Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from English Policy in the Far East: Being the Times Special Correspondence
The platform of our foreign statesmanship for many years has been that of no responsibility, the ideal development being a state of as entire detachment as possible from the affairs of all neighbouring states, no matter how friendly and progressive they might be, and even from our own colonies and possessions. With this policy, then, of detachment - which was to avoid not only all interference, but even the development of commercial intercommuni cation with our neighbours, because these might bring responsibilities - it naturally followed that no necessity existed for studying or acquiring information regarding our neighbouring States in the East and elsewhere. This policy has been pursued to its utmost limit. It has been carried to such an extreme that we are fast becom ing isolated in the East, as we already are in Europe, and our in?uence, from being paramount, has sunk to nearly the level of one of the minor European Powers having no stake in the East; while the indifference and ignorance of our Government regarding the real condition of the Eastern States, and the social, political, and other evolutions occurring throughout the East, are only imperfect because now and then some explorer, or missionary, or official, in whom the spirit of travel or study is not dead, crosses some new tract of country, describes and maps it for us, or, unrequited, presents the public with the result of his studies. But whatever is done in this direction is almost, without exception, accomplished in spite of Government, not with its assistance or encouragement.
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