, i ae ae 
E.—GEOGRAPHY, 131 
family of the British parent, and yet are cut off from the full tradition 
of Asiatic civilisation. Far better, then, that the Asiatic coolie should 
remain where the family life of his descendants will be part and parcel 
of national life. 
Neither should it be assumed that there is not room in Asia for a 
large additional population. The pressure of population in China is 
largely due to the undeveloped condition of mining, factories, and com- 
munications. ‘The coal-fields are unsurpassed in the world, and iron ore 
is abundant; if they were worked, and factories were based upon them, 
the new occupations and improved market for agricultural produce would 
provide at home for many of those who now migrate oversea. The rise 
in standard of living which may be expected to follow industrial develop- 
ment would also reduce coolie competition in the white borderlands of 
the Pacific. The further development of manufacture in India would 
operate in the same direction. The growth of a manufacturing popula- 
tion in China and India would stimulate cultivation and stock-rearing 
in the sparsely inhabited region under Asiatic rule which runs diagonally 
across the meridians from the Persian Gulf to the Amur, and includes 
the eastern provinces of Persia at the one end and Mongolia and Man- 
churia at the other. This has for the most part a light rainfall, but 
comprises much fine prairie country and some good agricultural land, 
whilst in the more arid tracts there are many great rivers fed from snow- 
fields and glaciers which could be made to irrigate large areas where the 
sun is as strong asin Australia. Adjacent to the Indo-Chinese peninsula 
are the East Indies, whose climate is suited both to Indians and Chinese, 
with great tracts of undeveloped land whose productivity is attested by 
luxuriant forest. The sparsely peopled regions of Asia near to India, 
China, and Japan by land and sea, and for the most part connected with 
them by ties of civilisation, provide an area for the overflow from these 
countries which is more than twice as large as Tropical Australia and 
British Columbia, together with California, Washington, and Oregon, 
the American frontier provinces of English-speaking labour. 
India includes one of the most important borderlands within the 
Orient, that of the Mohammedan and Hindu worlds. The Punjab, with 
its great rivers and plain, is in such striking contrast to the mountains 
and plateau of Iran that we are apt to lose sight of the fact that, climatic- 
ally, it more resembles the highland on the west than the rainy valley of 
the Ganges on the east. It is an eastern borderland of Islam, a religious 
world which is mainly comprised in the belt of dry country which 
stretches diagonally from the Atlantic shore of Morceco to the Altai 
Mountains. Delhi, under the Great Moghul, was an advanced capital 
of the Mohammedan world just within the Ganges valley, which is the 
headquarters of Hinduism. In this sub-imperial capital the two 
antagonistic civilisations are now linked to the government of the 
United Kingdom, and the age-long wars between them have ceased. 
Up to the time of British predominance, India was the terminal posi- 
tion of Continental conquerors unused to the sea, who did not develop the 
advantages of a salient maritime position. The ports of India lie con- 
veniently for a long stretch of coast-land on the great gulf which forms 
the Indian Ocean, and now, owing to the facilities provided by British 
