Journal of the East India Association (Volume 9)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ...never take place. Certain remarks had been made regarding the Suez Canal and the effect of the jecent purchase of shares in that undertaking by the British Government upon the future policy of England; but Lord Derby had counselled the public to wait until Parliament assembled, and Lord Hartington, on the other side, had also declined to give an opinion until he had heard more about it. Under these circumstances, to his mind, it would be wise to adopt the same principle of reticence, and wait for further information before entering upon the discussion of the question as a matter of Imperial policy. ( Hear, hear, and applause.) General ALEXANDER deprecated the introduction of the Maho-medan subject into the discussion, but what the meeting had heard, however, was the exact expression of the Mahomedan mind and heart as legarded politics and religion. Reverting, then, to the question of Russian advances towards India, he said that she was approaching through Persia, dropping down from the provinces east of the Caspian, and getting to the very doors of India, to which she had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer for years. When in India, many years during the Afghan War, he had an opportunity of learning the bias of the Native mind, both Hindu and Mahomedan, and could, therefore, speak with some knowledge of the feeling that would be produced by the approach of Russia towards India. Upon the hitter subject he referred to a pamphlet which, in his opinion, it would be well to have re-read or republished in the present juncture. It was written by one of the first diplomatists in Persia, and published anonymously; the writer was understood to be Sir J. McNeile; and in that brochure was traced the progress of Russia in the East from the days of...