Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/552

490 What is the chief and manifest consequence of this renewed approximation of the European powers in Asia? The effect has been to demonstrate more clearly than ever the revival of an intimate connection between European and Asiatic affairs. The points of contact are multiplying with the different points of view, and with the recurrence of international apprehensions and rivalries. Political and commercial interests again begin to act and react upon each other; the expansion of Europe presses upon Asia by land and sea, from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea, from the Persian Gulf to the seaboard of China; and the antique kingdoms and societies are sustaining with difficulty the inroad of European arms and enterprise. The old conquering races of Asia, the Turkish dynasties at Stamboul and Teheran, the Uzbek of Bokhara, the Afghan of Kabul, and the rulers of Annam and Siam, are recognizing in different forms and degrees the predominant influence of the Western nations.

And since England still plays the leading part upon this vast stage of action and holds India as the central position, it is manifest that the isolation of India from the winds and currents of European politics must soon cease altogether and finally. She is rapidly drifting within the recognized sphere of European diplomacy; the enlargement of her borders has become a matter of European concern; and henceforward her external policy and her military establishment must necessarily be regulated upon European rather than upon Asiatic considerations. In the place of the jeal-