Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎43v] (88/312)

dation of patriotism is surely compieta
when men who used to feel pride in the
name of England think it a grand thing instead
to talk of our Empire, and when a bastard Im
perialism in phrase and sentiment has become the
watchword and sign of a party deeming itself to
be in a special sense national. This change for the
worse is largely due to the influence of a
statesman to whom England is very little except
as the accidental possessor of Asiatic provinces.
This subordination of Europe to Asia and
of England to India really, though it may
be unconsciously, inspires the policy of Lord
Beaconspield . It might possibly have remained
a mere toy of the imagination, a theme for
literary paradox, if the alarmed pragmatism of Sir
Henby Eawlinson had not encountered
the fantastic visions of Tancred , From this
union of the fixed idea of a specialist with
the wild day-dreams of a political projector, the
Indian and Asiatic policy of Lord Beaconseield
seems to have been born. The first visionary
sketch of it is to be found in the often quoted
conversation of the Emir Fakeedeen with the
mooning and silly youth Tancred , who seems to
have been very properly chosen as the recipient of
' his confidence. But its practical application, its
1 introduction into the sphere of real politics, must
be sought for in a Memorandum drawn up by Sir
Henry Eawunson in 1868, and submitted
through the Secretary of State for India to
the authorities in Calcutta. In 1868 Mr. Dis
raeli was Prime Minister, but he ceased to be so
! in. December of that year. Mr. Gladstone's
Administration was not prone to ambitious
and adventurous strokes of foreign policy,
and Sir Henry Eawlinson's Memorandum
j seems to have been in a state of suspended
; animation for more than five years. The return
1 of Mr. Disraeli to office in 1874 appears to have
warmed it once more into life. In 1875 Sir
i Henry Eawlinson published the paper in his
work on "England and Eussia in the East.'*
In it may be found the source and inspiration of
a good deal that has occurred since, and of much
mischief that threatens us in the future.
The Memorandum to which we refer consists
of notes of a speech which Sir Henry
Eawlinson had prepared for delivery in
the House of Commons towards the end
of June, 1868. Mr. Fawcett , however, stood in
the way with a motion on Irish education
Either Mr. Fawcett was fatal to Sir Henry
.Eawlinson or Sir Henry Eawlinson was fatal
to Mr. Fawcett . There was a count-out to get
rid of one or the other or both. It is a misfortune
that Sir H. Eawlinson's motion was not discussed.
In spite of the indisposition of Parliament and th«
country to face their Indian responsibilities, a
thorough examination of Sir H. Eawlinson's
project might have got rid of it. If Mr. FawcetI
unknowingly prevented its being brought on, this
was his solitary disservice to India. Sir Henr ?
Eawlinson advocwtes in his Memorattdumj and
he would of course have advocated in his speecH,
the establishment of what he calls a quasi-
protectorate over Cabul. The time and manner
of this assumption of authority he leaves to the
Indian Government; but he considers that it is a
position which we must inevitably occupy sooner or
later, unless we are prepared to jeopardise our
Indian Empire. We must also, he argues, establish
a strong position for ourselves in Persia. English
officers must be sent to drill the Persian troops.
We should supply Persia, Sir H. Eawlinson urges,
with improved arms and artillery. We should aid
the Shah in creating and keeping up a naval
force in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . Our mission at Teheran
should be reconstructed on a very liberal scale,
and presents should be freely distributed. Persian
nobles should be encouraged to send their sons
for education to London. English capital should
be encouraged to invest itself in Persia. These
are Sir H. Kawlinson's suggestions, repeated, so
far as is possible, in his own words. It is evident
that if they were carried out we should exercise over
Persia a quasi-protectorate as real, though Sir H
EawlinsoN does not call it by that name, as that
which he recommends in the case of Afghanistan.
We are already preparing under the Anglo-
Turkish Convention to assume control over Asiatic
Turkey. Sir Henry Eawlinson's plans, supple
menting the actual arrangements of the Govern
ment, would establish an English protectorate
over the whole of Western Asia from the Mediter
ranean to the frontiers of our Indian Empire*
Modifying a former opinion, he holds now with
Lord Lyxton and with the former Under Secre
tary of State for India, that these questions should
be determined by the Foreign Office. There can be
little doubt that the policy set forth in Sir H.
Eawlinson's Memorandum, and in the later
writings which supplement and explain it, is the
policy on which the Government are acting. It
involves practically the extension of our Eastern
Empire over Asiatic Turkey, Afghanistan, and
Persia, the last of which countries is being ap
proached by us at once from the east and the west*
It is for the English people to determine whether
they will be committed to so Quixotic an enter
prise, the beginnings of which alone they are
allowed to see.
THE STOET OF THE KOOED-
CABUL.
Ho event in the history of British rule
in Hindostan has assuredly left a deeper or j
more lasting impression upon the popular !
imagination than the disastrous retreat from i
the Afghan capital in the month of January, '
1842; but the precise circumstances of that |
terrible episode in our military annals are ;
nevertheless but imperfectly remembere}. It j
is remarkable that even the locality of the destruc-
| tion of General Elphinstone's army seemed but
lately almost to be forgotten, it being customary,
as we have recently observed, to speak of it as j
having occurred in the famous Khyber Pass,
nstead of in the Koord-Cabul and some minor 1
passes, which are more than a hundred miles j
distant. A brief sketch of the sorrowful story of i
the Koord-Cabul may therefore not be out of
place at this time, when the position of affairs in
the East renders it incumbent on us to consider
the lesson which it teaches, distinguishing that
which is accidental or due to the incapacity a»d
lack of precaution of English commanders, from
those difficulties which may, on the contrary, be
said to be inherent in the problem of an invasion
of the Afghan territory.
It is important to remember that, so far as the
mere invasion was concerned, the plans of the
British commanders had proved successful, even
beyond the expectations of the most sanguine
advocates of Lord Auckland's frontier policy.
When we read with what comparative ease our
troops penetrated through the terrible passes,
took possession of the populous city ot Canda- j
har, captured Ghuznee,Jand finally installed i
our protege Shah Soojah in the palace of the j
Ameers in the Afghan capital, it is difficult t6 i
conceive that the people thus cowed and over
come by a handful of strangers were that same
race who in the days of Zemann Shah, scarcely a
generation before, had been regarded by the races
of Hindostan as destined to overthrow the British
predominance, and had even awakened grave
apprehensions in the mind of a commander so
sagacious as the Duke of Wellington, then Lord
Wellesley. Certainly nothing could be more con
temptible than the Afghan resistance of 1839;
nor did the passes, as we have lately pointed out,
offer any serious obstacles, except such as were
due to physical conditions and the difficulties of
transport of provisions and materiel in a rugged
and barren country. The route by the Bolan Pass
was chosen in the first instance, as is well known,
only by reason of the bad faith and unfriendly
attitude of the Sikh ruler whose territory
was destined soon afterwards to be sub
jugated and incorporated in the British
dominions. But for this circumstance it is cer
tain that our commanders would have advanced
in the first instance by Peshawur and the Khyber
Pass—the short and direct route to Cabul;'nor
can there be any question that the opposition
which they had to expect there would have proved
infinitely less formidable than the natural obstacles
which wore out so many of our famished troops in
! the more difficult and tediously circuitousroute they
were condemned to traverse. For this reason it may
safely be assumed that though we have now ad
vanced to Quectah and maybe said to be in peace
able possession of that very inlet into the Afghan
territory by whioh we cautiously marched nearly
forty years since, it is not by the Bolan Pass that
i any future invasion of Afghanistan is likely to be
I attempted. The simpletruth is thatthe terrors of the
| passes of the Suliman mountain range have a more
j lively existence in the popular imagination than in