Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/534

472 that they shall have no dealings with any foreign power other than the English. England surrounds herself, in this manner, with a zone of land, sometimes narrow, sometimes very broad, which is placed under political taboo so far as concerns rival powers whose hostility may be serious; and thus her political influence radiates beyond the line of her actual possession, spreading its skirts widely and loosely over the adjacent country.

The particular point, therefore, that is here to be emphasized is that the true frontier of the British dominion in Asia, the line which we are more or less pledged to guard, and from which we have warned off trespassers, does not tally by any means with the outer edge of the immense territory over which we exercise administrative jurisdiction, and in which all the people are British subjects for whom the Anglo-Indian governments make laws. The true frontier includes not only this territory, but also large regions over which the English crown has established protectorates of different kinds and grades, varying according to circumstances and specific conditions. This protectorate may involve the maintenance of internal order, or it may amount only to a vague sovereignty, or it may rest on a bare promise to ward off unprovoked foreign aggression. But, whatever may be the particular class to which the protectorate belongs, and however faint may be the shadow of authority that the British choose to throw over the land, its object is to affirm the right of excluding a rival influence, and the right of exclusion carries with it the duty of defence. The outer limits