Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎113v] (232/312)

SPEECHES OUT OF PARLIAMENT-
Colonel Loyd Lindsay, M.P., speaking iast ni^ht at
the dinner of the Eoyal East Berks Agricultural Associ
ation at Maidenhead, said:—Her Majesty's Ministers
when they went to Berlin were not quite so silly as their
p-?litical opponents appeared to have wished them to oe,
I They did something to support their eloquent words;
they put the army on a war footing, and they strength
ened the navy with guns and with men, and having done
so they made no secret of their firm resolution to use
both the one and the other in case their moderate and
well-considered demands were not accepted by the
belligerents. In that way peace was preserved, and
"peace with honour." He continued—The interest
which we find in examining these events, which
are now of the past, is preatly increased by
; the effec which they may have with references to the
future. We can to some extent judge of th^ future
by studying the past, and the study of the past gives
us confidence that the same firm hands which guided
the nation in the critical times which we nave just
passed through will continue to direct it m any difficul
ties which may be before us. There are two causes
which have contributed to / startle the country in con
nection with the news which reaches us from India—the
recollection of the calamities which overtook our soldiers
nearly forty years ago in those regions, and the sup-
poskion, not altogether unreasonable, that Russia is
raising a spirit of disaffection against us among those
warlike tribes that inhabit Afghanistan. But the
same straightforward policy, accompanied by the
steady military preparation which succeeded so
well with Eussia the other day, will probably have
the same influence with her now, and convince her
that she had better be circumspect and moderate. Russia
aside, it only remains for us to deal with a turbulent
chief of a half-civilised tribe, inhabiting regions which
can only be reached by dangerous and difficult mountain
passes. These must be can iously and skilfully tra
versed, but the superiority of our rifles and the military
skill of our commanders can leave no doubt as to a
speedy settlement of any difficulty on the north-west
frontier of our Empire. Our position with regard to
these tribes h?is been quiescent, and we have wished it
to cohtinu'} to be so; but if comp elled to action we shall
go on our way conscious that if danger approaches from
any q iarter we tire ready to meet it.
Mr. Walter, M.P., in responding to the toast of the
county members at tbe same dinner, said it would be
premaiur j to attempt at present to write, or even to
sksich, the history of the Eastern Question, or to specu
late as to what the results were likely to be. Probably
when the historian came to tell the story he would say
that Eussia thought the time had come for her to settle
the Eastern Question in her own fashion, and that Eng
land would quietly stand by and alldw her to do so. He
would also be bound to admit that Turkey bad given too
much reason for such an anticipation on the part of
Eussia by her scandalous misgovernment, and by
adopting a line of policy which rendered it impos
sible for England to take a course similar to that
which she adopted at the time of the Crimean war.
His own view of the Eastern Question, without going
into party politics, was that the decline and fall of
the Turkish Empire was only a question of time.
Nothing could arrest it, and this country was determined
not to allow Eussia to take the place of the Turkish
Empire. He could not help thinking that the compro
mise arrived at in the Conference at Berlin was on the
whole about the best that could have been effected ia
the circumstances. He was dispose 1 to give to Lord
Beaconsfield full credit for the decided stand he
made in reference to the Balkan frontier line,
and also for his course of policy in bringing
the Indian troops to Europe—a course which showed
all Europe that England was thoroughly in earnest.
' With regard to the frontier difficulty in India, it cer
tainly seemed to him that England was likely to be
drawn into war with the Ameer of Afghanistan. The
difficulty, however, was to tret to the truth of ma' ters
in this respect. All the information they had on the
j subject differed widely. On one band they were told
that Eussian intrigue was at the bottom of the whole
business. On the other i was gravely asserted that the
difliculty arose from difference of opinion between the
Ameer of Afghanistan and his mother-in-law, who was
in the habit of boxing tbe ears of her august relative
with a slipper (a laugh). Whatever the trutn might
be, he would simply wish to advise a policy of caution.
Last evening at Leeds, Sir Henry Havelock, M.P.,
presided over a missionary meeting, and referring to the
Afghan difficulty, he declared that our dispute was not
with a half-savage ruler, but to prevent our rule in India
being disturbed by a Power behind, which Power, if it
prevailed to break down our rule in India, certainly, to
say the least, would not; advance the cause of true re
ligion. If we were about merely to avenge an insult,
he would not countenance it, for it was no Christian duty
to take up arms for revenge; but it was our duty to
maintain the tranquillity of the British rule.
the ex-emir of kashgraria.
We hear from St. Petersburg that B?k-Kooli Beg, the
ex- Emir of Kashgaria, has entered the Eussian service,
and ha • been temporarily appointed in command of some
troops cantoned in thi Chemkent district. Pensions
have also been granted to the leading Kashgarian
officials who accompanied him in his flight.
THE INDIAN FBONTIEE.
The latest intelligence from India of an appa- j
rently trustworthy sorb shows an important concen
tration of Britisli troops at the mouth of the Khyher,
while Shere Ali has despatched several regiments to
reinforce Ali Musjid. Tbe Daily News speaks of
this Afghan movement as threatening "an incursion
into our territory." Nothing could suit us better,
but we hesitate to credit the Ameer with such down-
right insanity as that would come to. No one knows
better than he that his soldiers would not stand
the slightest chance against our better disciplined and
better armed troops if the former once quitted their
own ground, for the plains. If Shere Ali has rein
forced Ali Musjid his motive unquestionably is to
block the road to Cabul, while it may be that the
principal object of our concentration at Jumrood is
to detain a considerable portion of the Afghan army
I on the Kbyber route to the capital while we develop
jsolid attacks in other directions. Our contem
porary also fails to understand whv the fort at
Jumrood 44 has not alwayu been occupied by a strong
detachment," There are two very good and suffi-
cient reasons for the omissiion. In the first place,
Peshawur, with its garrison, of from 8,000 to 10,000
men, is within three hours' march of the fort, and
therefore absolutely commands the exit from the
pass. Secondly, Jumrood is a positive Inferno,
beinjj situated as it is under great rocky bluffs,
which keep off every breath of air, while radiat
ing a tremendous heat all round, even during
comparatively cool weather. No earthly purpose
could have been served by occupying the place in
strength so long as the force at Peshawur was in a
condition to throw forward a detachment at any
moment. As regards the question of transport, into
i which some of our contemporaries are entering, this
forms^undoubtedly one of the chief difficulties of the
situation. Elephants would be very suitable, but
unfortunately there are very few of these animals in
t e Peshawur Valley and its neighbourhood. Native
carts, of course, would be useless in the hills, even
it they could be,obtained in sufficient numbers,
w ich they cannot. The expeditions will, :
heie ore, have chiefly to depend upon camels, j
and any number of these could be pro- 1
cured from the Punjattb. But the Indian
camel makes poor work of it on rough, hilly ground,
and it would be rash, therefore, to trust too
much to this form of transport. The camels which
come down with goods from Afghanistan and the
Jvhanates are, however, eminently suitable for
our purposes, and as a grood many of these must
now be passing through the Punjaub on their return
journey, we may expect to find them largely em
ployed witfi the expeditions.
THE' INDIAN FEONTIEE.
The Daily Telegraph observes " At any moment we
might now hear of that first shot having bean fired
upon the Indian frontier which wou ! d echo all over
Asia, and be the commencement of a thirl Afghan war.
The British troops must be by t his time in some force
within and near Jamrood, which lies about five miles
from the actual entrance of tbe Khyber Pass, Not
very far up the valley, although inside the gorges
opening thence, stands upon a lofty rock the square-
shaped fortress of Ali Musjid, which is the present
fronder post of Shere Ali Khan, and has a garrison ?aid
to have been recently strengthened by four reo-iments
of Afghan fightin: men. It is an easy day's
march from Jamrood to this stronghold, and
the intervening vale and pass arj full of
caves in the nearly .perpendicular rocks, which
furnish the ordinary abodes of Kbyberees and
Mom'unds, and would probably now be occupied by some
of Shere Ali's outposts. At any time a body of these
may descend into the plain of which Jamrood marks
the verge, and exenange warlike salutations there with
our vedettes; while at Quetta, which cannot yet have
been sufficiently reinforced, Afghan horsemen ar ; said
to have been seen reconnoitring on the Candahar
road, as if half inclined to make a dash at
the British cantonment. Lord Lytton'g Govern
ment ia on the alert all round the frontier. In
Cashmere we baT3 a friendly prince who, iu
name independent, yet gladly acknowledges 'sub-
stantial fealty to her Majesty; and this ruler, Eungbeer
Singh, is the guardian of some very important gate
ways of India. Two of them, the Baroghil and the
Karambar, might possibly become of real "moment m
certain eventualities, and it is satisfactory to hear that I
these passes have been occupied in force by the troops
of the Maharajah of Cashmere, Eungbeer Sino-h's
array consists of about 17,000 men. we believe, fairly
drilled and armed. a,nd accustomed to the climate of
these lofty passes, which lead from the basin of the
Oxus into that of the In ins, and the lowest point
among which amounts to 12,000 feet above tha coo
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siq jo etaos moaj SutopnC 'pssnjnoo ^sora\'E
uesq fAtiq O}. staoos pentrad cqM.
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s.iojjo ©xwi j8c n 0 ©q} ejiqM. 'sjm. jo xocaxotpp v
neTEiisseoan iCxo'Bcio.id sbav a arcmot) etn jo\9sn snouno
SPEECHES OUT OF PARLIAMENT-
Colonel Loyd Lindsay, M.P., speaking iast nigrht at
the dinner of the Eoyal East Berks Agricultural Associ
ation at Maidenhead, said:—Her Majesty's Ministers
when they went to Berlin were not quite so silly as their
political opponents appeared to have wished them to oe.
They did something to support their eloquent words;
they put the army on a war footing, and they strength
ened the navy with guns and with men, and having done
so they made no secret of their firm resolution to use
both the one and the other in case their moderate and
well-considered demands were not accepted by the
belligerents. In that way peace was preserved, and
"peace with honour." He concinued—The interest
which we find in examining these events, which
; are now of the past, is greatly increased by
! the effec which they may have with references to the
future. We can to some extent judge of th ' future
by studying the past, and the study of the past grives
us confidence that the same firm hands which guided
the nation in the critical times which we nave just
passed through will continue to direct it m any difficul
ties which may be before us. There are two causes
which have contributed to / startle the country in con
nection with the news which reaches us from India—the
recollection of the calamities which overtook our soldiers
nearly forty years ago in those regions, and the sup
position, not altogether unreasonable, that Eussia is
raisins a spirit of disaffection against us among those
warlike tribes that inhabit Afghanistan. But the
same straightforward policy, accompanied by the
steady military preparation which pucceeded so
well with Eussia the other day, will probably have
the same influence with her now, and convince her
I that she had better be circumspect and moderate. Eussia
1 aside, it only remains for us to deal with a turbulent
1 chief of a half-civilised tribe, inhabiting regions which
; can only be reached by dangerous and difficult mountain
; passes. These must be cau iously and skilfully tra
versed, but the superiority of our rifles and the military
skill of our commanders can leave no doubt as to a
speedy settlement of any difficulty on the north-west
frontier of our Empire, Oup position with regard to
these tribes h?s been quiescent, and we have wished it
i to continue to be so; but if compelled to action we shall
go on our way conscious that if danger approaches from
any q jartar we nre ready to meet it.
Mr. Walter,, M.P., in responding to the toast of the
county members at the same dinner, said it would be
prematuri to attempt at present to write, or even to
skei ch, the history of the Eastern Question, or to specu
late as to what the results were likely to be. Probably
when the historian came to tell the story he would say
that Eussia thought the time had come for her to settle
the Eastern Question in her own fashion, and that Eng
land would quietly stand by and allow her to do so. He
would also be bound to admit that Turkey had given too
much reason for such an anticipation on the part of
Eussia by her scandalous misgovernment, and by
adopting a line of policy whioh rendered it impos-
sible for England to take a course similar to that
which she adopted at the time of the Crimean war.
His own view of the Eastern Question, without going
into party politics, was that the decline and fall of
the Turkish Empire was only a question of time,
Nothing could arrest it, and this country was determined
not to allow Eussia to take the place of the Turkish
Empire. He could not help thinking that the compro
mise arrived at in the Conference at Berlin was on the
whole about the best that could have been effected in
the circumstances. He was dispose 1 to give to Lord
Beaconsfield full credit for the decided stand he
made in reference to the Balkan frontier line,
and also for his course of policy in bringing
the Indian troops to Europe—a course which showed
i ail Europe that England was thoroughly in earnest.
; With regard to the frontier difficulty in India, it cer-
Jainly seemed to him that England was likely to be
drawn into war with the Ameer of Afghanistan. The
difficulty, however, was to tret to the truth of ma'ters
in this respect. All the information they had on the
subject differed widely. On one hand they were told
that Eussian intrigue was at the bottom of the whole
business. On the other i was gravely asserted that the
difficulty arose from difference of opinion between the
Ameer of Afghanistan and his mother-in-law, who was
in the habit of boxing the ears of her august relative
with a slipper (a laugh). Whatever the truth might
be, he would simply wish to advise a policy of caution.
Last evening at Leeds, Sir Henry Havelock, M.P.,
presided over a missionary meeting, and referring to the
Afghan difficulty, he declared that our dispute was not
with a half -savage ruler, but to prevent our rule in India
being disturbed by a Power behind, which Power, if it
prevailed to break down our rule in India, certainly, to
say the least, would noo advance the cause of true re
ligion. If we were about merely to avenge an insult,
he would not countenance it, for it was no Christian duty
to take up arms for revenge; but it was our duty to
maintain the tranquillity of the British rule.
THE EX-EMIR OF KASHGrARIA.
We hear from St. Petersburg that B?k-Kooli Beg, the
ex-Emir of Kashgaria, has entered the Eussian service,
and ha; been temporarily appointed in command of some
troops cantoned in thj Chemkent district. Pensions
have also been granted to the leading Kashgarian
officials who accompanied him in his flight.
THE INDIAN FRONTIER.
The latest intelligence from India of an appa- j
rently trustworthy sort shows an important concen
tration of British troops at the mouth of the Khyber,
while Shere Ali has despatched several regiments to
reinforce Ali Musjid. The Daily News speaks of
this Afghan movement as threatening "an incursion
into our territory." Nothing could suit ns better,
"but we hesitate to credit the Ameer with such down
right insanity as that would come to. No one knows
better than he that his soldiers would not stand
the slightest chance against our better disciplined and
better armed troops if the former once quitted their
own ground for the plains. If Shere Ali has rein
forced Ali Musjid his motive unquestionably is to
block the road to Cabul, while it may be that the
principal object of our concentration at Jumrood is
to detain a considerable portion of the Afghan army
( on the Khyber route to the capital while we develop
'solid attacks in other directions. Ottr contem-
porarv ako fails to understand whv the fort at I
j Jumrood " has not always been occupied by a strong
detachment," There are two very good and suffi-
cient reasons for the omisstion. In the first place,
Peshawur, with its garrison of from 8,000 to 10,000
men, is within three hours' march of the fort, and
therefore absolutely commauds the exit from the
pass. Secondly, Jumrood is a positive Inferno,
being situated as it is under great rocky bluffs,
which keep off every breath of air, while radiat
ing a tremendous heat all round, even during
comparatively cool weather. No earthly purpose
could have been served by occupying the place in
strength so long as the force at Peshawur was in a
condition to throw forward a detachment at any
moment. As regards the question of transport, into
which some of our contemporaries are entering, this
forms^undoubtedly one of the chief difficulties of the
situation. Elephants would ba very suitable, but
unfortunately there are very few of these animals in
the Peshawur Yalley and its neighbourhood. Native
carts, of course, would be useless in the hills, even
if they could be obtained in sufficient numbers,
w ich they cannot. The expeditions will,
therefore, have chiefly to depend upon camels, |
and any number of these could be pro- 1
cured from the Punjahb. But the Indian
camel makes poor work of it on rough, hilly ground,
and it would be rash, therefore, to trust too
much to this form of transport. The camels which
come down with goods from Afghanistan and the
ivhanates are, however, eminently suitable for
our purposes, and as a good many of these must
now be passing through the Punjaub on their return
journey, we may expect to find them largely em-
ployed wifih the expeditions.
THE' INDIAN FEONTIEE.
The Buily Telegraph observes At any moment we
might now hear of that first shot havino- been fired
upon the Indian frontier which wou^d echo all over
Asia, and be the commencement of a thirl Afghan vrar.
The British troops must be by t hi? time in some force
within and near Jararood, which lies about five miles
from the actual entrance of the Khyber Pass. Not
very far up the valley, although inside the gorges
opening thence, stands upon a lofty rock the square-
shaped fortress of Ali Musjid, which is the present
fronrier post of Shere Ali Khan, and has a garrison ?aid 1
to have been recently strengthened by four regiments I
of Afghan fighting men. It is an easy day's
march from Jamrood to this stronghold and
the intervening vale and pass arj full of
j caves in th© nearly.perpendicular rocks, which
furnish the ordinary abodes of Ehyberees and
Momunds, and would probably now be occupied by some
of Shere Ali's outposts. At any time a body of' these
may descend into the plain of which Jamrood marks
the verge, and exchange warlike salutations there with
our vedettes; while at Quetta, which cannot yet have
been sufficiently reinforced, Afghan horsemen ar; said
to have been seen reconnoitring on the Candahar
road, as if half inclined to make a dash at
the British cantonment. Lord Lytton's Govern
ment is on the alert all round the frontier. In
Cashmere we have a friendly prince who, iu
name independent, yet gladly acknowledges 'sub
stantial fealty to her Majesty; and this ruler, Eungbeer
| Singh, is the guardian of some very important gate-
■ ways of India. Two of them, the Baroghil and the
i Karambar, might possibly become of real moment in
* cerlain eventualities, and it is satisfactory to hear that I
these passes have been occupied in force by the troops
of the Maharajah of Cashmere, Eungbeer Sino-h's
army consists of about 17,000 men. we believe, fairly
drilled and armed, and accustomed to the climate of
these lofty passes, which lead from the basin of the
| Oxus into that of the In ^ us, and tha lowest point
among which amounts to 12,000 feet above the seal
j level. At tbat elevation the ice and snow are sufficient '
barriers against any hostile visitor during" the
winter; but the passages are open at present
and will remain so for some weeks, while between them
and the Eussian frontier at Khodjend and Khokand
there is nothing save the Southern Pamir. It is upon
! ourselves, however, that we must finally r .-ly for the
forces and the resolution necessary to pW our Indian
Empire out of reach of further iilarms; and though
perhaps, less may be communicated in future abouf-, the
movements and objects of our troops, it should not
therefore, be imagined that ha slightoet disinclination
exists on the part of the Home and Indian Governments
to Confront the present crisis, with all its perils and all
its opportunities,"