On the same date as this letter was written I also received my own formal instructions.[22] I was informed that a strict insistence on the boundary-line as laid down in the Convention of 1890 was, perhaps, not essential either to the Government of India or to the Sikkim Durbar, and I was directed to give my opinion on this point after inspecting the tract in question. The matter of grazing rights was not one of great importance, and after discussion with the Chinese and Tibetan delegates I was to submit my proposals as to the agreement which might be come to in this matter. The revision of the Trade Regulations and the recognition of Gyantse as a trade-mart in place of Yatung were to form the subject of discussion with the Chinese and Tibetan delegates, and the provision of guarantees for the observance of such agreements as might be concluded were to be considered a matter of the first importance. It was further considered very desirable that arrangements for free communication between the Government of India and the authorities at Lhasa should be made, and possibly also annual meetings between British and Tibetan officials for the due settlement of the trade and frontier difficulties which might occur.
In conclusion, I was warned to be very careful to abstain from using any language or taking any action which would bind the Government to any definite course hereafter without first obtaining the sanction of the Government of India.
All was now prepared for the start of a mission. In this extraordinarily complex and intricate matter the many different lines had at last been made to converge on one point. The manifold communications which had taken place for thirty years between the Bengal Government and the Government of India, between local Indian officers and local Chinese and Tibetans; the correspondence between Simla or Calcutta and London, between the India Office and the Foreign Office, between the Foreign Office and the Russian and Chinese Governments, and between the Viceroy and our Minister at Peking and the Chinese Resident at Lhasa, had all been boiled down into the definite act of the despatch of a mission to a place a bare dozen miles inside Tibet to discuss trade-relations, frontier and grazing rights.