Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎92r] (187/312)

STANDARD, SATURDAY, OCTOBER .%
Our Correspondent at Bombay telegraphs that' ^
the commencement of hostilities mav be expected i
at any moment, for the AM er has" ordered the
advance of four infantry regiments, who have i
arrived within a short distance of Jamrud, where :
some British troops have already appeared. The
Afghans are being, followed by larger numbers
of the A meer s troops, and threats are made against :
the Khyberees for having allowed the Mission i
to pass. Our Correspondent also contradicts the 1
statement that was recently made about the return j
of the messenger who was sent to Cabtd with the !
last letter to the A meer . The RnsRian newspapers
are still .writing on the relations bet ween England j
and Afghanistan. The G-oios consolers tliat Sir |
Neville Chamberlain had orders to seek a quarrel, I
and that he did not give the A mbsk time to reply.
There is no settlement yet of the Ministerial
crisis in Austria. In Vienna it is thought probable
that Herr T isza will remain at the head o^ a recon
structed Hungarian Ministry. From Bosnia a tele
gram' states that the Austrian troops have entered
Vishegrad unopposed, the insurgents having hastily
Whatever may be the resolutions at which the
Cabinet will arrive to-day, there is one which we
hope does not admit of doubt. It will be decided,
we must assure ourselves, and the decision must be
promptly made public, that no part of the cost of
the Afghan war will be laid upon the Exchequer
of India. Upon this point a bold course is alone con
sistent at once with prudence and with justice.
Some half-hearted politicians and see-saw jour
nalists, who are afraid to know their own minds,
may busy themselves in finding out precedents i
for one course or the other, and striking
a balance between them. But it becomes states
men who have the courage of their opinions, and
Englishmen, irrespective of party, who desire to
maintain a truly " Imperial" policy, to judge the
present situation apart from obsolete examples and
changed conditions. The question before us is a
simple one, and must be answered frankly. It is
this : Do the circumstances out of which the war
against the Ameer of C abtjl has arisen justify
us in imposing the burden of its cost upon
the people of India ? The problem is not
a very complicated one, nor does it require
any elaborate knowledge of Indian affairs for its
elucidation. There are two elements to be taken
into consideration—the political origin of the war
upon which we are embarking, and the capacity of
India to yield the resources needed for carrying on
that war. The Cabinet will, of course, weigh these
matters well; but it is impossible to believe that they
can come to any other conclusion than that the war is
essentially an Imperial war, and that India is unable
to pay for it without the risk of a strain
sufficient to disorganise her whple financial
system. Justice and prudence, therefore, con
cur in warning us not to trifle with difficulties
which, formidable enough at present, may become
infinitely more so under the combined pressure of
foreign war and financial disaster. We do not say
that it will be a light matter to accept the whole
expense entailed by the Afghan quarrel; but if faced
boldly it will be less arduous, even from a pecuniary
point of view, than it looks at first. However that
may be, our boldness would be culpable rather
than praiseworthy if we made war on the " limited
liability " principle, taking to ourselves the
responsibility of initiation and the glory of |
1 victory, and leaving to the people of India'
| the payment of the bill. The larger that bill ■
| is likely to be, the more the reason for relieving j
i the Indian exchequer of any obligation for it. I I
; it should even prove as heavy as that which we had j
to pay for the chastisement of T heodoke of
Abyssinia, it would be, no doubt, an unpleasant;
addition to the demands for which Sir S tafford
N orth cote will have to provide next year ; but it
would be no more than what, with a very slight
increase of taxation, we could clear off in a couple
of years. With India the case is very different;
an expenditure for war of nine or ten millions
sterling, if spread over five years, would involve .
an addition of a couple of millions a year to the
wants of the Indian Exchequer, and from what
sources such an increment is to be derived no
Anglo-Indian statesman has undertaken, or will
undertake, to tell us.
That the Afghan war is an Imperial war is as plain
as that two and two make four. Ithasnotoriously been
provoked by the malign intermeddling of Russia,
as a counterstroke to the check which she received
when the Treaty of San Stefano was exposed in
| Lord S alisbuby's Circular. To meet the blow is
not only a necessity of our Imperial position in the
East, but a corollary from the principles
we have publicly declared to be the foun
dations of our European policy. It cannot
be described, except by a forced construc
tion of words and of things, as a measure
intended " for preventing or repelling an actual
invasion of her M ajesty's Indian possessions," nor
I can it fairly be said to be undertaken " under
other sudden and urgent necessity." The conduct
of the Ameer of C abul , though indirectly dis
turbing and threatening our power in India, does
not involve any menace to it, nor is it pretended
on behalf of the Government of' India that the
necessity for striking a return blow is sudden and
urgent. On the contrary, many people feel that there
lias been already evinced an unwise and inexplicable
amount of deliberation. In any case the Government
of India Act of 1858 provides, as Mr, F awgett
has lately pointed out, that only to repel or prevent
invasion or under urgent and sudden necessity were
the revenues of India to be applied, without the
consent of Parliament, to defray the expenses of
military operations carried on beyond the Indian
frontier by her M ajesty's Indian troops. We feel
sure that the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. and tho Indian Govern
ment will feel bound by the spirit as well as the
letter of these provisions. But it may be urged
that the Government will consider that it is in a
position to ask Parliament to allow the whole or a
considerable part of the expenses of the war to be
charged upon the Indian revenues. No such plea
can be admitted. The Imperial Parliament is a
trustee for the Indian Empire and its millions of
despotically-ruled inhabitants, and in the justice of
Parliament is to be found the ultimate guarantee
against errors in policy as well as abuses in
administration. It is scarcely credible that Parlia
ment would venture, without the strongest reasons,
to depart from the rule which the Government of
India Act lays down as the normal policy of
the Indian Government in these crises. It ia
admitted that India must bear the cost of
local and internal troubles, and that obligation is
one which Anglo-Indian financiers find more and
more burdensome as the order we have established
} in India becomes more exacting and absorbing.
Jowakis and Dufflas, Lushai and Naga hill-men,
have to be chastised from time to time, and though
the expense of each "little war" does not look
formidable, the aggregate cost is heavy. But this
is a part of the police system of India, and at its in
fliction no one murmurs. It would be otherwise
with political wars undertaken beyond the boun
daries of India. Imperial policy, occupied with
many grave concerns in every quarter of the globe,
might find itself involved in other quarrels with
Powers like Afghanistan which could be most easily
encountered by the military force wepossessin India.
Is it to be understood, it will be asked, that whenever
the Indian army is employed in Asia—for instance,
against Burmah or Siam, or China, on the one
side, or against Persia on the other—the, Indian
Exchequer is to bear the charge ? The answer
which the majority of Englishmen will give is, we
are happy to believe, not doubtful. Since siich
wars are undertaken primarily for the maintenance of
Imperial interests and Imperial prestige y it. is the
duty of the Imperial Parliament to make provision
for the necessary expenditure.
Nor is the Rendition of Indian finance, even
upon the fairest showing, such as would encourage
prudent statesmen to depart from an established,
rule of policy at the present moment in order to
charge the Indian exchequer with the cost of an
Afghan war. It is true that mischievous exaggera
tions with respect to the N resources of India have
been published with a singular disregard for the
wise and even decent reticence becoming at a crisis
like the present. But no fair-minded observer of
Indian affairs will deny that, after a succession of
famines and the heavy losses caused by the depre
ciation of silver, the country requires some breathing
time before it is called' upon to bear any new
burdens. The Estimates for 1878-1879, which Mr.
S tanhope laid before the House .of Commons exactly
a couple of days before the prorogation of Parlia
ment, showed an aggregate revenue of sixty-three
millions, and an aggregate expenditure of sixty-one
millions, giving, an estimated surplus of two
millions-, of which three-fourths was set aside as a
famine insurance fund, and the remaining fourth
as the ordinary margin which experience has shown