Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎121r] (249/312)

t
servedly recognized by both parties to it as necessary to the j
security of the State for whose benefit it was made. Because ;
/to—although Lord Grey seems to see it as little as Lord ;
Lawrence —is our case against Afghanistan in consequence of j
the recent action of the Ameer. To repeat what we said on
this point the other day, the despatch of the mission to |
Cabul, the contrivances, whatever they may have been, by ;
which Russia ensured its establishment there, are a complete |
breach of the pledges upon which the peaceful relations of
England and Russia in that region were well understood to
rest. The Russian Government has been allowed to carry its j
so-called civilizing mission in the East up to our very gates
on promises and pledges of the most unequivocal kind ^ that
no attempt would be made to disturb our own civilizing mission
within those gates: interference in Afghanistan being sped- i
fically included among the attempts at such disturbance from ;
which Russia bound herself to abstain. It is idle in the face of
facts like these to talk of the Ameer's reception of a Russian j
envoy as an act necessarily within his right as an independent |
prince ; and indeed all talk about his independence is, for this |
purpose at any rate, a mere irrelevance. It might have been
open perhaps to Lord Grey to argue that our remedy is in the first ;
instance against Russia, and that she should have been called upon
to observe her engagements and to withdraw her envoy before any
action was taken against Shere Ali ; and such an argument we I
should havclittle concern to contest. But Lord Grey , as we have |
seen, has expressly debarred himself from employing it. _ He
contends that " we have no right whatever to make war upon either i
Russia or Afghanistan on account of what has occurred." Such
a contention as this is its own answer. If nations may not make i
war to enforce the observance of agreements entered mto by
them for their own protection, there is nothing for which either in
justice or policy they may make war at all. Common-sensfe,.how- I
ever, repudiates the conclusion to which Lord Grey's arguments '
inevitably lead. It is well understood, and has been virtually
admitted by Russia, that interference in Afghanistan would justify
and even necessitate military measures of self-protection on our
part; and it was and is equally well understood by Shere Ali
himself. In combining with Russia to violate her engagements
to us he has chosen virtually to convert himself into an ally in
a hostile enterprise against England; and there can be no
injustice in subjecting him to the consequences which he has
thereby deliberately invited.
ENGLAND, RUSSIA, AND AFGHANISTAN.
The Standard publishes the following telegram from Simla, dated Wednesday '
night " I have just been informed, upon what I believe to be good authority,
that the column under General Ross has passed the fort of Ali 'Musjid, and that
Dakka will be captured to-morrow at any cost." The Calcutta correspondent
of the same journal telegraphs " It is considered here to be improbable that
any further advance beyond Jumrood will be made for some days, in order that
the troops now going up may arrive before serious operations commence, but
no official information whatever is forthcoming as to what is taking place. It
is rumoured that a letter has arrived from the Ameer. The Afghan force at
Ah Musjid now amounts to eight regular regiments of infantry and eighteen,
guns. Colonel Villiers, military secretary to the Viceroy, and brother to Lady
Lytton, will accompany the Peshawur column."
The Indian Government, it is said to be now definitely settled, will leave for
Calcutta on the loth of November. The Viceroy will remain at Lahore till the
20th of December. The Council will sit in Calcutta under a President in I
Council during the Viceroy's absence.
The Russian press continues to discuss the Afghan complication. The |
Berlin correspondent of the Times says that even the roost pacific portion ofTl
the press is enchanted with the delightful prospect of settling England defini-|
tively. The St. Petersburg Bourse Gazette, a paper which was steadily opposed }
to the Turkish war, says that Afghanistan is the one point where the eruire
might and influence of England may be effectually resisted and paralyzed by
Russia. The English press, it says, headed by the Times newspaper, "is '
hounding public opinion against the defenceless Ameer. Russia should make I
the Ameers cause her own, and by the despatch of a sufficient force render
Afghanistan invincible. A small Russian corps would suffice to force England ^
to stake her Asiatic position on the issue of the struggle. For Russia to I
defend the Ameer is to vindicate her own Imperial interest, an office altogether
different from the Quixotic defence of the Slav."
The Moscow correspondent of the Cologne Gazette says that in the comin^
war between England and Afghanistan Russia may assist the latter Power with
officers, guns, iron, and steel ; but there is no prospect of her giving it material
aid in the shape either of men or of gold. She has neither men nor gold to |
spare. However, she is not prepared to allow England to steal a march upon *
her in Asia, If England gains a footing in Afghanistan, as now seems probable, I
Russia will obtain compensation elsewhere. "What England gains in Afghanistan I
Russia will seek to gain in Kashg^ir.
The Nord of last night says In the negotiations which have taken place I
between the Cabinets of London and St. Petersburg on the subject of the ^
delimitation of the spheres of influence of the one and the other Power 1
Afghanistan was, from the Russian point of view, to play the part of a neutral I
zone, destined to separate the Anglo-Russian frontiers in their greatest exten- s
sion. If this zone were interfered with in a lasting manner by England, it is I
evident that there would arise logically for the Cabinet of St. Petersburg the i
question whether there is not to be practised in Central Asia the policy of 1
precautions and compensations which the Government of Great Britain has :
followed in the regulation of the Eastern Question.