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greatly been brought about by the wholesome rupture of a synallagmatic treaty between Rome and the State. The peasant prefers his money to anything; the fact of the priest having to live upon his bounty would firstly deprive him of much of his prestige; his semi-official connection with the authority adds to his influence, and that, too, would be done away with; and the same man who allowed his wife to go to confession and his children to the seminary for nothing, would strongly object to these concessions to female weakness if they entailed any expense. Of course only the rural majority is alluded to.

2. It is urgent to deprive the clergy of the privilege of founding gratuitous schools without being called upon to submit to the same tests as laics. But the great main reform ought to be that of primary instruction, now under the guidance of the clergy, and so miserable, so purposely organised to diffuse ignorance, that it is extraordinary that the state of the masses is not worse than it is. Primary schoolmasters are menials-lacqueys of the prefectorial administration, creatures of the local priesthood, ignorant, demoralised, and the curriculum of study is proportionately wretched. It is a moot question whether public primary schools should not be under the exclusive control of the municipality. All reforms, however, cannot be ac-1 complished at the same time, and a first step would be to free the schoolmaster from the surveillance of the curé, and to change the absurd programme of teaching which has long remained unvaried. It would be well, too, to reform secondary instruction, and to abolish requirements which reduce boys to a clois

tered life well befitted to prepare their minds for the yoke.

3. And lastly, a more wholesome and earnest education should replace for women a flimsy, enervat. ing training. One may be excused for laying stress on the part contributed by Frenchwomen towards the maintenance of priestly power; this in fact deserves to be scored as a most important cause of the evil; and it is absolutely necessary to remedy it. Frenchwomen are all subjected to Catholic training from the earliest age, and when the seed is once sown, it grows. Care should be taken to provide opportunities for parents to obtain a real and wholesome education for their girls, instead of leaving everything in the hands of Jesuits and nuns.

In this manner Catholicism might be deprived of the three great means whereby it succeeded in reestablishing itself in comparatively few years in a country which had partially shaken its hold away. That its ministers feel that, after

a

hitherto unsuccessful struggle among other nations, a mighty ef fort may be attempted in France, is very evident. They are using all possible means to rekindle the flame of fanaticism among the uncul tivated masses. And it is equally certain, if France has not yet been cast down from her intellectual position, that it is high time that she should look to it. Thinkers should not dismiss the subject as contemptible; and intellectual men should direct their whole attention to the side on which the greatest danger is now threatened, not only to French liberty, but French thought and perhaps the very existence of France.

CAMILLE BARrère.

BRITISH POLICY IN PERSIA AND CENTRAL ASIA.

Now TOW that the Shah of Persia has returned to the bosom of his people, and the din of vulgar homage which accompanied him throughout his European tour is well nigh forgotten, in common with other frivolities of the 'season,' it may yet be convenient and useful to recur to the subject, and to speculate a little as to what can possibly have been the motive of that noisy and costly expedition, and what good can come to anybody out of it. But, whatever the result, surely never did a British public run into greater lengths of unaccountable and hopeless fatuity, than on the occasion of the appearance of the so-called 'king of kings' which some innocent people began to think he really was-under royal and distinguished patronage. The excesses of flunkeyism in the regions of Court, we can well understand, as a thing of course; but the infection permeated all ranks of society, even to the plodding citizen.

To judge from the inflated and fulsome addresses presented by fussy corporations at the various places where his majesty vouchsafed his august presence for even a few fleeting minutes, and the sanguine lucubrations of some of the ordinary organs of public opinion,' one might have been led to consider that a visit from the despotic ruler of four millions of slaves, in a vast, arid, and neglected territory in the far distant East, was the one thing needful to set all to rights between nationsthat beneath the effulgence of his gem-bespangled tunic and fez Justice and Mercy had kissed one another, and the ends of the earth had been brought together in enduring brotherly love and peace. The mind of the general public was perhaps a little disturbed amidst these pleasing reflections when a bitter sneer and

ugly growl from St. Petersburg, con-
veyed through its recognised ortho-
dox press, gave a hint to the Shah
of the hollowness and danger of
his position, and warned perfidious
England not to think of playing
off any
tricks upon the amiable
traveller whom, as regarded all
his worldly interests, Russia had
long claimed as her own especial
protégé. Men of business, too,
began to rub their eyes and button
up their pockets when they were
led to suspect that after all his
Persian majesty's principal object
in coming amongst us was not to
idle away his time in sight-seeing
and play-work, but to do a clever
stroke of business in the way of a
joint-stock enterprise of unprece-
dented magnitude, under the aus-
pices of an enterprising German
speculator, who had conferred dis-
tinction upon this country by making
it his adopted home and seat of
business. And Lord Granville, too,
generally a man of easy purpose and
unsuspecting nature, was fain to
avert his head with his best official
grace when he was in the most
confiding manner invited by Baron
Reuter to become surety for the
Shah's due execution of his magni-
ficent promises; and, as a natural
consequence, to guarantee to his
majesty the faithful and accurate
performance of the various national
works and responsible financial en-
terprises which the Baron had,
single-handed, undertaken to per-
form.

It is creditable to the noble Foreign Secretary, and indicative of the delicate responsibility which he felt attached to him in his relations with the Shah, in this and other matters, that when the latter presented him with his photograph in a frame of diamonds, he, 'with his usual tact,' pressed the interesting portrait to his official heart, and returned the diamonds, with the explanation that

it was contrary to 'etiquette' for a minister to receive presents from a foreign sovereign. We wish other public servants-and their wiveshad acted with similar self-denial, for according to all accounts the largess' levied upon his majesty in return for civilities shown him in the ordinary course of hospitality was something beyond precedent even in Oriental annals.

As for Baron Reuter's conces sion, which was so ostentatiously brought upon the market, but without result, in the midst of the first blush of the Shah's successful début, we are inclined to dismiss it as utterly unworthy of consideration; only expressing our admiration at the coolness of its promoters, who fancied that British capitalists could be induced, under whatever circumstances of excitement, to put their money into such a hopeless venture, in the interests, as it was from the first suspected, not of England, nor of the general world of commerce, but of Russian monopoly. Without wasting a word upon the commercial prospects of this venture, it may be sufficient to remark that the reali sation of such a scheme, by which the whole usufruct of the kingdom, including the right of levying customs and taxes, should be handed over to the uncontrolled disposition of an individual speculator and his assigns, would be such an abdication of the substantial attributes of royalty as to incapacitate it from entering into any treaty arrangements with foreign states in connection, at least, with commercial affairs; and this being the case, the question would at once arise-what the Shah came here for, in the pretended interests of civilisation and commerce, and what did he mean by signing a treaty with Germany on his way here? Of this mad and mischievous scheme it is satisfactory to be able to add, that upon failure of making

certain deposits and provisions for works within stipulated dates, it will fall to the ground, and the Shah's hands be free again.

Let us now turn from this chimerical project to the more important problem, known as 'the Central Asian Question,' which has been working out its own solution during a long series of years, obscurely and almost unnoticed by us, but has recently been thrust into prominence by the advance of Russia into Khiva, and the clumsy correspondence opened with the Court of St. Petersburg by the Foreign Office, with a view of coming to an 'understanding' of the intentions of the former in that movement. The question as it has been hitherto discussed has been simply one of boundaries, and the triumph has lately been with Lord Granville, so far as concerns the theory; accompanied, however, by a very plain intimation on the part of Russia, that, in her practice, boundaries, or understandings,' or even undertakings as to boundaries, would be no impediment to her aggressive policy, which would know no restraints, whenever occasion should serve to favour it. The obvious and only conclusion to be arrived at under such a programme as that put forth by our rival, and since acted upon by us, is that for the future nego tiations with her would be mere delusion and waste of time-that if we are to have a policy it should be one in which we should proceed upon our own independent counsel, irrespective of mutual understandings.

There are two courses open to us to pursue in this perplexing matter: the one, to let things alone till the threatening danger arrives at our door, making in the meantime ample preparations then to face it; the other, to intercept the advances and frustrate the policy of the enemy whilst yet he is at a distance from Our frontier. The question in the former point of view was dis

cussed at considerable length in the Fraser of September last: we propose now to consider the alternative and much more complicated question of an immediate precautionary and repressive policy.

What may have passed between the Shah and Lord Granville during the few brief interviews which they were enabled to snatch amidst the hubbub of receptionising during the recent royal visit, we have no means of knowing; but we candidly confess we do not expect much from it, beyond a vague expression of amicable regard and good intentions. The unwise, vacillating, and generally unfriendly policy of this country towards Persia during upwards of half a century, ever since, indeed, we have had any direct relations with her, cannot be forgotten, any more than the substantial injuries inflicted by it can be redressed by a few courtly smiles or the meaningless vociferations of a gaping mob in illuminated streets. The stately but ostentatious and somewhat stagy display of our unrivalled navy at Spithead, may have startled the Shah by its novelty and its stupendous grandeur, but it cannot fail to have awakened some unwelcome recollections of how at Bushire a small detachment of our imposing naval power was used to oppress and crush out the national rights of a weak and defenceless State. It is difficult to conceive how, even under the benign influence of Christian charity and humility, such cruel wrongs as these can be forgotten; it is still more difficult to imagine how the victim of them, brought to the point of abasement and hopelessness from which further descent is impossible, can be encouraged to hold up his head, and to join hands in independent fellowship for objects of mutual aid and advantage with the evil genius which has systematically worked the ruin of his nation.

But this question is now not one of

sentiment, but of stern and urgent political emergency, which will tax all our prudence and energy, and which is every day, and not by small steps, approaching to a crisis. In the early part of the present century a broad zone of twenty degrees of latitude separated us; but how many

thousands of miles of this has since been absorbed by advances on either side?-by ourselves in the north and west as far as the boundaries of Scinde and the Punjaub; by Russia far to the southward of the Jaxartes, including portions of Bokhara, and virtual control over the whole, with Ghokand on the east, and now Khiva on the west of her, making a continuous line of observation from the east of the Caspian to Samarcand. The limit of our territorial ambition has been arbitrarily fixed as bounded by the mighty mountain range which seems to form a natural wall of demarcation against the wild and savage districts of Central Asia; and it has been our custom, hugging ourselves within the fancied security of this barrier, and with the immediate outlying provinces of Afghanistan acting as a buffer, to view with selfish indifference the lawless and debased condition of the vast mass of outlying districts, in whose perennial state of anarchy and weakness we considered we saw our advantage, as presenting a confused and impenetrable barrier between us and the aggressive tendencies of our northern rival. In this we have shown equally a want of political capacity, and a want of faith in the objects with which civilising influences, under Divine favour, should be exercised. What we have omitted to do, however, Russia, has, with much ostentatious display, undertaken and partly accomplished. She has already signalised her occupation of Khiva by the deliverance of thousands of slaves of all countries, and has obtained the suppression of slavery for the future. She has also succeeded in introducing the rude ele

ments of a Muscovite police, which will go far to cure the grosser evils in the condition of the barbarous tribes subjected to her rule -very distinct in principle from English constitutional theories-and she will follow this up by the intro. duction of a commercial system inspired not so much by the legitimate object of exchange between nations, as of forcing her coarse and inferior manufactures upon the communities of Central Asia, and through their medium upon Western China, and eventually,mayhap, upon India herself, to the rigid exclusion of the products of British industry. These considerations point to the absolute and tangible money interests which, as well as the political objects, are involved in this 'Central Asian Question' interests concerning the welfare of peaceful industrial communities which have been too much overlooked amidst the glitter of war and the glosses of diplomacy.

Recurring, however, to the hard, dry question of boundaries, it must not be overlooked that, whilst Russia has been making, geographically, important encroachments in Central Asia, there still remain intervening between the field of her civilising' operations and the western and northern frontiers of British India, two considerable States, Persia and Afghanistan, which jointly extend from west to east to the length of some fourteen hundred miles, the eastern limits of the latter State reaching to the point where the lofty Himalaya range forms our natural boundary. The key to our Indian Empire in this quarter may, for all practical purposes, be said to be Peshawur, a strong position in the Punjaub, which is now British territory. Not to look elsewhere for danger, it may be sufficient to indicate the two most obvious approaches to that position. The one would be eastward through Herat

and Cabool, the other to the southeast through Samarcand and Ba dakshan. The approach to Herat may be made, under favourable circumstances, either from Khiva, passing through Merve, or from the south-east corner of the Caspian Sea, passing along the valley of the Attruk, which lies within the Persian frontier, and which may also be used for an approach to Khiva. Under all considerations, the Rus sians have shown their forethought and strategical skill in obtaining a footing in Khiva, whether as a point of departure, or for the protection of their flank should the direct Persian line of route be adopted.

Taking Khiva as a point of departure, the advance through Herat would, under the natural conditions of the ground, be the most favour. able, passing as it does over an easily practicable route, which was used by Alexander the Great, and later on by Nadir Shah. The road through Samarcand would be the most direct, but it presents difficulties which would have to be overcome by engineering skill before it could be safely adopted. M. Lesseps, however, in a project recently laid before the Russian Government, and said to have been favourably received by them, proposes to overcome all these difficulties by the simple means of a grand line of railway extending from Orenburg to Cal cutta, taking Samarcand, Badakshan, and Peshawur in the way.

In the above observations we have only considered the geogra phical position of Persia as connected with a hostile approach on the north-western boundary of India; but in connection with the general aggressive policy of Rus sia on the Caspian and its borders, that territory is even still more important as bearing upon our interests, economical as well as territorial, in the East. The projected railway from the port of Enzeli to Teheran, and thence to the Persian

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