RUSSIA AND INDIA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IX, Issue 2840, 2 March 1885, Page 3

RUSSIA AND INDIA.

* recent number of M. Aksakoff a «Rn«3 "contains a letter from General Sobofeff, from *hich we extract the fol--10 Sea is a Russian sea, with .. m.ter door kept widely open that U'i enemies may attack her rich B .tiona in the south. Russia strives to SSta£««alon oj this door of the BosS«m «Sy in order to keep lb f - P S her foes. This has been the aim J& of her emperor.. It is moreover I desire of the Russian people, and by Z IL of its stubborn will the end must ntflV be achieved. This is admitted ,11 sides, and therefore it is only a "Ltion of means. Hitherto Russia has q » fall tilt against all obstacles, and has directed her attacks on Turkey. t m doing she found England a strong «d dangerous competitor in the way. and costly wars only left our rich terriVj., of the south open and exposed to Amfer as befere. Until we compel Engtmf br force of circumstances, to see that I is more profitable for her to be Russia's Wind than her foe, we shall only pursue „ sfforts amid seas of blood and with facial ruin staring us in the face. The direct road, therefore, is too difficult and dangerous ; we must take another can only defeat the enemy by .inking at his very fceart, which in the " 0 f England means India. It is just sure as that two and two make four that a campaign in India would cost five rimes less than the expense of the last „r against Turkey; besides which it _ o nld take place in Asia, where neither Austria nor Germany would move a fi nßer and this is a very important conSderaW And while England dares ns to enter the Bosphorus, are we to renounce all action against her in Asia? Are we to be insulted m the Crimea and at Berlin with impunity. No ; it is time to recognise our true aims and the proper meant of pursuing them. We are firmly conruwed that the surest means of obtaining the northern part of the Bosnhonw & *° threaten English dominion lb India. M. Makoff says that Russia's sdTanc* into Central Asia is weakening her and brings no good. It certainly oogts mach money, bnt the sacrifice will one day be repaid a hundredfold. If in 1853 we had occupied our Central Asian position even of 1874, there would have been no Crimean war; and had it not hetn for onr strength in Turkestan in 187 i EDgland would never have stood by irith'folded arms during our last struggle with Turkey. Probably we should have had another Crimean -war, but with Austria in the place of France. "We know that at that time Lord jkaconsfjeld attempted to form a coalition against as of England, India, Afghanistan, and Penis. One of the aims of the alliance mi to hare been the formation of a Turcoman kingdom, hestile to Russia, with its centre at Merv. This was before the Turkish campaign of 1876, in which year a detailed plan of war witk Russia was drawn up in England. Thirty thousand men were to be sent into the Black Sea, 15,000 more European troops and 45,000 Sepoys were to be despatched from India to Bagdad, and 100,000 Turkish Irregulars and 95,000 Kurds in Armenia were to be officered by Englishmen. But the Ameer of Afghanistan refused hi 3 co-operation, and stood openly on the side of Russia. On January 10th, 1876, the Ameer wrote as follows to the Turkish Sultan : "•lam well aware that your Majesty does not approve of what I wrote in my last letter—that English friendship is nothing but words written upon ice. Bnt now your Majesty will be able to convince yourself by experience how little you can count upon their friendship, and you will see that the English always leave their friends in distress, to the will of /ate. . . . , I consider it my duty to beg your Majesty to discard all alliance with England, and to enter into an understanding with Russia.' "We should not forget that this w,as limply the effect of our power in Central Asia. Oar latest acquisition of ' mud/ as M. Makoff calls it in the Transcaspiau, and oar close proximity to Herat and Balkh, will probably be of enormous advantage to us in the very near future. We already occupy a threatening position on the confines of Afghanistan. We are strong there and should have the determlsaSon to recognise the fact. The English are • practical people, and when they understand that we -are not going to play the coward, and are not afraid of threats being put into execution, they will soon talk in another strain and come to terms. The possibility of an invasion of India is a source of great agitation in England, and well may it be so, for whoever deals England a blow there sounds her death-knell. England'* immense bade in the East is entirely dependent on her possession of Hindostan. There is uarctly a well-to-do English family or commercial firm that is not more or les3 dependent upon Indian trade or occupation in the Indian service.

" The army of England is many times less than those of the Continental Powers, and to make tip for thu she has developed « gigantic fleet, on the strength of which alone she continues to have an imnortant Toice in European affairs. Her policy and that of her statesmen is purely one of calculation and profit, and she sticks at nothing when her interests are at stake. She commits the most inhuman crimes, and never hesitates to outrage every humanitarian principle in order to pursue her interested aims, although she continues to wiar the mask of a friend of humanity. She was on the side of slavery in the American Civil War; she helped Turkey to keep the Eastern Christiana under oppression; and she has to-day brought Inland to the verge of ruin,. The entire attention of British statesmen has always been directed towards creating disquiet and trouble among the European Powers, for the sake of the material advantages to be reaped from quarrels among them. "Bat everything has its erid. England is a second Carthage, who thinks she is called upon to stand at the head of the world. The same causes that destroyed andent Carthage will also bring down the British Empire, and abase the boundless pride and conceit of the English nation. More_ than 250 millions of souls are simply English slaves. All England's possessions are merely held for what she can get out of them. Every vestige of justice and magnanimity has disappeared from the Eojhsh administration in India, as English authors themselves have shown ; and while English newspapers make a stupid fos» about one Russian peasant having been flogged by his village judges, we learn that in 1877 no less than 77.000 persona were punished with the whip in India. «Justice in India,' says one writer, is a farce.' As to how an invasion of India is to be accomplished, we leave the ■ugliih to find out our plans. There is no necessity to detail them here.

We do not want India for itself, but what we want and intend to have is the soaphorons. If England will really become our friend, and will not oppose us were, we will even support her rule in India. But we know that the English, wno are a cunning and sly people, will not Delleve us. They will say that, once on we Bospborous, Russia would threaten "dia also from that point. • T to l^e difficulty of a camnaign in ""».. » it not plain that in the" present conditions of Central Asia, and in view of «LS£ olab Ie Postton there, a Russian «P«dition would be far less difficult than wmbi of Semiramis, Sesostris, Alexander N.% cu'l Ghen Siz Khan, Tamerlane, m£?Tr* and othera ? *** what ** w <= thl « t? dl \ and proclaim a liberation of wem their independence when the English Have been routed? Should we not have

I millions of Indians at once on onr side ? It has already been asserted by a native ; a:nhority that our friends in India, when- : ever we undertake such a task, will be as > numerous as the stars in heaven. Let : Englishmen think over this. Let them j decide whether they will have us or the Germans for friends. " We have now gone far beyond Geok Tepe. Merv is ours. The Tekkes and Saryks are subjects to the White Czar. We are now nearer to Herat than St. Petersburg is to Nerva, and if we are wise in the question of settling the northwestern frontier of Afghanistan, and have the courage to declare to England that we are the real rulers of Central Asia, and will not hesitate to expel anyone who treads on our toes there, you may rely upon that the English will be disconcerted and confused. In the -meantime, we will go on making our clay pots in Central Asia. After clay will Gome the period of bronze, and with God's help we Bhall eventually reach the age of gold."