Page:The empire and the century.djvu/779

 spot, tells us, with the authority of his great experience in India and in Egypt, that it would be an easy task for modern engineering science to irrigate the plains of Mesopotamia, and convert them once more into flourishing granaries, as in the days of yore. In the redundant populations of India we have ready to hand the material required there for purposes both of preliminary labour and ulterior settlement. There are, therefore, excellent reasons of a positive as well as of a negative order why we should claim recognition of the predominant interests we have in the construction of a railway opening up those regions.

With regard to our position in the Persian Gulf, the policy of this country has been laid down on sound and definite lines in the declaration made two years ago by Lord Lansdowne: 'We' (i.e., His Majesty's Government) 'should regard the establishment of a naval base or of a fortified port in the Persian Gulf by any power as a very grave menace to British interests, which we should resist with all the means at our disposal.' But as Captain Mahan, who has written with great weight on the broader issues this question involves for an Empire which rests upon sea-power, has very forcibly observed: 'Naval control is a very imperfect instrument, unless supported and reinforced by the shores on which it acts. Its corollary, therefore, is to attach the inhabitants to the same interests.' We have ample means of doing so from such a base as we possess in the Persian Gulf; and if we make good and timely use of them, we may yet convert our position in that part of the Middle East from a source of weakness into a bulwark of Imperial strength.

Questions which concern essentially and almost exclusively the strategical defence of India do not come within the scope of this article, and I therefore leave it