Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-09-12
ENGLAND's ADVANCE ON TIBET.

The real reason for England's ad- vance on Tibet is the influence of high finance on the colonial policy of Great Britain. Travellers and explor- CTS, in spite of the strict vigilance on the part of the Tibetan authorities, have succeeded during the last decade in discovering the mineral wealth on ''tl1e roof of the world" Sarthol and Thok- -jalung in southwestern Tibet possess rich gold deposits in consid- erable quantities. These places lie, roughly speaking. some three hundred miles east of Simla i'll British India. The yellow metal is found in the hill ranges lyng between the thirty-second degree of east longitude. Thok-jalung is only some 6300 feet above sea-level and not far from the sources of the river Indus, which cleaves the Himala- yas in it's course through Ladakh and Cachmere into the plains of western India.
 Some two hundred miles to the east ward of Thokjalung, in the lake re- zion, in the chain of hills just north of the thirty-second parallel, there are the Thok Amar, Thok Marshara. and Thok Daurakpa reposits. About a 100 miles still farther to the east ward are the Sarka Shyar gold fields. lying right across an explored tract from the northwest that joins q route running nearly due south from Lob nor to Lhassa, acress ranges of noun tains. pass over one of which is 19.500 feet above sea-level. Again 10 the north of this region, among the spurs of the Kuen-Lun range. which forms the dividing line between Tibet proper and Chinese Turkestan, there are several important gold fields. Chief among these are those of Ak ka Togh, at the head of the Giukerma river, one of the tributaries of the Cherchen that flows into Lob-nor; the Kapa gold field, between the Mist and Molda rivers. which lose themselves in the Tarim basin: and the Sorgak mines on the Ma river which also ends in the Tarim basin. The last two of these lie in the neighborh0od of route from Kashgar, near the Rus sian frontier. through Yarkand and khotan to Lob-nor, at an average al- titude of less than five thousand feet where 1t meets the route south to Lhassa and otheIS into western China.
 When expedition after expedition which explored some region of the Hermit kingdom. returned to India with exciting stories of fresh dlscoy- cries of gold fields the imagination of men of high finance-the natural col iaboratOrs of the British foreign offiee-was wrought to the highest pitch. There was therefore. at the return of every exploring expedition, an outburst of agitation. "On to Lhas- sa,- In the Anglo-Indlan press. In orsIer to justify the British forward policy in the eyes of the civilized world. there were invented and wide ly circulated, wild stories of broken treaties. of Tibetan incursiOns and outrages of British subjects captured and tortured. of Nepalese yaks car rfed on. of studied insults devised by Russian emissIaries in Lhassa and d. rectesl at the Indian government through the witleSs person of the Da- lai Lama, etc. Tn 1SaS the agitation for the conquest of Tibet had already attafnei sufficient importance: but the British government was at the time occupied in the conquest of the Egypt ian Sondan and consequently. c0uh not well take up a fresh enterprise. Nor tiid the agitation of 19o0 lead to any practical results owing to the South African war
 Tn 1oo3. however. the long sought for opportunity arrived. RusSia- the only power in Asia whose diplomatic protest in reference to the integrity of the Chinese empire could be ef- fectfve was herself embroiIe1 with la pan over the question of C0rea and Nanchuria. And China, whose terri tory both in the east and the west was the object of ambition of two great EurOpean powers was powertazzs to rrotect Der outlying pruTinceS- Mokamnad Bar1hafullsh in the To ruA