Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎10v] (21/312)

' 5W IweUL ftbJj
what is demanded by the Ritualists for the Anglican Church;
nor will they ever be satisfied with any readjustment of eccle
siastical organization which does not furnish an authority capable
of sanctioning flowers, vestments, pictures, and incense for the
present, and whatever may succeed them in the future, as sage
green has succeeded bleu de Nil.
AFGHANISTAN IN ITS RELATION TO INDIA.
There is reason to believe that the diplomacy of Russia has
for once overreached itself, or has allowed itself to be over
reached, by the public mission of General Abramoff to the
Ameer of Cabul. The negotiation with this Sovereign may
have been planned when war with this country was believed i
to be on the point of breaking out, and for some reason or
other it may have gone too far to be countermanded. Or,
again, there may be another explanation in the transactions of
Central Asia ; and the " soldier-statesmen" (as the Times calls
them) of the new Asiatic conquests of Russia may have taken
1 advantage of the confusion which reigned for a short time at
■ : St. Petersburg when England was erroneously believed to be
in earnest, and may have made arrangements for what seemed \
to them a great stroke of policy independently of the control
of their official superiors. But nothing but mistake or blind |
audacity can have led to such a revelation of Russian military
projects as has been now displayed to the world. Amid
endless professions of regret at the inexorable pressure of
manifest destiny, and of desire for an understanding as to a
distinct boundary between the two States and their dependencies,
there has evidently been all the while a thoroughly digested
plan of advance or attack which was to be acted upon the first
moment that a difficulty with England gave the Russian generals
their opportunity. A hostile movement upon the Turkomans
of Merv and a friendly demonstration consummating previous
intrigues with the Ameer of Cabul must have made up together
the long-prepared Russian programme ; and they are the best
devised approaches that could be made towards two vulne
rable points in the vaunted mountain panoply of the Indian
j Empire.
The argument for the impregnability of India which was to
turn on the scale of maps is easily confuted by the figures
as to the rate of Russian approach which have been recently
printed. A Power which was 2,500 miles off at the beginning
of the last century, which was only 2,000 miles away before
the century ended, which at the commencement of the present
century was within 1,000 miles of the Indian frontier, and which
has now reduced its distance to 400 miles, is nearing India, as 5;
time is counted in the history of States, much as the limited ^
j mail travels to Perth from London. But there is one general
statement about the military strength of India which is as H
true as any such statements can be. India, with Afghanistan
included in it, or with Afghanistan closely dependent upon it,
is really a country very difficult indeed to attack. India with
Afghanistan in hostile or coldly neutral hands is extremely
vulnerable. English military men in India, we are told,
think the present military frontier of 1,000 miles simply inde
fensible. There is a vantage ground above it, from which it
could be easily and simultaneously pierced at a dozen points.
On the other hand, if Afghanistan were in hands friendly to
the British, to make a hostile attempt on it from the plains
of the Oxus and Jaxartes would be an almost desperate
undertaking. It is not, however, necessary to go to Indian
authority for these assertions, which receive plenty of convincing
illustration much nearer home. The whole military question
between France and Germany turned on the possession of a I |
country very closely resembling that now ruled over by shere I
All The table-land to the north-east* of what once was I |
j France is extremely like the table-land to the north-west of .S|1
India. Whichever of two rival countries possessed the plateau v
had its competitor at the most serious disadvantage; it could
j choose its own time for attack, while it could not be
assailed without great difficulty and ample notice. From
Alsace and the mountainous portion of Lorraine the French
armies had issued to overrun Germany ever since Lewis XIV.
made France a conquering power. When Germany, after her
signal successes in 1870, made up her mind that there should |
be no more French invasions of her soil, she took this all-
important district into her own hands, braving some of the
most deeply rooted sentiments of our age rather than forego
her advantage. Before 1870 it was Germany which had to
neutralize the effects of a table-land in rival hands by -con- \
structing the line of fortresses along the Rhine; now it
is France which has to undertake the same costly method f
of defence. India, however, with Afghanistan hanging over_j
her, has not a single inland fortress that could hold out for—
a week against anything stronger^than a native Indian army
or an assemblage of mutineers, Thd old importance of Switzer-'*
/
I
ftUJi
land was, again, very much that of the Afghan table-land. There
was no country in its neighbourhood which might not have been
attacked by it with every hope of success and with little fear
of retaliation. It is true that the Swiss were for awhile better
soldiers than those of any neighbouring State ; and it may be
true that the miscarriage of the English army in the last <
Afghan war was due to incredible blundering, which would not
be likely to occur again. But nobody seriously denies that an
Afghan army, somewhat like that which Shere Ali displayed
to General Abramoff , but drilled into greater military efficiency
by Russian skill and provided with arms of precision from Russian
stores, would be about as formidable a force as the East could j
produce. It is not the Afghans under their present ruler, but 1
Afghanistan in Russian hands, which causes such grave anxiety ; |
and we now know the way in which the Russians intend to make I
good their footing in Afghanistan.
It is extremely probable that a certain number of " superior |
persons " will reason about Afghanistan and its ruler as Mr. Samuel |
plimsoll argued the other day in a speech to his constituents.
Shere Ali is allowed to be an independent ruler, and he may
be assumed to know his own interest best. What business is
it of ours that he receives this or that mission or holds this
or that review of his troops ? The answer is not the less
conclusive because it is not very obvious to the general run
of "superior persons" perhaps. Shere Ali is an untaught
Oriental ruler. He is too ignorant to understand his own
interest; and his fierce suspicions of his neighbours rob him
of all independence. There is little question that the once
famous policy of " masterly inactivity" went on the assumption
that the Ameer of Cabul must know his own interest. What
this interest is ought to be perfectly plain. He is a zealous
Mahommedan, ruling after the Mahommedan fashion; and he \
has to do, on one side, with a Power which long ago swallowed
up one after another the Central Asian khanates, the homes of
Mahommedan orthodoxy and of pure and strict Mahommedan
government, and which only yesterday all but destroyed, if it
has not quite destroyed, the Turkish Sultan, the only living
being with a claim to be the chief of the whole world of
Mahommedan believers. England, on the other hand, after
violent internal controversy, has shown herself unmistakably
friendly to the Sultan and to the maintenance of his empire,
and in India she is sick of annexations and wishes for
nothing better than internal and external peace. But all these
facts are probaby half - known to the Oriental ruler, and ;
perhaps those that are known to him are quite wrongly
appreciated. Even supposing he is convinced that the Russian
Emperor has inflicted a great injury and wrong on the
Turkish Sultan, this may only seem to him a strong reason for
agreeing quickly with a mighty Power which God has for some .
reason or another made the instrument of chastisement to
Mahommedans in so startling a way. Who, moreover, can
say what impression the Treaty of Berlin has made on Shere
Ali in so far as it is known to him ? Who can say what
account General Abramoff gave of the Treaty of San Stefano
and of the Berlin Congress ? Who will question what the |
effect would be which they would produce probably, even if ;
they were reported at Cabul with the utmost correctness ? f
And as the Ameer is ignorant, so he is almost certainly
suspicious in proportion to his ignorance. He may see that
Russia has absorbed some khanates, half-digested others, and
humiliated all; but England once invaded Afghanistan, and for a
while conquered it ; and England has lately come to Quettah. >
The most important events to Shere Ali are doubtless events i ;
in his own country and family—the death of one son whom ;
he loved, and the hostility of another whom he treacherously
imprisoned; but, next to these cares, he may be believed to l
be racked by contending doubts and fears, as one who is placed |
between the upper and the nether millstone.
RAIL WAY ACCIDENTS AND RAIL WA Y APPLIANCES. |
The Sittingbourne accident has revived the long-standing con
troversy between those who wish to see the adoption of the newest
contrivances for preventing these disasters imposed at once upon ^
the railway companies by Act of Parliament and those who contend
that, as these contrivances have not yet been brought to a state of
perfection which can be regarded as final, railway "T j
not to be put to useless expense by being mad
what they may be called upon to discard to-mon^
were as narrow as it is here represented, railway managers would !
undoubtedly have something to say for themselves. The progress
of invention is very rapid, and methods of ensuring safety which
a few years back were thought perfect have already become an ti-
quated The relative position of a railway co" ' "fc
opinion of the Board of Tra^e is constantly cl
pany which not long ago stood highest in the i — v xy f
—•-— inn" 'irr"^