Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎117r] (239/312)

Colonel Stanley, Secretary for War, was present
yesterday at a bauquet and public meeting in cele
bration of the openiHg of a Conservative club at
Blackpool. Speaking at the public meeting, he
said he saw no reason, in spite of the desponding
views which were taken, to be otherwise than
satisfied with that part of the convention with
Turkey under which we administered the island of
Cvprus. There were valid reasons of a civil and
i mili tary character which rendered that step as
advisable as it was prudent. He was not indif
ferent to the health of the troops, but if it were
necessary to occupy a foreign place, then it was
the duty of those in office not to hazard the par
ticular risks which might fall upon them. As to
Afghanistan, he had no wish for aggression or
conquest. We desired to go our way peacefully and
untrammelled, but with the power of carrying out
our own business in our own way. We could not
object to our neighbour keeping the key of his
own door, but we must see how we stood if it
seemed likely that he would hand the key to
another person.
Sir Lawrence Palk and Sir John Kennaway,
the members for East Devon, spoke at Asminster
last night. They defended the policy of the
Ministry on the Eastern Question, and in referring
to the Afghan difficulty Sir John Kennaway re-
j marked that although we did not want to go to
war with a light heart ,yet the voice of England
was unanimous in asserting that it was impossible
for us to maintain our prestige unless we exacted
due and proper reparation from the Ameer for
the insult he had offered us.
Addressing his constituent* at Helston last-
night, Mr. Young, M.P., severely criticised the
foreign policy of the Government. Ministers
claimed to have brought back " peace with
honour " from Berlin; but, unfortunately, there
was no peace. He did not quarrel with the
partition of Turkey, but he condemned Lord
Beaconsfield's inconsistency, for he had promised
to preserve its integrity. Cyprus was of no
advantage to us; it was like a white elephant.
He thought it would have been better to leave the
Ameer of Afghanistan alone than-to go to war
with him, and argued that we bad courted the
rebuff we had received at the hands of that
potentate.
C olonel S tanley last night, delivered an
address to a gathering in honour of the institution
j of a Conservative Club at Blackpool, and it is
natural to look to him, on such an occasion, for
some hint a* to the position of the Government in
view of present events. A very considerable share
of the burden and heat of the Recess has fallen
upon the S ecretary for W ar . He took a promi
nent part in the oratorical campaign instituted by
the Cabinet in Lancashire immediately after the
rising of Parliament. He is the first Minister to
address a public meeting since the outbreak of the
Afghanistan difficulty. The contrast between the
two occasions is certainly remarkable. Seven weeks
ago Colonel S tanley's task was to celebrate a so-
called diplomatic triumph, and to foreshadow the
benefits which it would confer upon a community
that had passed through two years of harassing
uncertainty, and suffered in every branch of its
commerce from prolonged apprehensions of
war. He was then able to hint at the pos
sibility of a reduction of the army, and to
promise the merchants and manufacturers of the
North a long period of undisturbed calm for the
' prosperous pursuit of their industries. He claimed
the national gratitude for the zeal with which the
Reserve forces had answered the call upon their
services, speaking of the emergency under the
pressure of which the call had been made as a
state of things that was past and gone, not to
return for many years. That some disquiet ex
isted within the area affected by the Treaty of Ber-
| lin. Colonel S tanley was bound to admit,
! but it was only temporary, only the swell of
the subsiding storm, and its influence would
never reach the shores of our sea-girt island. It
is impossible to think of the situation as it was
conceived by the Ministerial speakers then, and
the situation as it forces itself upon the public
consciousness now, without wondering whether
Colonel S tanley had any presentiment of the
disturbance that would follow the great "Settle-
" ment of affairs in the East" upon the North-
West frontier of our Indian possessions. If he was
ignorant of the new source of disquiet, it is not to
be supposed that all his colleagues were equally
ill-informed. The C hamberlain mission had
by that time been resolved upon, and the
policy in pursuance of which it was sent
had long before been agreed upon be
tween Lord L ytton and Lord B eacons-
field . The result of the mission, as Lord L aw -
j RENOEhas said, was no surprise; we cannot imagine
| that those who were aware of it were so foolishly
1 sanguine as not to foresee what would happen. Is it
1 possible that only an inner circle in the Cabinet
knew of the existence of this threatening war-
cloud, and that their colleagues were as much in
the dark as the multitude whom they invited to
believe that the Treaty of Berlin had established
peace on a durable basis ? If so, it was not alto
gether fair to Colonel S tanley , Lord S andon,
and Mr. C ross to send them forth to lead the
acclamations over the peace which had been secured
by the courage and address of our Berlin Pleni
potentiaries, without any warning of the now
disturbance that it had been determined to
initiate.
It was natural that Colonel S tanley should
leave his hearers to reflect upon the change which
had come over the prospects of peace since he last
spoke in Lancashire. His tone is still hopeful.
There are difficulties in the way of the execution
of the Berlin Treaty, but we cannot expect the
accumulated troubles of centuries to be swept
away at once, as by the magic wand of an
enchanter. Colonel S tanley cannot be blamed
for still thinking that the policy of the Govern
ment is "strongly flavoured with e-C&ry element of
"success," and it is not for him to compare
the results of that policy unfavourably with what
might have been expected from a different policy.
But if he expected to carry with him, not
, merely the convictions of his partisan hearers, who
cheered every commonplace utterance loyally as
if they had heard it for the first time, but also the
convictions of the thousands who will go to his
speech in expectation of some new light on
the policy of the Government, he ought to have
gone into greater detail as to the means
which the Ministers propose to take to ensure
the discharge of the liabilities with which they
have burdened themselves. With regard to the
responsibility they have incurred in the conven
tion with Turkey, it is too late in the day to say
that there is n'o reason to doubt the sincerity
of the Turkish Government's undertaking to in
troduce reforms in the government of their
Asiatic provinces. Seeing that recent events have
thrown grave doubts upon the existence of any
thing which can properly be called a Govern
ment at Constantinople, Colonel S tanley
should have been more specific in say-
1 ing in what quarter this sincerity is sup
posed to lie, and what guarantee sin
cerity supplies for the execution of the reforms.
Is it the S ultan who is sincerely bent upon
reform, or is it his Pachas ? And have they the
same interests in the establishment of order in
Asia Minor ? It requires no ordinary courage to
speak of the S ultan as if he were master in his
own house, in the face of the reports which come
in every day of instances in which his authority
has been defied. Events have not as yet justified
Mr. C ross's confident hope that the administra
tion of Asia Minor would be reformed by the
force of " example and precept "; and Colonel
S tanley's belief in the " sincerity " of the central
authorities will not be generally received as a
reassuring circumstance. Colonel S tanley was
equally light-hearted in his reference to that part
of the convention under which we have under
taken the administration of Cyprus. If it was
necessary to occupy Cyprus for military reasons,
we must not mind a little ill-health among our
troops. They must take the risks of the climate
! to which the Government judge it expedient to
send them. What, however, we should have
liked to know was, whether the Government were
aware, when they decided upon the occupation
of Cyprus, of the full extent of its un-
healthiness, and whether they took this into
account in estimating its importance as a military
station? Would the military reasons have been
equally valid if it had been known from the first
that twenty-five per cent, of the occupying forces
would be normally unfit for service ? . ^ ■
We should have been content to accept with
out complaint Colonel S tanley's generalities
about Cyprus and the Anglo-Turkish Convention
if what he said about our relations with
Afghanistan had been more definite and
satisfactory. Concerning this matter he pre
mised that he spoke *' individually and with the
" greatest caution." We have had too much of
this individual speaking on the part of members
of the Cabinet about the affairs of our Indian
frontier. Possibly when a Minister introduces his
remarks with such a qualifying preface, we are to
UHderstand that he is at variance with the ma
jority of his colleagues on the particular question