THE CALCUTTA CONVENTION DISREGARDED. 349 



communications between the British authorities in 

 India and the authorities in Tibet should be con- 

 ducted. Three weary years dragged their tedious 

 length along before these points of discussion found 

 solution ; but at length an agreement was patched up 

 and signed in December 1893, an arrangement which 

 it is well to observe might just as well have never 

 been concluded, since by no stretch of imagination 

 can it be said that it has ever been observed. Under 

 the terms of the convention a trade mart was estab- 

 lished at a place which never has been, and from the 

 nature of its site never could be, a real market — 

 namely, Yatung — and free trade, except in the case 

 of certain prohibited articles, was sanctioned for a 

 period of five years. 



Both the Convention of 1890 and the subsequent 

 trade regulations of 1893 have been contemptuously 

 disregarded by the Tibetans, who have persistently 

 ignored the boundary therein agreed upon, removed 

 the landmarks set up, and contravened the regulations 

 with regard to trade. In face of the article stipulating 

 for free trade for a period of five years, the jongpen 

 of Phari was found to be gaily levying a 10 per cent 

 ad valorem duty on all goods that passed through his 

 district, and preventing Tibetan merchants from pass- 

 ing beyond that place with their goods, a proceeding 

 on his part which, as the Government of Bengal very 

 sensibly remarked, undoubtedly seemed "to be incon- 

 sistent with the terms of the treaty." The utter 

 worthlessness of Yatung as a market w^as set forth by 

 the commissioner of the Eajshahi division in a letter 

 to the Government of Bengal, dated June 30, 1896: 

 "It is a mistake to connect it [the increase of trade] 

 with the provision made in the regulations of 1893 for 

 the opening of a trade mart at Yatung, as no mart has, 



