Page:The empire and the century.djvu/771



is the stronghold of British power in Asia, and the security and welfare of India must always be the paramount consideration that governs our Asiatic policy, and, indeed, one of the main considerations that govern the policy of the British Empire as a whole. None the less is it essential that we should bear in mind the large and complex interests which the enterprise of generations of Englishmen have created for us in Asia beyond the immediate frontiers of India. No doubt it is from India, or as a consequence of the position we hold in India, that British influence has been carried west and east along the highways of the seas into other, and, in some cases, geographically remote, regions of the Asiatic continent. But for our possession of India, it is, perhaps, questionable whether, or to what extent, we should have built up at the mouth of the Red Sea, in the Persian Gulf, on the waterways of Mesopotamia, and in the southern provinces of Persia westward of India, or eastward, at Singapore and in Siam, at Hong Kong and throughout the Far East important centres of British interest and influence, either strategical, political, or commercial. However that may be, they exist to-day, and they constitute essential factors of Imperial policy which are apt to receive less attention than they deserve. The object of the following rapid survey is to promote, however imperfectly, a better appreciation 728