to others to deal with the problems connected with Afghanistan and the Pamirs, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet, which, however large and important, are mainly problems of frontier policy. For the present, at any rate, there is no room in those inhospitable regions for the commercial activity and individual enterprise which in other parts of Asia impart a living force and a concrete value to British interests and British influence. Before these again find any adequate field, we must pass from Southern Persia right along the great mountain walls of Northern Hindustan to where Upper Burma marches with China and Siam, and to the wonderful peninsula which stretches up to them northwards from the Straits of Malacca.
Western China and Siam.
Though one of the great overland routes into China leads from Bhamo, in Upper Burma, through Yun-nan to the fertile and populous province of Sze-chuan, in the upper valley of the Yang-Tsze, it can never become an important highway for trade until railway communication is established; and notwithstanding the strategical and commercial advantages of such a line, the difficulties and cost of construction are so great, owing to the natural obstacles presented by a succession of deep valleys and rugged mountains running at right angles to the only possible tracé that the Indian Government has finally decided against its feasibility, and private enterprise will presumably be even more reluctant to face so gigantic an undertaking. To the south dense tropical forests, covering the recesses of a little-known country, stretch from Burma into the upper valley of the Menam, and for many years to come it is chiefly through the southern ports, and especially through Bangkok, that the natural avenues of access to Siam will lie. Fortunately, the specific agreements concluded between this country and France with regard to Siam, as well as the general understanding which has placed Anglo-French
