Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎144v] (297/312)

sure of there being al\va\s.m
? extension, regardless of ultimate consequences, and capable?
t of doing an immense deal of mischief before any check can
be applied.
" You will natarally ask, what is the remedy I propose
for this state of things, and I will briefly state the prin
ciple on which I would proceed. First of all, I would -
endeavour to meet the danger as far as possible from our
own frontier, without placing any hostile Power between
us and our Indian base. Some of these measures I have
►..already described. They involve the establishment of a
i perfect intelligence department of European officers in
/Afghanistan, and, if possible, a preponderating influence
there; but I would not attempt the subjugation of the
j country nor its military occupation, because I believe that
yje can effectually keep out all rivals by supporting a na-
i \tional Government. Hence I would not attempt to hold
Herat by a force of our own troops—at least, not until we
'had tried the effect of such measures as Todd, and Pot-
Itinger, and Rawlinson proved could be so effectual in like
/cases. I would not attempt to enforce union of the Afghan
' States under a single ruler ; I would not oppose such
union, if the ruler seemed capable of effecting it; I
would give him the best advice I could on the subject, but
, avoid committing myself to support an unpopular or im-
I becile candidate for united Afghan empire. I believe if wo
deal candidly and frankly with the Afghans, as Metcalfe
and Clerk dealt with the Sikhs, we might maintain
supreme influence among them as long as we can command
k succession of such men. But you must trust them largely
f and remember that their expenditure cannot be conducted
jlike that; of an overseer of a Union workhouse, under a
4 vigilant Board of Guardians.
/ " 1 would greatly increase our naval force in Indian seas,
and I would make those seas take the place of the Medi
terranean as an ordinary cruising ground of one of our
principal squadrons. Now that there are other Powers
with a naval force in the Mediterranean besides France and
Spain, our position there is much altered. There are
Turks, Greeks, and Egyptians, Italians, and Germans, and
Russia^, as well as Frenchmen and Spaniards, to balance
one another. With Gibraltar and Malta in our hands, we
shall be as well able to hold our own in the Mediterranean
as in old days ; but we seem too apt to forget that the open
ing of the Suez Canal has materially altered our naval
position in India. All the Mediterranean Powers I have
named, and America also, have now some days' start of us
in getting to the coast of India, and a well-directed naval
expedition might now establish a hostile force on our
Indian coasts, in a position to be seriously troublesome,
while our attention was directed north-westwards. This
would have been far more difficult before the Suez Canal
■was opened, because we had then the start of all other
naval Powers in getting to India. We ought to have what
we have not now, a squadron amply sufficient to protect
our Indian coasts from insult or aggression, and able to
refit in India even during a temporary interruption of the
route by the Suez Canal. Hitherto the Viceroy has had
little need for thinking of his navy, but in the next war
he will have to make it his chief concern."
After discussing the future of Turkey and Persia,
Sir Bartle Frere adds ;—
" As regards Indian force, there are many things which
seem to me of the utmost political importance as bearing
on our position in Central Asia. I will only briefly indi
cate :—
" First, a thorough reform of our Indian army, the
condition of which, at this present moment, seems to me
in the last degree unsatisfactory. We are paying an
enormous sum for an army which no one trusts, except
|as regards the European portion ; and much of what is
trustworthy is dangerously locked up in bad strategical
positions. You know, as well as I do, that an effectual
reform of the army, such as would make it as good as an
army on a peace establishment can be, is not a difficult
matter, if the necessary power were given to such men as
Napier and the officers he would select. But I own I see
little chance of such reform till the shock of war comes,
and I only pray that it may not come in a form to sur
prise us before our General, whoever he may be, has time
to re-organize his forces ; but my distrust of anything but
war awakening us is no reason why we should let oar
friends sleep contentedly in a fool's paradise, and there"
^fore I would not cease to warn them of the risks they are
running by persisting in their present coarsa of aimless and
costly inactivity.
" Secondly, whatever troops you have got—good, bad, or
imliffexent—ought not to bp lyck^ cuvaa (so manx thou-
sanai of them now are r In watching powers like Scindia,
the Nizam, and Holkar. It is high time that these princes
shbuld feel and understand that their interests are iden";
tical with burs, and that they ought not to absorb 10,000i
European troops in watching them or in keeping them:
upon their thrones. But they will never understand this,
unless you can infuse into our political servants something of
the old spirit which Lord Mayo so clearly showed was not
dead or incapable of revival. All the troops at the capitals
I have mentioned should be capable of withdrawal with a
certainty that the ruler would be able and willing to pro
tect himself and our friends at his own capital. I believe
ypu may make these Princes as loyal and as little desirous
of change as our own dukes, and the sooner we set about it,
'the better.
1 "Thirdly,again,I think you should pay more attention in
the Political Department to your lines of military commu-
jnication. The Indus Valley and Rajpootana lines are still
1 incomplete, and we have no lines of coast communication*
except for a few hundred miles north from Bombay and
^south from Madras. I do not recollect for years past a
single political paper of weight on this subject, and the
political importance of completing the great trunk lines is
jlisc^sed.touch as if ihey were lines to collieries oy ,stone
quarries, to be decided on purely commercial principles.
You know I am not insensible to the inestimable value
of canals or common rpads ; but war has now become a
.matter of days and hours, and we may any day bitterly
repent our tardiness in completing the great strategical
lines, which, after all, are identical with the great com-
^mercial lines of arterial communication.
" Neither can I recollect any careful discussion in the
Political Deparbment since I have been in Council on the
various schemes of what seems to me most unwise military
centralization which have from time to time been put for
ward regarding the constitution of the native army—for
abolishing all but one dockyard, one gunpowder factory An East India Company trading post. ,
one gun carriage factory An East India Company trading post. , and in other ways, putting all
your eggs into one basket. These things are usually dis
cussed in the Military and Financial Departments, where,
of course, their importance is very great ; but it is vital in
the Political Department, which is very rarely, if ever,
i consulted.
"I hardly expect to carry you with me in my last sug-
■ gestion, that you. should permanently uproot the Vi cero y
both from Calcutta and Simla ; let him by all means have
palaces there, and in every other great division df the
' Empire, but let his habitual resort be on your western sea
coast or your North-Western frontier, and let the perma
nent offices of his Government be at some place like Nas-
sick, where Campbell showed long ago they ought to be
• put in a defensible position, close to the coast, in a climate
| where your clerks could live comfortably all the year
1 round. You will think this a mofussilite crotchet. But,
| depend upon it, even a Bengal famine ought not to absorb
the large share of the Viceroy's attention, which is
always now habitually given to many local matters of
less importance than that famine. Sixty millions
' of people, or twenty, or even ten millions, deserve
as good a Governor as England can furnish and as
perfect an apparatus of administration specially devoted
fto local interests. Your Viceroy should never be called in
| except to deal with really Imperial questions. At present
' he attempts to govern in detail half India, and the great
I Commissioners and Lieutenant-Governors, who were in
tended to be triennial or quinquennial Csesars, are by
turns left very much to their own devices, with a certainty
that their measures will be upset within four years by;
their successors, or they are reduced to puppets by tb ^
direct interference of the Viceroy. If you keep a Vic-®
roy at all, he can only be useful if he rules over an Ind o
divided somewhat after Bright's fashion into a federati 4^
| of kingdoms, each furnished with complete apparatus n
1 admimstration, so framed as to be capable of continui - ;
uniform traditions of policy. You must, as Lord Elph. S
stone said, build your great Eastern Empire as you bu 15 ,
: your great iron ships, in separate compartments, which
| can isolate in case of necessity.
; "Lastly, I would not trouble the Governor-General with
! the affairs of Persia, Arabia, or Africa ; they are all affairs
: of Indian rather than European interest; but the attempt
: to rule them from Simla or Calcutta is a delusion. The
I only effectual means of dealing with the European interests
they all involve resides in our Houses of Parliament and
Cabinet, and ought to be dealt with in Westminster, and
as directly by the Secretary of State for India as your
Indian shipbuilding affairs at Wapping.
" Affairs at Aden and Bushire may then have some in
terest for an English Cabinet and Parliament, At present
they have none; and the real interests of India are sacri
ficed in a vain attempt to maintain the sham of control
from the Viceroy, who is powerless to do more than advise
or remonstrate, when the Indian interests of his charge do
not exactly coincide with European interests, or when his
appeals disturb the quiet slumbers of our insular public.
He has, indeed, the power to get you into an European
imbroglio, with the hope of making you pull him through,
and excuse his taking the only means he has of really rous
ing his countrymen's attention ; but this is not an expe
dient of which you would wish to encourage the frequent
use.
" I have gone on writing till my note has extended to
sheets which required copying, and you may wish that I
1 had put it in print, when it would at least have been
[ legible. But it is not all for the public, and there are,
| perhaps, some things in it which you may like to lay be-
{fore Lord Salisbury as opinions of one who has long, as an
i old Indian Warden of the Marches, had his attention
directed to these matters.
'' Believe me, dear Kaye, ever sincerely yourg,
" Sir J. Kaye, K.C.S.I." " H. B. E. F.
LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1878.
In another page we publish a very long and
peculiarly instructive letter on Afghanistan, which
Sir Bahtle Fkere addressed to the late Sir John
Kaye , the distinguished historian of the Afghan
war. Although it was written more than four
years ago, it so exactly meets the difficulties of the
present situation that it might have been penned
yesterday. Sir Baktle Frebe's services in India,
and his practical acquaintance with its North-
Western frontier, give a peculiarly high value to
his opinion ; and there can be little doubt that his
elaborate minute has been carefully studied by the
highest authorities of our Eastern Empire. It
Po exactly, indeed, foreshadows all they have
done that they might safely put it forward either
as a summary of instructions or a defence of their
policy. It peculiarly merits study at a time when
much perplexity has been caused in many minds
by the adverse criticisms of Lord Lawrence . Sir