agent than the strangers who talk with missioraries, and send to St. Petersburg stories of a universal disposition on the part df the natives of India to welcomo the ''Divine Figure from the JVortb," when he comes, knout in hand, to prolfer the blessings of Russian yule end civilisation to the people of this land?