STATUS OF TIBET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15659, 13 July 1914, Page 6

STATUS OF TIBET.

, An international agreement" defining the political status of Tibet, and prescribing the relations which Great Britain, Russia, and China respectively shall in future j maintain with the people of that country, 1 lis being negotiated. For some time after | the outbreak of the revolution in China the state of affairs in Tibet was a source of constant anxiety to the British rulers of India. The Chinese had attempted to recover the prestige and authority which the "Sons of Heaven" possessed in Tibet when orders passed in Pekin were obeyed from the Yellow Sea to the Pamirs. The Tibetans, though they could offer no effective resistance to the advance of a small British forco when Sir Francis Younghusband was rent to Lhassa, proved more than a match for. the Chinese. . The latter were expelled from the capital, and the attempts that were made to recover lost ground ended for the most part in disaster. As the prolongation of the conflict, however, threatened more or less detriment to British interests, the Governments 'of China and Tibet were invited to send delegates to India to discuss the future status and territorial limits of Tibet with a representative of Great Britain. The claims at first put forward on behalf of the Tibetans were said to have been anything but moderate. The Tibetan Prime Minister, it was reported at the time of his arrival in India, was prepared to insist on the complete emancipation of Tibet even from the shadow of Chinese suzerainty. If this is accepted by China, the next step is for Britain to come to an agreement with Russia for the amendment or amplification of the Tibetan clauses in the Anglo-Russian agreement signed in August, 1907. By this both Powers engaged not to enter into negotiations with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government, as well as to abstain from all interference in its internal administration. The British proposals are not likely to amount to any glaring infringement of these restrictions, but it is evidently considered advisable that their stringency should be relaxed, and "conversations" have been proceeding between London and St. Petersburg with this object in view.