The McMahon line: a study in the relations between, India, China and Tibet, 1904 to 1914 by Lamb Alastair 1930-

Author:Lamb, Alastair, 1930- [Lamb, Alastair, 1930-]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: China -- Boundaries -- India, India -- Boundaries -- China, Tibet (China) -- Politics and government
Publisher: London, Routledge & K. Paul; Toronto, U. P.
Published: 1966-06-12T19:00:00+00:00

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as soon as the Chinese were able to police effectively Central Tibet the escorts of the British Trade Agents would be withdrawn, ‘so as to remove all cause for suspicion and disturbance among the inhabitants’. Regulation No. 15 arranged for the text to be ratified in London and Peking, but not in Lhasa, and it distinguished between the two Plenipotentiaries, Wilton and Chang, and the Tibetan Delegate, Tsarong Shape. This kind of admission of Chinese suzerain rights in Tibet the Indian Government had tried to avoid during the Calcutta negotiations of 1905 and in their attitude towards Chang Yin-Tang’s Tibetan policy of 1906-7. It is reasonable to suppose that without Morley’s constant watchfulness Minto would never have made such admissions in April 1908. Dane, in a classic understatement, once remarked that ‘we are not very keen about Trade Regulations’; 22 and, to anyone at all sympathetic to the aims of the Younghusband Mission, these particular Regulations would have appeared to have been acquired at an excessively high price.

For those, however, who were not seeking to maintain British prestige in Tibet and to combat that of China, a category in which Morley must be counted, the 1908 Trade Regulations had much to recommend them. They defined exactly what the physical limits of the Gyantse trade mart were, and the rights of British subjects wishing to trade there (Regulation No. 1). They conferred on the British Trade Agent, at least for the immediate future, extraterritorial powers so that he could preside over or be present at trials involving British subjects in Tibet (Regulation No. 4). There were provisions for the collection of debts at the marts (Regulation No. 7), and for the protection of the Gyantse Trade Agent’s lines of communication with British India (Regulation No. 8). The local Tibetan authorities at the trade marts were to investigate losses by theft suffered by British or Indian traders on the road to and at the marts, and to bring the culprits to rapid trial (Regulation No. 10). British subjects

22 PEF 1908/22, Dane to Ritchie, 25 September 1907.

telegraph, though in practice they proved very convenient for the Trade Agent and other British subjects travelling between Gyantse and India. See FO 228/2568, Jordan to Wai-wu-pu, 11 January 1909, and FO 371/620, IO to FO, 11 September 1909.

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could trade freely at the marts, and buy and sell for cash or by barter provided that they respected local customs and usage (Regulation No. 12). The new Regulations were to remain in force for ten years, at which time they could either be revised or be permitted to continue unchanged for a further ten years, when, and at the end of successive ten-year periods, revision would again be possible (Regulation No. 13). From a purely commercial point of view, the main weaknesses of these Regulations was their failure to make any provision for the sale in Tibet of Indian tea. This question, which had been postponed for further consideration in the 1893 Regulations, was raised during the negotiations;

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