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12 The neutralisation of Afghánistán has taken the place of the neutralisation of the Black Sea.

The armament of India is now regulated not alone by the internal need of India, but by necessities which have been forced upon India from being brought into contact with the armed camp of European nations. The latest Viceroy Lord Dufferin's military policy and military expenditure were dominated by the responsibility of guarding against Russia the North-western frontier of India — the frontier which was substantially created by Lord Dalhousie.

On the opposite side of India also, in the North-east and the South-east, independent states separated us, until Lord Dalhousie's time, from our other great Asiatic neighbour, China. The annexation of the outlying Sikkim districts, by Lord Dalhousie in 1850, has brought us into contact with Tibet and the Chinese Empire. In 1888 the British representative in Pekin was endeavouring to arrange difficulties which were the direct although tardy results of that annexation; and a delegate from the Chinese Government recently came to India with a view to the same object.

In the far South-eastern promontory, also, Lord Dalhousie extended the British frontier. His annexation of the lower districts of the Irawadi slowly, but irresistibly, brought about a state of things which could only end in a British