House between Edinburgh and Glasgow. He has of course referred to the copies of the original French letters discovered in recent years, and frankly acknowledges that Mr T. F. Henderson has closed the controversy as to the language in which the letters were at first written. It may be pointed out, however, as an illustration of the dangers which beset the path of those who traverse this field, that he has erred somewhat seriously in trying to correct Froude for saying that the Casket Letters were long and minutely examined at Hampton Court on the 14th of December, 1568. He holds that there was not time for this, and, among other reasons, affirms that 'the whole voluminous proceedings at York and Westminster were read through.' He has been led into this error by his too implicit trust in Mr Bain's Calendar. Had he looked into Anderson or Goodall he would have found that the whole of those voluminous proceedings were not read through, but sommarely declared and repeated.' It is not without significance that Father Pollen, instead of giving an opinion on the authenticity of the Casket Letters, speaks of them as still sub judice. Unintentionally, perhaps, he corroborates one of Mr Lang's theories by pointing out that, in one of her undoubtedly genuine holograph letters, she misses a page, and after discovering her mistake, goes back without deleting the misplaced words. He is hardly justified in describing this long epistle to her uncle, the Duke of Guise, 'as an example of a genuine love-letter.'

If any proof were needed of the undying interest still excited by the Queen of Scots it may be found in the almost simultaneous issue of three such books as Father Pollen's, Mr Lang's, and Mr Cowan's, representing three types of mind, and three classes of work. Infinitely inferior to his rivals in literary power and mental grasp, Mr Cowan far excels in unswerving devotion and uncompromising loyalty to the fair and royal Mary. It is obvious, however, that Mr Lang's sympathies go with the Queen, though his judgment is against her; and even Father Pollen feels the spell of the woman described by Father Edmund as 'that sinner.'

Art. XII. PERSIA AND THE PERSIAN GULF.

1. Report on the Trade of the Persian Gulf, 1900. Diplomatic and Consular Reports. Annual series. London, 1901. (Cd 429: 89.)

2. Report on the Trade of Constantinople, 1899-1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. London, 1901. (Cd 429: 108.) 3. Report on the Trade of the Vilayets of Trebizond and Sivas, 1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. (Cd 429 : 46.) 4. Report on the Trade of Bussorah, 1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. London, 1901. (Cd 429 : 16.)

5. Report on the Trade of Baghdad, 1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. London, 1901.

SOME of the most important and most pressing questions with which the British Empire is at the present time confronted have reference to our position in the Persian Gulf and the adjacent countries. They are important, not only from the magnitude of the commercial interests involved, and from the expansion of which those interests are capable, but also because the advent of any European Great Power into a sphere which has hitherto been exclusively British cannot fail to be of concern to the rulers of India. Our neighbours in India, upon the west, are two Mussulman States in a state of decline; the case would be very different if the vast territories of Persia and Asiatic Turkey were exploited and perhaps, at no very distant date, appropriated by one or more of our amiable neighbours in Europe. These questions are also urgent, though it may be an exaggeration to say that the danger is immediate. We cannot credit the supposition that any British Government would consent, for instance, to the occupation by Russia in present circumstances of a port on the Persian Gulf. For the moment it is the shadows with which we have to deal; the events will follow if they be not anticipated. That their march has been rapid within the last few years, nobody acquainted with the subject will deny. It has been rapid, but it has been silent, scarcely ruffling the serenity of casual observers wholly absorbed in the problems of Africa.

The position of the British Government in relation to the Governments both of Turkey and of Persia can scarcely be described as enviable. Scarcely a day passes

but we lose ground. At a later stage of the present paper we shall examine in some detail the succession of events, so little known to the general public, to which are due the loss of our hold upon Persia. Our antagonist in this field —a watchful and adroit rival—is the Power which has recently given us more than one fall in China, to wit, the Empire of the Tsar. Persian finances have been placed under the influence of the great neighbour of the North. A substantial beginning has been made towards the Russification of the Persian army. The agreement preventing the construction of railways within the dominions of the Shah for a period of ten years, which was signed by Nasir-ed-Din Shah at the instance of Russia in 1890, will, if our diplomatists should be caught napping, probably be extended by his successor into an arrangement conferring exclusive rights upon our rival.

In regard to Turkey, the decline of our influence, and the stages by which it has proceeded, are in no need of recapitulation. There it is Germany that has stepped in to fill our former position of predominance; and she has accomplished more within a few years in the interests of German enterprise and industry than the British Government in a corresponding number of decades. In the case of both these Mussulman States our diplomacy has been on the defensive-sullen, sulky, feigning an indifference which is becoming real.

Such is the situation; and it is scarcely surprising that its dark side should have found some reflection in certain organs of the Press in England. We are invited-in spite of the bitterness of our experiences in China with similar overtures, both in the case of Germany and of Russia-to come to an 'understanding' with the statesmen on the Neva. In the opinion of some of these publicists, it is the German Empire that is our real rival, the Empire with the future on the water.' Germans are credited with the dream of an empire extending from the Bosporus to the Persian Gulf, and embracing territories in the enjoyment of an excellent climate, to which would be

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*See especially a letter by Sir R. Blennerhassett in the Times of August 31st, two articles signed A. B. C., &c., in the 'National Review' for November and December 1901, a paper by 'A Russian Diplomatist' in the same journal, January 1902, and a recent series of articles by 'Calchas in the 'Fortnightly Review.'

directed the stream of German emigration now wasted in the cities of America. This dream is to be sternly dispelled. The German schemes in Asiatic Turkey are to be bereft of whatever support our Government is supposed-we do not know upon what evidence to have extended to them. Russia is to be encouraged to overrun Armenia and Asia Minor; while Austria-Hungary, having undergone a process of slavification, is to be invited to advance to Salonika. The Balkan States are to be handed over to the exclusive tutelage of Russia; and, leaping across Asia, we are asked to welcome her on the Persian Gulf, where some among the advocates of this policy declare her objects to be purely commercial, others going farther and seeing in the regions bordering on the Gulf 'the industrial heart of the Russian Empire of the future.'* Hatred and suspicion of Germany is the keynote of most of these writingsan excellent preparative for receiving the embraces of the giant in the North. We are asked why we sit quiet while Germans boast about their Anatolian railway, and its suggested terminus at Koweit on the Gulf, when the merest hint of the extension of the Transcaspian railway to Bunder Abbas sets all of us on the stir. The relative geographical positions of Germany and Russia are skilfully ignored. It is sought to prepare us for the spectacle of a greater Russian Empire, extending on the one side to the Bosporus, and on the other to the Indian Ocean.

If any of us should be inclined to play the rôle of alarmists, we should certainly be twitted by these publicists with the futility-they might even say the proved futility of setting limits to Russian ambitions. The attempt to lock up Russia within her own inclement territories would be branded by the evidence of history as a huge mistake. The Russian instinct to come down to the warm water would be cited against us as a natural phenomenon, comparable to the necessities of nature, which it would be folly to attempt to overrule. When Mery was menaced by Russia there was an outburst in this country of what was cleverly christened Mervousness.' Merv has been incorporated in the Russian dominions for a period of nearly twenty years; and the British Empire in India is quite as firmly seated as was

* Such is the expression of Sir R. Blennerbassett.

the case twenty years ago. What is overlooked by such writers, to whom we wish to do full justice, is the fact that every move on the part of our great rival in Asia has been followed, it may be in a less resolute manner or on a smaller scale, by a move on the part of the British Empire. At the present day the western limits of British India may be said to be immediately coterminous with those of South-eastern Persia. British Beluchistan extends along the coast almost to the threshold of the Persian Gulf; while, in a northerly direction, it stretches across the entire zone of mountainous country separating the tableland of Persia from her seaboard. It envelopes Persia on the east almost as far north as the city of Kerman, opposing a solid block of territory between Afghanistan and the sea, on which its port of Gwadur lies, due south of the city of Herat. The frontier of our Protectorate on the side of Persia is purely artificial; and any encroachment on the part of Russia upon northern Persia would naturally be followed by its extension through Kerman and Yezd.

The truth is that by natural processes, which on our part we endeavour to retard in the hopes of some sign of life on the part of our Mussulman neighbours, the British Empire is being brought into immediate contact with the Empire of the Tsars. Little by little the still vast intervening territories are being absorbed into one system or the other. The service done by such writers as those we have been quoting is that they force us to put our heads between our hands. They oblige us to contemplate a future, so regrettable from many points of view, when it may no longer be possible to uphold the independence of Persia, which is already showing symptoms of becoming a sham. We are invited to take stock of our existing interests in Western Asia, and endeavour to ascertain which are vital and which secondary. Any arrangement' with Russia in respect of these countries must be based on a frank recognition of those interests; and, as it is not proposed to ask Russian statesmen to bargain away any of their own vested interests, so it is quite unnecessary, as it would be criminal, to give away our own.

Many of our readers are probably only vaguely acquainted with the physical configuration of Western Asia.