Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎137r] (282/312)

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AFGHANISTAN.
The Times, remarking upon the announcement that the Viceroy's
emissary to Cabul is returning with the Ameer's reply to the Viceroy s
letter, observes that it is still open to the Ameer to disclaim the deeds of
his subordinate and to make reparation for them by a full submission to
our demands. That he will choose this course is possible, but it is tar
from likely There will be work found for our soldiers m any case, it
the Ameer continues obstinate, it will be necessary to bring him to
reason by force. If he yields without fighting, we shall still need
men to occupy the new line of frontier which we intend to substitute
for our present one, or to hold the advanced stations at which we may
insist that our presence is to be permitted. At the present moment
there is no news either way. But if we are forced to make war on |
Afghanistan, we shall probably set to work in the slow, safe way in which
we conducted our campaign in Abyssinia. We shall have a more diffi
cult task before us, but one easily within our power to bring with certainty
to the same successful issue. We shall lose nothing by waiting a few weeks,
or even a few months. It would be better, on any calculation, to allow
the most erroneous ideas to prevail for a time over the imaginative and
unreasoning East rather than to furnish good ground for a slighting estimate
bv attempting some feat which we failed, for any reason, to carry through.
Small too, as the chance may be that the Ameer will give way before we
begin actually to move, it would be unwise to destroy it by moving
immediately. In one way, and in one only, can our hand be forced,
the Ameer attacks any of the hill tribes beyond our own frontier which have
declared themselves friendly to us, it will become our duty to support
them at once and at almost any hazard. There would really be no choice
left The 1 Daily News says it may be that the replies of the Ameer will afford
the Viceroy some good ground for believing that Shere Ah has no real
desire to break with the English Government. If it should appear that
the Ameer's conduct has arisen out of any misunderstanding of this kind,
it is to be hoped that every opportunity may be given for the setting
right of the misconception. There is not, on the part of the English
public, the faintest inclination to force a quarrel on the Ameer; and if he
sives anv evidence of an anxiety to save us from this necessity, we ought
to be magnanimous enough to welcome it. To refuse to Shere Ah any
oonortunity of explanation and arrangement now would only be to justify
the suspicion which there is too much reason to believe occupied his mind
from the first—the suspicion that his doom had been resolved up on.
The difficulty of providing transport for the army now being massed on
the North West Frontier for the invasion of Afghanistan, reported this
morning by the Times correspondent at Calcutta, reveals a want of foresight
surely ? The increasing difficulty of providing transport for a large army has
been known in India for years. So long ago as 1873 the most important
witness examined before the Committee of the House of Commons on
East Indian Finance pointed out that to get together a number of bullocks
and camels sufficient for the commissariat train of a large force was becoming
a more and more serious task in India. Whereas formerly thousands of
bullocks and camels could be had at short notice, nowadays long prepara
tion is needed to this end. How much preparation has been made
for this grave undertaking we can now see. And yet the rebuff
administered at Ali Musjid was actually expected. It had been foreseen
probable, in one shape or another, for months. Whatever our stam
mering ministerial apologists may say here at home, in Asia it is seen
clearly that the interests of our empire in the East—and of our trade
with the East too—are being staked on the issue of this advance into
Afghanistan. Blundering now may have to be remedied hereafter a
cost most unpleasant to contemplate.