Note 299 — Chapter XXXV · TWO LITTLE WARS AND A “PENAL DISSOLUTION.”

Of course, Lord Beaconsfield before he died educated the Foreign Office up to the truth, which is, that “the key of India” is held in London—and that the defensible gates of India are those on our frontier which we can protect by our arms. But the amazing thing is that when the Foreign Office did believe that Herat was the “key of India,” they never would let it be held by a Power which, like Persia, was strong enough to keep it safe with British help. Persia was the natural ally of England against Russia. But every effort of the Indian Government to conciliate Persia has been thwarted by the Foreign Office. Since we abandoned her for the sake of the Russian alliance against Napoleon I., the English Foreign Office has exhausted the resources of its diplomacy in betraying, browbeating, and irritating her. And yet it is a fact, that without the goodwill of Persia, which enabled Russia to draw supplies from “the golden province of Khorassan,” Russia could never have marched from the Caspian to the gates of Merv.