Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎143v] (295/312)

uncivilized neighbour shall not repeat the provocation, aud"
therefore we can have no valid objection to offer to Russia,
on the opposite border, exacting efficient guarantees for
her own security.
" This forms the great difficulty of any alliance with or
protectorate 6f Afghanistan. An alliance is illusory, as we
are now finding out to our cost, unless our ally be a ruler
of exceptional wisdom, experience, and foresight, like Dost
Mahomed. As for a protectorate, it is an essential element
in any system of protection that the protected State should
be willing to be guided by the advice of its protector in all
matters of foreign policy. But it is hopeless to attempt^,
anything of the kind in Afghanistan unless the protectorate
Were preceded by a thorough conquest, such as should
clearly subject the ruler of Afghanistan to be guided by
the advice of the British Government.
" What, then, is the barrier which I would propose to
raise to Russia's advances towards India '!
" Let us, before answering this question, consider the
essential difference of British and Russian policy, using
the word less in the sense of a design for political action,
which may be changed from time to time, than as the re
sult of national instincts and tendencies, and the expres
sion of national interests, which are less variable. Used in
this sense, Russian policy ia Asia is, as we all see, positive,
active, and aggressive. Whatever may be the professions
or the wishes of Russian statesmen, the exigencies of her
frontier position render it impossible for Russia to stan4
still until she meets some physical or political obstacle,
which certainly does not at this moment exist between her
frontier and ours. The question when the two frontiers
will be conterminous is, as far as Russia is concerned,
simply one of more or less time.
" Our policy, on the other hand, is purely defensive and
stationary, and it seems to me that, by the nature of our
position, it must so continue, unless we are inclined to
enter the lists as rivals to Russia, and to embark on in
definite schemes of further Asiatic conquest. The nation
is clearly not prepared, nor likely to be prepared, for this
if it has due warning, has its eyes open to the conse
quences, and is aware that if once more on the move we
may find it not easy to stop, nor to choose our own limit to
our conquest.
" But our policy hitherto has been not only stationary,
and nominally, though I think very imperfectly, defensive.
It has been also purely negative. We are ready enough to
say what we will not do, but all efforts by any of the other
Asiatic Powers concerned have hitherto failed to elicit from
the Government, either here or in India, any declaration
of what it will do under any given or conceivable combina
tion of circumstances.
" This peculiarity in our policy will at once explain to
any one who knows Orientals, or, in fact, to any one who
knows mankind in general, the inherent weakness of our
policy as compared with that of the Russians. We find it
so every day in Europe ; negatives do not satisfy Belgium
or Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey, Sweden, or any other
Power that can possibly need a good word or a friendly
act from us. How, then, can it satisfy a man like the
Ameer, the Shah, or any other Oriental, who understands,
and may trust, a positive promise, but who can neither
understand nor trust a simple assertion that, ' when the
time comes and the event happens we will think about it/
and who cannot estimate, as an European diplomatist can>
Wiat, from a variety of motives, we may do in the event
of a weak European Power being threatened by a strong
" What, then, ought we now to do ? Stand still, and do
nothing ? Clearly this can only precipitate events. Orien
tals generally misunderstand our present inaction. They
suspect some deep design, some secret understanding with
Russia. If it is once understood that nothing will move us
till the Russians appear on our frontier, we shall certainly
hasten that event by a great many years.
" But a defensive policy is not necessarily inactive, nor
merely stationary, still less is it necessarily weak. On the
contrary, a true defensive policy for India seems to me to
require, now more than ever, much active exertion in
many directions. Our great danger, greater than anything
we can fear from foreign designs of aggression, seems to
be on our own side the border, in the Indian belief that
we are indifferent to, or afraid of, or connive at the Russian
conquests, in our English insouciance and distaste for the
subject, which is certain to end in a sudden rude awaken
ing to the dangers of our position, and a risk of passionate,
ill-considered, violent action, which is more dangerous to
peace in democratic communities than the most ambitious
designs of despotic autocrats.
" What, then, ought to be the character of our action ?
As for making an advance upon Merv by Russia a casus
belli, I do not think the proposal will stand examination ;
the place is nothing to us except as a step towards Herat
and Cabul, and it is not a necessary step to either ; to pro
hibit the Russians from taking it might, in the event of
their regarding our prohibition, force them to turn it, and
thus delay for some short time the extermination of hordes
of robbers and man-stealers, whose intervention between us
and Russia must ever be a fruitful source of misunder
standing. But the Russians will not, or, more correctlv
speaking, they cannot, stop for any mere threats or pro
mises of ours.
" Nothing, I believe, will be effectual to arrest their pro"
gress towards India till we have British officers stationed
on the Indian side of a well-defined frontier, exercising an
effective control over the politics of the semi-civilized races
on our side of such a border, and in constant frank diplo
matic communication with Russian officers on the other
side.
" But how is this to be effected without annexation, or
protectorate, almost equivalent to annexation, and sup
ported by force ?
" We must carry much further, and make more gene
rally understood, the liberal, frank, and independent policy
inaugurated by Lord Mayo. Much ingenuity and elo
quence were expended, when Lord Mayo went out to
I adia, to prove that in his dealings with the Ameer of
Afghanistan there was no departure from our previous
policy ; but the fact is that Lord Mayo endeavoured, and
with much success, to reverse the ' masterly inactivity '
policy of the previous 20 years, and to revert to that
system of dealing with oar powerful frontier neighbours
which, when Sir George Olerk was atiUmballa and other
men of like spirit in other parts of India, was so success
ful, and which at the present day, wherever it is tried,
gives us all the security we can desire. Up to Lord Mayo's
time our policy towards the Afghans had, with rare and
fitful exceptions, been one of constant neglect and distrust.
For many years after we had evacuated Afghanistan we
maintained a sullen and distrustful silence, which, after
the occupation of the Punjab, was exchanged for a
policy of almost active hostility. We did all we could
to weaken the Ameer's authority with his frontier chiefs,
and to neutralize their power by sowing distrust and
dissension among them.
" With the exception of expeditions to burn and lay
waste, our Punjab officers were prohibited from intercourse
with their neighbours over the border. When, after years
of non-intercourse, some of the Candahar chiefs sought to
renew friendly intercourse with our officers in Scinde, I
was severely censured by Lord Dalhousie for proposing
that the advance should be received in a kindly spirit. It
is true that the discussion of the arguments I adduced in
support of my views, aided by the sound sense with which
Sir Herbert Edwardes shortly afterwards advocated a
policy similar to that which I proposed, and possibly other '
causes unknown to me, soon afterwards induced Lord Dal
housie to relax in some degree the system of non-inter
course, and later on we were driven by our own interests
during the Persian war to cultivate better relations with
the Afghans ; but nothing like a cordial, a generous policy
towards the Afghans was adopted by the Government of
India till Lord Mayo went out, and the success of the sys
tem bad scarcely become apparent when he died.
"We must, it seems to me, act now independently and
openly in the same spirit. We must not attempt to im- V
pose on the Ameer with any profession of disinterested j
regard for his welfare ; we must let him see that we fully i
appreciate the danger which threatens ourselves as well as 1
him by Russian advance, and that we intend to stop all
occasion for such advance in bis di rection by assisting him '
so to govern Afganistan that he shaii give Russia nn pre
tence for interference.
" Your first and greatest difficulty will be, I fear, with
your own people on the frontier. Matters are'in some re-
spects improved since I found it difficult to persuade a |
Punjab frontier official that it was possible to deal with |
Asiatic neighbours on the same principles as those pro- ■
fessed in our dealings with Europeans ; that by a ' just,
conciliatory, and neighbourly policy ' we did not mean a j
weak system of humbug, of wholesale bribery, and pay- ■
ment of blackmail to frontier robbers ; that by a ' firm and i
strong policy' we did not intend sudden reprisals and raids
into our neighbours' territory, setting tribe against tribe !
and family against family, ruthless destruction of the crops f
and trees, village burnings, and indiscriminate slaughter of
all found in arms.
" The views held on these subjects by most of Our Pun
jab frontier officers are much sounder now than they were
20, or even 10 years ago.
" But nothing can make up for the loss of such a noble
.school of frontier officers as John Jacob founded, and which
jthe' Grovernment of India so persistently discouraged and 1
ultimately abolished. You will find it every day more diffi
cult to form men such as your Punjab frontier has fur
nished, and of which you have some still left. But
if you intend to keep India, you must manage to train up
men in the spirit of your Malcolms, Elphinstones, and Met-
calfes of times past, and of Sir George Olerk in later days
—men who, by their character and the confidence the
natives have in them, can hold their own without the
immediate presence of battalions and big guns.
" The active measures which seem to me essential for'
our present purpose are—first, to place an advanced post
of our frontier army in the Khan of Khelat's territory, at
Quettah, sufficiently strong to prevent the place being car
ried till reinforcements can arrive from the Indus, be
tween which and Quettah the communication should be
improved, as far and as fast as practicable, to the foot of
the Bolan and throughout that pass. This would establish
above the passes, and in the territory of a Power bound by
treaty to act in subordinate co-operation with us, an ad-
; vanced post in an excellent position for watching Southern
I Afghanistan, and acting, if necessary, on the flank of any
thing which might threaten India from the Kyber
Pass and Cabul. These measures require no diplo
macy, nor consultation with any other Power ex-
| cept the Khan of Khelat, and we haye treaties and
j engagements with him which give us all the power we can
| require. A detachment from Jacobabad has frequently
1 passed the summer at Quettah, and nothing more is neces
sary than to strengthen and provision snch a jjos J :, and
make it capable of permanent occupation.
! " But I am not at all sure that you may not now find
covert opposition in quarters where you would have found
ready acquiescence in such a scheme a few years ago. I
heard last week from an old Indian friend that he lately
j met on board a steamer in the Black Sea two Russian
officers of rank, who began talking to him about Afghan
politics, and one of them told my friend that he had lived
for six months at Khelat. I never saw any mention of such
a visitor in any of our frontier reports ; but I have often
thought that the perverse conduct of the Khan lately
betokened an idea that he could rely on other support than
that of the Government of India.
"The railway for 150 miles from the Indus to the