LOED LYTTON 
 
 THE AFGHAN WAR.
 
 LOED LITTON 
 
 THE AFGHAN WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 CAPTAIN W. J. EASTWICK, 
 
 FORMEELY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY i 
 AND, SUBSEQUENTLY, MEMBER OP THE COUNCIL OP INDIA. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 Kantian : 
 
 R. J. MITCHELL & SONS, 
 
 52 & 36, PAKLIAMENT STEEET, 
 
 AND 52, BUCKINGHAM PALACE KOAD, S.W. 
 
 1879. 
 
 Price One Shilling.
 
 LORD LYTTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE AFGHAN WAR 
 
 The importance of England's mission in the East can hardly be 
 exaggerated, nor the results dependent upon its right apprecia- 
 tion by British Statesmen. Those Statesmen are responsible to 
 the British people, who themselves ultimately share the respon- 
 sibility, if they sanction the acts of their representatives. We 
 have entered upon a war, the political consequences of which no 
 one can foresee ; but it will most probably entail a great loss of 
 life, and certainly a large expenditure of money. In this crisis 
 any individual, however humble, who, like the writer of this 
 pamphlet, has been employed on the scene of action in former 
 days, and has filled official situations which have given him the 
 opportunity of studying the question, may be pardoned if he ven- 
 ture to place before his countrymen the conclusions at which he 
 has arrived. If he can contribute in the slightest degree to the 
 formation of a sound public opinion, if he can enforce caution, or 
 correct error, his object will be attained. He has no party purpose 
 in view. The honour, the justice, the interests of England, and 
 the welfare and prosperity of India, are too dear to him to allow 
 of his descending into the arena of party strife. He feels assured 
 that the majority of thoughtful Englislimen only desire to have
 
 brought before tbem the real facts of the case, to throw their 
 influence into what they beHeve to be the right cause. But they 
 must have the whole case, and all the documents necessary to 
 enable them to form an impartial judgment upon it, and not a 
 mere statement of the case on one side. Has the whole case — 
 have all the requisite documents — been laid before the public? 
 Iso unprejudiced person can answer these questions in the affirma- 
 tive. Is it not a fact that authentic and official documents were 
 long withheld, while one-sided statements and memoranda by 
 men holding high positions under the Government, and therefore 
 supposed to have access to the best means of information, were 
 put forward from time to time to bias the public mind ? Have not 
 inspired telegrams, containing exciting intelligence calculated to 
 arouse public indignation, been transmitted from India only to be 
 diluted or explained away shortly afterwards ? We were told, for 
 instance, that the letter of Sher Ali, the full text of which was 
 conveyed in the Viceroy's telegram of the 19th of October, but not 
 published until recently, was of an insolent and defiant nature. 
 
 Why was it not given to the public at once, so as to enable 
 competent persons to judge for themselves whether the interpre- 
 tation put upon it by Lord Lytton was borne out by its tone and 
 language, and why were not the letters from our officers to his 
 officials to which Sher Ali referred also given? Without these 
 letters of which he complained no fair judgment could be come to 
 as to the provocation which led to the Amir's conduct. We have 
 Sher All's letter now at page 252 of the "Afghanistan Papers," 
 and it is characterized by Lord Lytton as " intentionally rude, 
 conveying a direct challenge, and that any demand for an apology 
 would only expose us to fresh insult." In order to form a correct 
 opinion upon it, in common justice to the Amir, the Persian text 
 ought to be submitted to ripe Oriental scholars, of whom there 
 are several in the Council of India. But taking the English 
 translation as it stands, few impartial persons will, it is believed, 
 support Lord Lytton' s view ; and even the Ministers themselves, 
 by very properly directing that a further communication should 
 be forwarded to Sher Ali, would seem to have cast doubt on the 
 
 /"'"\ 
 ,u.uc;
 
 Viceroy's hasty conclusion. We have not before us, even now, all 
 the information which would enable the English people to form a 
 judgment as to the principles and policy which have plunged the 
 country into what many consider to be an unuecessary, impoHtic, 
 and unjust war. Without having any voice on a question in 
 which their interests are so deeply concerned, the nation has been 
 compelled to take a tremendous leap in the dark. The most 
 complete success must be attended by all the horrors and evils 
 which follow in the train of war. (July the clearest and most 
 undoubted necessity could justify the recourse to that extreme 
 arbitrament. Did that necessity exist ? and if it did exist where 
 is it going to lead the country? Will not our difficulties be 
 increased rather than diminished by the attainment of the ends 
 proposed by the policy of the present Government ? Shall we not 
 be in a worse position, both in a mihtary and a political point of 
 view, even if the most entire success crown our efforts? These 
 are questions of paramount importance to the people of England, 
 requiring the utmost calmness and impartiality to come to a wise 
 and right decision. But can a calm and deliberate judgment be 
 hoped for, when some of the noblest of our citizens, and those 
 the best capable of giving advice, are denounced with bitterness 
 because they venture to resist the popular feeling, and strive to 
 instruct the public mind ? Such efforts are not incompatible with 
 true patriotism ; on the contrary, they have their origin in a 
 sacred jealousy of their country's honour and reputation, and in 
 a solemn sense of Christian duty. 
 
 But independently of the great principles of justice and 
 morality, which are involved in this question of the War in 
 Afghanistan, there are other questions of the highest importance, 
 in relation to the new mode of governing India, which it behoves 
 the EngHsh ParHament and people to look in the face, and at 
 the proper time to exact a full explanation. Every day more 
 and more startling disclosures are made of information withheld, 
 of constitutional forms infringed and disregarded, and of a 
 system of personal government inaugurated in the highest degree 
 dangerous to our Indian Empire. We have the letters of those
 
 eminent Indian functionaries, Sir Arthur Hobhouse and Sir 
 
 Henry Norman. We have the suppressed minutes of Sir 
 
 William Muir, replete with sound sense and ripe experience of 
 
 our Indian administration. 
 
 What does Sii' Arthur Hobhouse write? — 
 
 "Whether the mode of conducting Indian affairs during Lord 
 Salisbury's tenure of office has been in accordance with law, with 
 previous practice, or with public policy, is a question traught, as I think, 
 with interest and importance to the nation, but quite apart from 
 personalities." 
 
 What food for reflection, what cause for anxiety, does not 
 this pregnant sentence (emanating from one who has held with 
 distinction the highest legal office in India) suggest to the minds 
 of those conversant with Indian aff'airs. 
 
 John Mill said truly : — 
 
 "The great constitutional security for the good government of India 
 lies in the forms of business.'" '"The Minister, placed in office by the 
 action of political party, except in very rare cases, can possess little or 
 no knowledge of India," 
 
 The Viceroy, selected from similar party considerations, is, 
 generally, equally inexperienced in Indian aff'airs. Both are 
 assisted by Councils composed of eminent men, who have fiUed 
 the highest offices in India, and bring to their work a thorough 
 knowledge of aU branches of Indian administration and of the 
 peculiar usages, ' feelings, and prejudices of the people of India. 
 English Statesmen of large minds, and comprehensive European 
 experience, collect the opinions of their distinguished Councillors, 
 weigh them well, and come to their own conclusions. This has 
 hitherto been the practice of the greatest Indian Viceroys, and of 
 the ablest Secretaries of State for India. Where diff'erences of 
 opinion have existed, the dissentients in the Councils have had 
 the opportunity of recording their views, and in this manner both 
 sides of the various important questions which constantly arise 
 in the government of India have been placed before Parliament 
 and the country. Even the bitterest opponents of the East 
 India Company always admitted its excellence as a Government 
 of record.
 
 It appears that this salutary check on hasty and inconsiderate 
 action has been lately set aside, or at all events greatly curtailed, 
 both at home and abroad, and the evil results are already too 
 apparent. Lord Salisbury testifies, in the House of Lords, that 
 " in industry, caution, and sound hard discretion Lord Lytton has 
 not been exceeded by any Viceroy who preceded him." Gibbon 
 writes : — *' Abu Rafe, servant of Mahomet, testifies to the wielding, 
 as a buckler, by Ali of the ponderous gate of a fortress, which he 
 and seven other men could not lift." Gibbon adds : — " Abu Eafe 
 was an eye-witness, but who will be witness for Abu Rafe ?" 
 After a perusal of the "Afghanistan Correspondence," especially of 
 the conversations of the Viceroy with Nuwab Atta Mahomed 
 Khan, it will require more than Lord Salisbury's testimony to 
 convince the thinking portion of the English people of the 
 "caution and sound hard discretion of Lord Lytton." 
 
 All sorts of doctrines have been put forward by the Press, and by 
 the writers who support the Imperial policy of the present Govern- 
 ment, in reference to our relations with the Amir of Cabul, and, 
 by implication, with the Native States of India. Some of these 
 doctrines, enunciated by men of great intellectual power, appear to 
 be so erroneous, and so opposed to the principles which have 
 hitherto generally guided the policy of the Biitish Government, 
 that it behoves every man who has been connected with the 
 administration of India, and who holds strong opinions of their 
 dangerous tendency, to protest against their promulgation and 
 adoption. Amongst erroneous assumptions it has been persistently 
 affirmed that the Amir of Cabul has no claim to independence, 
 because his father Dost Mahomed and he himself have received 
 subsidies from the Indian Government. Has England never sub- 
 sidized European States? What of Prussia and Portugal? 
 Frederick of Prussia, in the seven years' war, through our subsidies 
 kept the French armies employed near their own frontier, and 
 thus enabled England to maintain her superiority in India and in 
 America. Lord Chatham himself said: — "I have conquered 
 America in Germany " Portugal preserved her very existence 
 by the aid of the subsidies of England, but neither Prussia nor
 
 6 
 
 Portugal on that account ceased to be regarded as independent 
 Powers. There is, however, an illustration nearer at hand to Cabul. 
 The Shah of Persia, through a long series of years, received sub- 
 sidies from the Indian Government, but no one ever maintained 
 that Persia therefore forfeited her independence. 
 
 Sir James Stephen, in his discussion of the Afghan question, 
 has laid down principles which would seem to override the rights 
 of every Asiatic State, and place them entirely at the mercy and 
 discretion of the British Government. " Our relations with these 
 States," he writes, " must be determined by the fact that we are 
 exceedingly powerful and highly civilized, and that they are 
 comparatively weak, and half barbarous." But it will be 
 better to quote the whole passage, which is couched in a tone 
 of national self-assertion calculated to wound the feelings and 
 excite the resentment of all Native Princes and Asiatic Rulers, 
 whether within our own territories or in countries adjacent to 
 them. 
 
 If an Englishman, on perusal of these paragraphs, feels his 
 blood tingle and his pulse beat high with indignation at such 
 despotic doctrines, what must be the feelings of Princes like Sindia 
 and Holkar, or of such enlightened Statesmen as Sir Salar Jung 
 and Sir Madava Rao, or of the Amir of Cabul, who look at such 
 questions from quite a different point of view, and take their stand 
 upon the obligations of treaties and the broad rules of moraHty 
 and justice, which are as applicable to the weak as to the strong ? 
 These rules, as John Mill says, " are as binding on communities 
 as on individuals ; and men are not warranted in doing to other 
 countries, for the supposed benefit of their own country, what they 
 would not be justified in doing to other men for their own benefit." 
 
 Sir James Stephen writes : — 
 
 *' I do not admit that England, Russia, China, the Amir of Cabul, the 
 Khan of Khelat, the Aklioond of Swat, the Nono of Spiti, and the Khan 
 of Khiva, form an assemblage of practically equal moral persons, whose 
 relations are to be discoveied by consulting Grotius and his successors. 
 Fictions cannot be stretched beyond a certain point. England, Eussia, 
 and China may treat on equal terms, but the other llulers whom I have 
 mentioned are simply the chief Rulers of clans, more or less extensive and
 
 powerful, who, though not dependent upon us in the sense of any defi- 
 nite duties or allegiance to the Queen, must be dealt with on the under- 
 standing th it they occupy a distinctly inferior position— their inferiority 
 consisting mainly in this, that they are not to be permitted to follow a 
 course of policy which exposes us to danger. This is the footing on 
 which every State enclosed in the British dominions is practically 
 treated. It appears to me that it is the only principle on which the 
 adjacent Powers can be treated. Our relations with Sindia are, of course, 
 different from our relations with the Amir of Cabul, as they are different 
 from our relations with Holkar and the Nizam ; but, at bottom, our rela- 
 tions with all of them stand on the same basis. They are all determined 
 by the fact that we are exceedingly powerful and highly civilized, and 
 that they are comparatively weak and half barbarous." 
 
 It is very convenient for this sort of argument to lump 
 together powerful nations and insignificant states, and to drag in 
 personages whose names, perhaps even in India, are not known to 
 one man in a thousand unless specially connected with them. 
 Who, until lately, except officers employed on the North-West 
 frontier, or those whose official duty it is to supervise Indian 
 affairs, could give you authentic information as to the power and 
 position of the Akhoond of Swat ? 
 
 And who is the Nono of Spiti ? The very mention of such 
 a potentate seems to throw a shade of ridicule over a very grave 
 question. It was a source of amusement to frontier officers a few 
 years ago, when the Supreme Government penned a despatch, 
 intimating to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab that the 
 penal code was to be introduced into the territories of the Nono 
 of Spiti. The Lieutenant-Governor had a sketch made of this 
 redoubtable potentate in his primitive costume, of a single cloth 
 round his loins (commonly termed a langoti), with his plough 
 on his shoulders, and his two little daughters carrying the seed, 
 on their way to their agricultural labours. This sketch he sent 
 into Government, and nothing more was heard of the introduction 
 of the penal code. To place this head man of a wild valley in 
 the Himalaya mountains, with an income of probably not more 
 than three pounds a month, in the same category as the Amir 
 of Cabul, requires great confidence in the ignorance of those to 
 whom the argument was addressed. 
 
 Mr. Elphinstone writes that the Afghans appear to have been
 
 8 
 
 entirely independent until the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century. They then paid tribute to Persia; but at the com- 
 mencement of the eighteenth century they conquered Persia, and 
 established a short-lived Afghan dynasty, which was overthrown 
 by Nadir Shah. In 1747, ten years before Clive won the battle 
 of Plassey, Ahmed Shah Abdallee was crowned King of Cabul. 
 Half-a-century later, one of the first political questions with 
 which Lord Wellesley had to grapple, on his arrival at Calcutta, 
 was the advisability of forming a defensive alliance between all 
 the existing Powers of Hindostan, to resist an expected invasion 
 of India by Zemaun Shah, King of Cabul. 
 
 On the 17th of June, 1809, the British Government con- 
 cluded a treaty of alliance and co-operation with Shah Shuja. 
 Then came the ill-omened tripartite treaty between Shah Shuja, 
 Runjeet Sing, and the British Government, dated 20th July, 1838. 
 On the 30th March, 1855, another treaty was made with the 
 Amir, Dost Mahomed, on terms of perfect equality. There was 
 no infringement of his independence, no implied understanding 
 that he occupied a " distinctly inferior position," or the British 
 officers entrusted with the negotiations might have found greater 
 difficulty in bringing them to a favourable conclusion. Have we 
 treaties of this nature with the Akhoond of Swat or with the 
 Nono of Spiti ? The principles put forward by Sir James Stephen 
 are full of danger, and tend to destroy confidence in the good 
 faith and fair dealing of the British Government. They would 
 not have been tolerated in the days of the East India Company, 
 and they would have found no favour in the eyes of the great 
 Statesmen like Malcolm, Munro, and Elphinstone, who illustrated 
 the Company's rule. It is not too much to say that those States- 
 men never could have won their diplomatic triumphs in their 
 dealings with Native States if such principles had guided their 
 conduct. A distinguished member of the Council of India, Sir 
 Erskine Perry, possessing a knowledge of Indian affairs, and, it 
 may be added, of European politics, surpassed by few, thus re- 
 cords his protest against these principles : — 
 
 ♦' I will only say, as a jurist, that I have been shocked at the doctrine
 
 lately put forth by high legal authority, that the main principles of in- 
 ternational law are not applicable to the East. Those principles are 
 founded on large views of morality and justice, and if it is forbidden to 
 a civilized Power in Europe to use poisoned weapons, to shell defenceless 
 towns, to massacre or enslave prisoners, to invade a weak State because 
 the possession of it uould be convenient to the captor — according- to my 
 judgment these proceedings are equally forbidden to a civilized Power 
 in Asia." 
 
 This doctrine of the unlimited attributes of the British 
 Government, as the paramount Power of India, to deal as it 
 chooses not only with every Native State enclosed within its 
 dominions, but also " with adjacent Powers," to be, in fact, sole 
 judge in its own cause when disputed questions arise, which are 
 to be decided " according to its own interests," was, soon after its 
 promulgation, justly repudiated by Lord Northbrook, whose ad- 
 ministrative ability, prudent, well-balanced mind, and long official 
 training in the study and supervision of Indian affairs, pointed 
 him out as one peculiarly fitted to preside over our Indian 
 Empire. It is right to observe that Sir James Stephen subse- 
 quently explained and considerably modified the language of his 
 first letter, and, to show his feelings about justice, quoted from a 
 speech made by him in Calcutta, in which he says : — 
 
 " I believe that the real foundation on which the British power in 
 this country stands, is neither military force alone, as some persons 
 cynically assert (though certainly military force is one indispensable 
 condition of our power) ; nor even that affectionate sympathy of the 
 native population, on which, according to a more amiable, though not, 
 1 think, a truer view of the matter, some think our rule ought to rest 
 (though it is hardly possible to overrate the value of such sympathy, 
 where it can by any m^ans be obtained). I believe that the real founda- 
 tion of our power will be found to be an inflexil»le adherence to broad 
 principles of justice, common to all persons, in all countries, and all 
 ages, and enforced with unflinching firmness in favour of and against 
 every one who claims their benefit, or who presumes to violate them, no 
 matter who he may be." 
 
 It is not intended to impute to Sir James Stephen any in- 
 difference to justice. But his original statement conveyed to 
 such acute and practised minds as those of Lord Grey and of Lord 
 Northbrook (and therefore, it may be supposed, to many European 
 and Asiatic minds) a meaning utterly repugnant to that " affec-
 
 10 
 
 tionate sympathy," to which he justly attaches so much value, 
 and seemed to be a defence of high-handed principles of despotism, 
 put forward for the sake of justifying our invasion of Afghanistan. 
 The very fact of explanation being required demonstrates the 
 necessity of caution, on the part of those capable of influencing 
 the public mind. Opinions thus hastily given, which are liable to 
 misconstruction, may lay the foundation of distrust and disaffection 
 in the minds of the Chiefs and Princes of India. Even now the 
 sting remains, and the doctrine is laid down, that with regard to 
 the Native States of India, and to the adjacent Powers, no law 
 nor rule exists to regulate the relations between them and the 
 British Government but that which the British Government may, 
 to the best of their judgment, deem most conducive to the happi- 
 ness and lasting peace of its subjects and its neighbours, the 
 grounds for this Imperial doctrine being that "none of them is 
 strong enough or civilized enough to be really or permanently 
 independent." 
 
 This is no new doctrine. In the days of annexation it was 
 propounded, time after time, by those who supported the poHcy of 
 absorbing the Native States, and bringing al] Hindostan under 
 British rule. But even Lord Dalhousie himself, whose Imperial 
 proclivities were unmistakeable, in his minute of the 27th May, 
 1851, on the affairs of the Nizam, recorded his strong opinion in 
 reprobation of so dangerous a doctrine. He writes : — 
 
 " I recognize no mission confided to the British Government which 
 imposes upon it the obligation, or can confer upon it the right, of 
 deciding authoritatively on the existence of native independent Sovereign- 
 ties, and of arbitrarily setting them aside, whenever their administra- 
 tion may not accord with its own views, and although their acts in no 
 way afi'ect the interests or security of itself or its allies. Still less can 
 I recognize any such property in the acknowledged supremacy of the 
 British Government in India, as can justify its rulers in disregarding 
 the positive obligations of international contracts, in order to obtrude 
 on Native Princes and their people a system of subversive interference, 
 which is unwelcome alike to people and to Prince." 
 
 It has been well observed that ^'the eternal principles of 
 right and wrong should influence us in all parts of the world." 
 The acts of England are not done in a corner. The eyes of aU
 
 11 
 
 nations are upon her. The millions of India are as sensitive to 
 the infringement of the unalterable laws of justice as the more 
 enlightened communities of Europe. Not only in Europe and in 
 Asia, but even in Africa, deeds which redound to the credit or 
 discredit of the British nation are discussed. Shortly after the 
 unjust annexatiou of Sinde, Dr. Richardson, a traveller in Central 
 Africa, relates the following circumstance : — 
 
 "■ The conversation was stopped by the entrance of a remarkable 
 personage, the quasi Sultan of Ben Walid. Having heard that I was 
 present, he said : * Christian, do you know Sinde ? ' ' Yes,' I said. He 
 then turned and said something to the people in the Ghadamsi 
 language. I afterwards learned it was, ' You see these Christians are 
 eating up all the .Mussulman countries.' He then abruptly turned to me, 
 ' Why do the English go there, and eat up all the Mussulmans ? 
 afterwards you will come here.' I replied, * The Amirs were foolish, 
 and engaged in conspiracy against the English in India, but the Mussul- 
 mans in Sinde enjoyed the same privileges as the English themselves.' 
 ' That is what you say,' he rejoined; and then continued, 'Why do you 
 go so far from home to take other people's countries from them ? ' I 
 replied, ' The Turks do the same : they come to the desert.' ' Ay, you 
 wish to be such oppressors as the Turks ' He then told me not to talk 
 any more, and a painful silence continued for some time.'' 
 
 But if bad deeds make their mark for evil, and cast discredit 
 on the British name, good deeds exercise a sovereign influence 
 for good, and pave the way for the blessings of civilization and 
 Christianity in a manner little imagined by superficial observers 
 of the course of events. The wisdom of British Statesmen, the 
 heroism of British soldiers, the self-devotion of British mission- 
 aries, have all, under God, contributed to build up our magnificent 
 Empire in the East. The moral force of individual character 
 exercises unbounded sway over impulsive, half- civilized Asiatics. 
 The line of demarcation is broken down between races, 
 antagonism subsides, prejudices melt away, and it may be said of 
 these benefactors of mankind, ''Fragrance on their footing treads," 
 and their good deeds live after them. Outram won the hearts of 
 the Bheels ; Edwardes subjugated, without bloodshed, the wild 
 tribes of the valley of Bunnoo. In the same manner the gran- 
 deur and simplicity of the character of Mountstuart Elphinstone 
 created, as a native author states, " a most wonderful and noble
 
 12 
 
 reversion of respect for the generosity, truth, and justice of the 
 British nation in the minds of the Afghan Chiefs and people." 
 Those who conversed with Afghans, forty and fifty years ago, 
 can well remember the honour awarded to the name of " Ulfrish- 
 teen," the traditions of whose splendid mission had been handed 
 down from father to son amongst these wild but impressionable 
 mountaineers. 
 
 Alas ! the more bitter memories of the unfortunate Cabul 
 expedition changed the currents of thought, and heaped 
 up a wealth of hatred and execration on the British name 
 in Afghanistan, while '' disasters, unparallelled in their extent, 
 unless by the errors in which they originated," seventeen 
 milKons of treasure wasted, thousands of lives fruitlessly expended, 
 left traces in British recollections not to be wiped out even by 
 the brilliant victories which restored the lustre of British arms. 
 A long interregnum ensued, during which Afghanistan remained a 
 sealed book to British influence, until, on the 30th March, 1855, 
 a treaty was concluded with Dost Mahomed by Sir John Law- 
 rence, under the instructions of Lord Dalhousie. Subsequently, 
 in January 1857, in consequence of the war between England 
 and Persia, an agreement was entered into with Dost Mahomed, 
 by which he undertook to defend Herat against Persia; and 
 for this purpose the British Government furnished him with 
 money and arms. 
 
 It was Lord Canning's desire that these negotiations should 
 be intrusted to Sir Herbert Edwardes, who, as Commissioner of 
 Peshawur, had taken a leading part in bringing about a reconcilia- 
 tion with the Afghans. Lord Lawrence, in whose character 
 magnanimity and self-abnegation are conspicuous, entertaining, as 
 he did, the affection of a brother for Sir Herbert, and placing the 
 highest value upon his ability and services, was quite willing to 
 give way, although the conduct of negotiations of such moment 
 would naturally have devolved upon him, as Chief Commissioner 
 of the Punjab. But an unexpected obstacle arose to this arrange- 
 ment. Dost Mahomed, with whom the name of John Lawrence 
 was as a household word, would treat with no one else, and
 
 13 
 
 refused to attend the meeting unless this was conceded. No doubt, 
 besides the feeling of personal regard, there was the idea that 
 his dignity would be compromised if he met an ofi&cer of in- 
 ferior grade. These negotiations were therefore carried out by 
 Lawrence and Edwardes, and the important consequences resulting 
 from them were patent to all the world during the eventful years 
 of the Sepoy mutiny, when a formidable inroad of x\fghan hordes 
 might have added greatly to our difficulties. It was at this 
 meeting that the following affecting incident occurred : — 
 
 " See these coarse garments, said Dost Mahomed, opening his vest, 
 how old and patched they are. Are these the proper robes for a ruling 
 Prince? This shawl around my liead is the sole piece of finery I possess. 
 I have no money whatever. My sons and my Chiefs take everything I 
 have. They leave me nothing, and they tear me into pieces with their 
 dissensions. I live from hand to mouth among them, a life of expedients. 
 I wish to Heaven that I could turn Faqueer, and escape from this heavy 
 lot." 
 
 Dost Mahomed remained our staunch friend until the day of 
 his death, on the 9th of June, I860. He had made himself 
 master of Herat by a vigorous attack, not altogether unaided by 
 the garrison, on the 27th of May. On the death of Dost 
 Mahomed, Sher Ali commenced to rule, having been nominated 
 heir- apparent some years before, on the demise of his brother, 
 Gholam Hyder; but from the very beginning of his reign he met 
 with determined opposition from a party headed by his elder 
 brothers, Mahommed Afzal Khan and Mahommed Azim Khan. 
 Then succeeded a revolutionary period in Afghanistan, lasting 
 about five years, on which it is not necessary to dwell. 
 
 The Government of India, in accordance with the settled 
 policy of the Government at home, kept aloof from any inter- 
 ference with Afghan internal affairs. Dost Mahomed himself 
 counselled this line of action. " Tf you wish," he said, " to be 
 friends with the Afghans, beware of meddling with their intestine 
 quarrels." The object of the British Government was to leave 
 the choice of a Ruler to the Afghan nation ; the probability was that 
 the most popular, the most able, and the most powerful of the 
 Barukzye Chiefs, the fittest for the position, would gain the 
 ascendency. Ostensible British aid would not increase his popu-
 
 14 
 
 larity. It might contribute to his temporary success, but it 
 could not maintain him upon the throne without a continuous 
 and exhausting drain of British resources, both of men and 
 money. Moreover the proverbial fickleness and faithlessness of 
 Afghan Chiefs would probably render him a broken reed very 
 likely to pierce the hand in the hour of need. Except where 
 their own interests are materially concerned, all history and all 
 experience are against the notion that Afghan Rulers will ever 
 prove " grateful and efficient allies." It must be recollected also 
 that many of the acts of Sher Ali, though quite in accordance 
 with the Afghan character, were not such as the British Govern- 
 ment could approve. It was not at all improbable that he might 
 have so conducted himself as to have estranged the majority of 
 the Afghan Chiefs and people. If we had espoused his cause 
 in the earlier part of the contest, we might have found ourselves 
 supporting a tyrannical Ruler against the wishes of the Afghan 
 nation. In 1868 Sher Ali finally established his authority in 
 Afghanistan. The Yiceroyalty of Lord liawrence was then 
 coming to an end ; but one of his last acts before he quitted India 
 was to enter into friendly relations with Sher Ali, by inviting 
 him to a Durbar, and by promising to aid him with money 
 and arms. The important letter of Lord Lawrence, of the 
 9th January, 1869, written on this occasion, shows the basis of 
 our subsequent diplomatic relations with Sher Ali. Lord 
 Lawrence writes : — 
 
 " I am leaving tlie country almost immediately, and am handing over 
 the high office of Viceroy and Governor-General to my successor. But 
 the jjolicy which I have advisedly pursued with regard to the affairs of 
 Afghanistan is one which I have entered on with anxious deliberation, 
 and which has commanded the assent and approval of Her Majesty 
 the Queen of England, and as long as you continue, by your actions, to 
 evince a real desire for the alliance of the British Government, you have 
 nothing to apprehend in the way of a change of policy, or of our inter- 
 ference in the internal affairs and administration of your kingdom." 
 
 Syed Noor Mahomed, at the conference with Sir Lewis Pelly, 
 quotes passages from this letter,^ and refers especially to Lord 
 Lawrence's knowledge of "the circumstances of Afghanistan." 
 " Its good and evil were clearly known to him." He states 
 
 * p. 207.
 
 16 
 
 expressly " the acquiescence and satisfaction of the Amir in the 
 policy of Lord Lawi-ence and of Lord Mayo.'* 
 
 "Our opinion," he says, ''is the same as that from the time of the 
 late Amir and Lord Lawrence to the time of the Umballa Durbar, and 
 till the arrival of the present Viceroy has always been mentioned in our 
 past correspondence, and we are firmly of those opinions now. There- 
 fore how can we consent to the addition of such hard conditions, the 
 performance of which in Afghanistan will be impossible, as we can show 
 by many proofs ? " 
 
 These hard conditions were the location of British officers in 
 Afghan territory, on which Lord Lytton peremptorily insisted. 
 It was left to Lord Mayo, who succeeded Lord Lawrence on the 
 12th January, 1869, to carry out the arrangements with Sher 
 Ali. Hence the Umballa Durbar which took place in March 
 1869. Sher Ali preferred a great many requests with which 
 Lord Mayo did not think proper to comply. The object the Amir 
 had chiefly at heart was the recognition of his son Abdulla Jan 
 as his heir. To this the Viceroy would not listen, neither would 
 he consent to make a Treaty ofi'ensive and defensive, nor grant a 
 fixed subsidy ; but he promised that British officers should not be 
 stationed in Afghanistan, and on this point Sher Ali, like his 
 father before him, laid the greatest stress. ^N^ot, perhaps, that 
 he had personally so great an objection ; but he knew well that 
 such a concession on his part would do him harm in the eyes 
 of his ignorant and fanatical Chiefs and people. The power of 
 Afghan Rulers is never sufficiently stable to allow of their giving 
 a handle to insurrectionary movements, especially in the direction 
 of religious bigotry. Although disappointed in many respects, 
 there is no doubt Sher Ali returned to Cabul from the TJmballa 
 Durbar more friendly to the British Government than before. 
 Lord Mayo's princely courtesy and frank genial demeanour made 
 a deep impression on the Barukzye Chief, and produced the 
 happiest results. That this friendly feeling lasted until Lord 
 Mayo's death, the touching letter Sher Ali wrote on the occasion 
 of that mournful event sufficiently testifies. This letter was 
 addressed to the Acting Viceroy. In it Sher Ali writes : — 
 
 '' The unvarying friendship and kindness displayed towards me by
 
 16 
 
 him who is now no more had induced me to determine, if the affairs of 
 Afghanistan at the time permitted the step, to accompany His Excel- 
 lency on his return to England, so that I might have obtained the 
 gratification of a personal interview with Her Majesty the Queen, and 
 derive pleasure from travelling in the countries of Europe. Before the 
 eternally.predestined decrees, however, men must bow in silence." 
 
 No one can peruse this letter without the conviction that 
 sympathy and right feehng are not wanting in the Amir's 
 character, and that by wise forbearance and treatment he might 
 have been moulded to our own purposes, and our relations with 
 him placed upon a satisfactory footing. The defenders of Lord 
 Lytton's policy have endeavoured to show that the estrangement 
 of Sher Ali dates from a period much earher than the Umballa 
 Durbar. A certain feeKng of resentment probably did at one 
 time exist in his mind, because the British Government had not 
 aided him in his contest for the throne. It is clear, however, from 
 the tone of this letter, and from other evidence, that this feeling 
 had almost entirely disappeared, owing to the measures initiated 
 by Lord Lawrence, and carried out with such tact and judgment 
 by Lord Mayo. Soon after the Umballa Durbar the mission of Sir 
 Douglas Forsyth to St. Petersburgh occurred, and a lengthened 
 diplomatic correspondence was commenced, which ended, during 
 the Viceroyalty of Lord Northbrook, in the Russian Government 
 accepting the definition of the territory of Afghanistan, as pro- 
 posed by the Government of India, by which arrangement Sher 
 Ali acquired a greater security with respect to the Northern 
 boundary of his dominions than he had ever before possessed. It 
 is desirable here to draw special attention to the wise step adopted 
 by Mr. Gladstone's Administration, at the suggestion of Lord 
 Lawrence's Government, in initiating these friendly negotiations. 
 A frank interchange of the views of England and Eussia on the 
 affairs of Central Asia and Afghanistan ensued, which resulted in 
 a distinct understanding that both Governments should exert 
 all their influence to introduce peace and order into these troubled 
 regions. The fruits of this good understanding were manifest on 
 many occasions. We read, in Sir John Strachey's minute, dated 
 30th AprH, 1872 :—
 
 17 
 
 " To Russian influence in Bokhara was due the j)rompt withdrawal of a 
 party of Bokhara troops who had crossed the Oxus in the winter of 1869. 
 To the restraining hand kept by Russia on the Afghan refugees in 
 Turkestan is to be attributed the absence of any attempt on their part to 
 shake the throne of the Amir. When the most formidable of those 
 refugees, Abdool Ruhman, once openly represented that it would be for the 
 interest of Russia to assist him in conquering the throne of Cabul, General 
 Von Kaufmann replied that hospitality had been afforded him on con- 
 sideration of his destitute circumstances, and not as an enemy of England, 
 cr a pretender to the throne of Cabul. General Von Kaufmann himself, 
 in the spring of 1870. commenced a direct correspondence, which has 
 been renewed from time to time, and has conveyed to the Amir assurances 
 of the neighbourly sentiments entertained by the Russian authorities 
 towards the Afghan Government.'' 
 
 On being informed by Sher Ali of the first communication 
 from General Kaufmann, Lord Mayo, on June 24th, 1870, wrote 
 back to tbe Amir : — 
 
 " These letters will doubtless be, when rightly understood, a source of 
 satisfaction and an additional ground of confidence to your Highness." 
 
 It does not appear from these extracts that the morbid dread 
 of Russian machinations, which has led Lord Salisbury and Lord 
 Lytton to depart from the wise poKcy of their predecessors, had 
 at that time any influence on the minds of those intrusted with 
 the Government of India. 
 
 Lord Mayo lost his valuable life, by the hand of a foul 
 assassin, on the 8th of February, 1872. Lord Northbrook 
 succeeded him on the 3rd of May, 1872. The most important 
 incident connected with .Afghanistan during the period of his 
 Yiceroyalty was the dispatch to Simla, in 1873, by Sher Ali of 
 a Special Envoy, Syed Noor Mahomed Shah. 
 
 Alarmed at the fall of Khiva, the Amir sought more intimate 
 relations with the British Government, and desired to ascertain 
 how far he could rely on British aid in the event of his territories 
 being threatened by Russia. His demands however, in the first 
 instance, were so extravagant that it was impossible for Lord 
 Northbrook to comply with them, more especially as Sher Ali was 
 unwilling that Afghanistan should be called upon to make any 
 return for the assistance rendered by the British Government. 
 In fact, the Amir, professing to believe that our interests were as 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 much concerned or more so than his own, sought an unconditional 
 guarantee of protection and very large payments of money for 
 the fortification of his frontier and the equipment of his army. 
 
 Lord Northbrook very properly objected to these requests, 
 which would have entailed unlimited responsibility and expen- 
 diture, without our being able to exercise any control over the 
 course the Amir might choose to pursue. But Lord Northbrook 
 was quite willing to give a guarantee with reasonable conditions 
 attached to it, and ultimately he assured the Envoy tha,t the 
 British Government, in the event of any actual or threatened 
 aggression, would assist the Amir " with arms and money, and 
 also, in case of necessity, with troops," A letter to this effect 
 was addressed by Lord Northbrook to the Amir, to which the 
 "Record of Conversations" with the Envoy was appended. 
 This record was a formal document officially communicated to 
 the Envoy, and signed by him, and in Lord Northbrook's opinion 
 was binding on the British Government. The Envoy doubting 
 how far his instructions justified him in committing himself to 
 any definite arrangement, it was considered desirable to postpone 
 the final settlement to a more favourable opportunity, when so 
 important a matter might be discussed with the Amir in person. 
 That the Amir accepted this promise of assistance as a binding 
 engagement on the part of Lord Northbrook, in the same manner 
 as he accepted the letters and assurances of friendship and 
 support from Lord Lawrence and Lord Mayo, is abundantly 
 evident from the constant reference made to these assurances by 
 Syed Noor Mahomed, at his conference with Sir Lewis Pelly.* 
 The Envoy says : — " It is far from the welfare of States if there 
 should be the possibility of objection to the promises made by 
 such religious Governments, and such Ministers and Viceroys." 
 Again : — " Therefore, I earnestly hope, for the welfare of the two 
 Governments, that his Excellency the Viceroy, through your good 
 offices, will with great frankness and sincerity of purpose act in 
 conformity with the course of past Viceroys." And again, with 
 mournful earnestness, he says : — "Your Government is a powerful 
 and a great one, ours is a small and weak one. We have long 
 
 * p. 213.
 
 19 
 
 been on terms of friendship, and the Amir now cKngs to the skirt 
 of the British Government, and, till his hand be cut off, he will 
 not relax his hold of it." But Lord Lytton, with the giant 
 strength of British power at his back, is determined to press his 
 obnoxious conditions, and is deaf to all other considerations. 
 He does not even shrink from dealing with the acts and promises 
 of his predecessors in a manner hitherto unknown in India, thus 
 inflicting a serious blow on the confidence of every iS^ative Prince 
 in the assurances of Her Majesty's Representatives. 
 
 Lord Lawrence, Lord Mayo, and Lord Northbrook had all 
 given solemn promises in writing to the Amir ; but, according to 
 Lord Ljirton, these were "only verbal understandiDgs," as if 
 formal official letters and written engagements were of no account 
 unless embodied in definite treaties. Sir Lewis Pelly tells the 
 Envoy : — "Your Excellency, however, appears to be under an im- 
 pression that obligations and liabilities of this kind, though not 
 contracted under treaty, have been none the less incurred by the 
 British Government, through certain written and verbal assu- 
 rances received by the Amir in 1869 from Lord Mayo, and by 
 His Highnesses Envoy from Lord Noi-thbrook ; this impression 
 is entirely erroneous." It is of importance here to note that, in 
 Lord Salisbury's Despatch of the 28th February, 1876, this verbal 
 understanding of 1869 is spoken of as a " solemn and deliberate 
 declaration approved by Her Majesty's advisers ;" and it is admit- 
 ted that, " to the Amir who had -^received that declaration under 
 circumstances of some solemnity and parade, it appears to have 
 conveyed a pledge of definite action in his favour." In reference, 
 also, to the declaration of Lord Xorthbrook, in 1873, Lord Salis- 
 bury writes : — " The terms of the declaration, however, although 
 sufficient to justi^" reproaches on the part of Sher AH, if, in the 
 contingency to which it referred, he should be left unsupported 
 by the British Government, were unfortunately too ambiguous to 
 secure confidence or inspire gratitude on the part of His Highness." 
 Lord SaHsbury is pleased to characterize Lord Northbrook's decla- 
 ration as " ambiguous," but the Amir himself did not so accept 
 it, as His Highness's Envoy repeatedly affirmed. It was left to
 
 20 
 
 Lord Lyttoii, and to Sir Lewis Pelly under Lord Lytton's instruc- 
 tions, to repudiate the written engagements of previous Viceroys. 
 >Sir John Malcolm's maxim, inculcated upon political officers in 
 the olden time, was more generous and more worthy of the British 
 Government : — " When any article of an engagement is doubtful, 
 I think it should be invariably explained with more leaning to 
 the expectations originally raised in the weaker than to the inte- 
 rests of the stronger Power." It is difficult to conceive anything 
 more calculated to sow doubt and distrust in the minds of the 
 Envoy and of the Amir than this conduct of Lord Lytton. Lord 
 Northbrook has stated that " he endeavoured, to the best of his 
 ability, to carry out the policy of Lord Lawrence and Lord Mayo, 
 not only because he thought it right to carry on a successive 
 policy, but because he entirely believed and concurred in that 
 policy, and the reasons on which that policy was founded." In 
 the conference with Sir Lewis Pelly, the Cabul Envoy affirmed 
 that, from the time Lord Northbrook came to India to the time 
 he left, although there were discussions on the subject, still he 
 left the friendship without change, in conformity with the conduct 
 of his predecessors, and with preceding usage. 
 Sir Henry Norman also writes : — 
 
 '' My opinion was, and is, that up to the time of Lord Nortbbrook's 
 departure the Amir had no feeling of hostility to us, though he was 
 somewhat out of temper and was disquieted by writings which more or 
 less pointed at measures distasteful to him. Any real resentment he may 
 have subsequently shown is entirely due, according to my belief, to 
 measures taken from April 1876 to the present time." 
 
 Lord Lytton succeeded to the Yiceroyalty on the 12th of 
 April, 1876, and agitating rumours began immediately to be cir- 
 culated at home and abroad as to important changes about to be 
 adopted in the policy that had hitherto been pursued on the 
 North-West frontier, and in the management of our relations 
 with the Amir of Cabul. Lord Lytton took to India Lord Salis- 
 bury's despatch of the 28th February, 1876, which prescribed a 
 line of policy entirely opposed to that which had been carried out 
 by previous Viceroys under instructions from successive Adminis- 
 trations at home. That poKcy had been pressed upon Lord North-
 
 21 
 
 brook's Governinent, but weighty reasons had been given in 
 opposition to it, showing the evils to which it would inevitably 
 lead. Lord Salisbury himself, it would appear, had his mis- 
 givings, as he writes that, in case of " the irretrievable ahenation 
 of the Amir, no time must be lost in re- considering, from a 
 new point of view, the policy to be pursued in reference to 
 Afghanistan." 
 
 Lord Lytton, it is understood, kept this important despatch 
 to himself for a considerable period without communicating its 
 contents to his Council. It will be observed that it is addressed 
 simply to the Governor-General of India, and not to the Governor- 
 General in Council. According to law, the Government of India 
 is vested in the Governor-General in Council, and it is not legal, 
 nor has it hitherto been the practice, that the Governor- General 
 ghould be recognized apart from his Council. This is, probably, 
 one of the innovations alluded to by Sir Arthur Hobhouse, when 
 he draws attention to Lord Salisbury's new mode of governing 
 India. It may be further remarked, in reference to this despatch 
 of the 28th February, 1876, which Lord Lytton carried to India, 
 that, as far as can be discovered from the published correspondence, 
 no reply to it was sent home until" the 10th May, 1877. 
 
 During this long interval, when successive steps were being 
 taken to inaugurate a complete change of policy, and when Par- 
 liament and the country were designedly kept in ignorance of the 
 course of action pursued, the Government of India must have been 
 carried on, as regards its foreign relations, in demi-o^cM letters 
 exchanged between Lord Salisbury and the Viceroy. This system 
 of personal government may be in perfect accordance with the 
 peculiar idiosyncrasies of Lord Salisbury and Lord Lytton ; but 
 the evils that are likely to flow from the exercise of unchecked 
 authority by Viceroys and Ministers, and from the absence of due 
 record and publicity, in such an important dependency as India, 
 are patent to all who have studied the history of their country. 
 John Mill writes : — 
 
 " The government of dependencies by a Minister and bis subordi- 
 nates, under the sole control of Parliament, is not a new experiment in
 
 22 
 
 England. That form of Colonial Government lost the United States, and 
 had nearly lost all the Colonies of any considerable population and 
 importance." 
 
 Our proceedings on the frontier began at this time to excite 
 interest in Europe, and various articles in the Continental Press 
 drew attention to our dealings with the Khan of Khelat, and the 
 apparently wider range of our general frontier policy. The fol- 
 lowing extract from Le Temps shows that, in these days of rapid 
 communication and spread of intelligence through '' our own cor- 
 respondents," everything that takes place in India is made 
 subject of comment, and its bearing upon European politics 
 weighed and discussed. Le Temps writes : — 
 
 " Nos lecteurs auront sans doute remarque dans les depeches d'hier 
 une nouvelle que la derni^re lettre de notre correspondant de I'lnde faisait 
 pr^voir. Le gouveriiement Anglo-Indien vient de signer avec le Klian 
 de Relate un traits qui recule les frontieres militaires de I'Inde-Anglaise 
 vers le Nord Ouest, ou en d'autres termes les rapproche de celles du 
 Turkestan russe. La politique Indo-Anglaise rompt par cet acte 
 avec des principes qu'elle professait depuis un assez grand nombre 
 d'aan^es. Elle s'etait preoccupee k j)]usieurs reprises dans ces derniers 
 temps de divers projets du genre de celui qui vient d'etre adopte, et mis 
 k execution, mais une idee prevalait dans ses conseils, C'^tait que la 
 domination Britannique ne devait pas etre poussee au dela des limites 
 atteintes. La politique opposee qui prend aujourd'hui le de^sus, politique 
 d'initiative, " spirited policy " disent les Anglais, n'aurait ni but, ni raison 
 d'etre, s'il ne fallait y voir le temoignage d'une mefiance en eveil et le 
 programme meme de precautions que 1' Angleterre juge iudispensables 
 pour dejouer d'avance les plans supposes de la Russie, sa voisine dans 
 TAsie Centrale L'envoi d'un Resident Anglais a Caboul pour sur- 
 veiller TEmir accuse d'intriguer avec les Russes parait decide. Ces 
 mesures qui sont interpr^tees k Moscow et a Saint Petersburg dans un 
 sens defavorable n'ont pas {'approbation de tout le monde en Angleterre. 
 On fait valoir notarnment centre Toccupation armee de nouveaux 
 territoires, outre les considerations d'econoinie des raisons politiques et 
 militaires dont la moins specieuse n'est pas que le meilleur moyen de 
 rendre service de son ennemi, c'est d'aller a son rencontre, parceque cela 
 lui epargne la moitie du chemin." 
 
 Had Lord Northbrook remained at the head of affairs in 
 India, his measures would have been understood to have been 
 directed solely to the settlement of the Khelat disputes, to the 
 protection of the commercial traffic through the Bolan Pass, and 
 to the pacification of the Belooch tribes in that vicinity. They
 
 23 
 
 would neither have given rise to any distrust or apprehension on 
 the part of the Amir of Cabul, nor would they have afforded any 
 grounds for the belief, that we were taking the first step to throw 
 down the gauntlet to Russia, and were preparing for a further 
 advance, with a view to the rectification of our North-Western 
 frontier. But Lord Lytton made no secret of his ultimate in- 
 tentions, nor of the Imperial scope of the poHcy which he had 
 come out to India to inaugurate. Afghanistan must be brought 
 within British influence ; to this end British officers must be 
 stationed in Afghan cities, and to use his own words, "having 
 regard to probable contingencies in Central Asia," frontier affairs 
 must henceforth be regulated with a view to more important 
 objects than the temporary prevention of plunder on the British 
 border." 
 
 Here we have a distinct change of policy enunciated, and the 
 object declared without reserve, that object being the rectifying 
 of the British frontier, to counteract the advance of Russia in 
 Central Asia. This departure from a line of policy which the 
 British Government had pursued for so many years was con- 
 trary to the spirit, if not to the letter, of our understanding with 
 the Russian Government, and as the writer in Le Temps says, 
 could have no possible aim or reason except as a countermove 
 and measure of precaution against the supposed designs of Rus- 
 sia. The Russian Government had several times assured England 
 that "Afghanistan was outside the sphere of Russian action." We 
 learn from Sir John Strachey's minute, and Lord Northbrook has 
 confirmed the statement, that Russia had shown on many occa- 
 sions that it had " no desire to depart from its engagements in 
 that matter." Of course this compact could exist only on the 
 supposition that England and Russia continued on terms of amity, 
 and that England herself preserved her neutral attitude. 
 
 When the discussions in Europe assumed a threatening aspect, 
 and native troops were brought from India, and when all sorts of 
 rumours were afloat in reference to the hostile intentions of Eng- 
 land, Russia naturally felt absolved from her tacit understanding. 
 We must look at these matters from a Russian as well as from
 
 24 
 
 an Englisli point of view. Russia is as jealous and suspicious of 
 
 us as we are of her, and is as much entitled to take precautions 
 
 with regard to her possessions in Central Asia as we are with 
 
 regard to India. The warlike preparations of Lord Lytton on 
 
 the banks of the Indus, which alarmed the Amir of Cabul, were 
 
 currently reported to be preparatory to a movement, through 
 
 Afghanistan, upon the dominions of Eussia in the countries 
 
 beyond the Oxujs. What did General Skobeleff say to Colonel 
 
 Brackenbury ? — 
 
 " I cannot make out what has become of that column of ten thou- 
 sand men, organized by your people to raise Central Asia against us." 
 
 As in Russia, so in England there is a class of people, gifted 
 with facile pens and fertile imaginations, who are constantly 
 employed in sounding the alarm, and prognosticating evil results 
 from the advance and progress of what they are pleased to term 
 rival nations. France, America, Russia, at different intervals, have 
 come under this category. These men, while loud in their profes- 
 sions of patriotism, by fostering a spirit of antagonism, and pander- 
 ing to national prejudices, are the worst enemies of their country, 
 the real substantial interests of which depend mainly on the 
 continuance of peace, and on the cultivation of friendly relations 
 with all the world. Every thoughtful Englishman must lament 
 the bitter state of feelino^ against Russia which pervades England 
 at the present moment, and all who estimate aright the dreadful 
 calamities a conflict would entail on both countries must desire to 
 remove any causes of misunderstanding which would tend to 
 precipitate such a catastrophe. There may not be any danger of 
 immediate collision, but the worst feature of our present policy in 
 Europe and in Asia is that it enlarges the area of prospective 
 antagonism, and is pregnant with future mischief. 
 
 The real questions are, were the proceedings of Russia in 
 Central Asia, including the dispatch of General Stolietoff's 
 Mission to Cabul, such as to give England just cause of serious 
 complaint ? Have the explanations afforded by Russia been of 
 a character to satisfy the British Government ? We have the 
 statement of the Prime Minister that, looking to the strained
 
 25 
 
 relations that existed between England and Russia at a certain not 
 very distant period, the expedition which Russia was preparing 
 in Central Asia at that time, with which the Mission to Cabul was 
 connected, was perfectly allowable. Lord Salisbury also is quite 
 contented to accept the explanations of M. de Giers, and takes 
 for granted that " all the former assurances of the Russian Govern- 
 ment in regard to Afghanistan have now recovered their validity." 
 Russia is therefore entirely absolved, and Lord Beaconsfield 
 declares her conduct to have been "very satisfactory;" but 
 he adds: — 
 
 " After all that had occurred it was totally impossible for us to leave 
 things as they were ; you could not go on after you had found Kussian 
 armies almost in sight of Cabul, and an Embassy within its walls ; you 
 could not go on on the old system. It was absolutely necessary to con- 
 sider what course should be taken." 
 
 Tt is to employ somewhat figurative language, to speak " of 
 Russian armies almost in sight of Cabul," but it was necessary to 
 make out a case of British interests iu jeopardy. It was politic 
 to accept the explanations of Russia, but a danger had been 
 disclosed against which it was imperative to provide. ^Yhether 
 that danger was real or unreal, or whether, if real, it was best 
 met by the course adopted, are the points at issue. In pursuance, 
 however, of his object, the obligations of justice, of reciprocal 
 treaties, and of the rights of an independent nation to preserve its 
 freedom, which it had enjoyed for hundreds of years, were 
 apparently of small moment to Lord Beaconsfield. In a similar 
 spirit Prince Bismarck, on the occasion of the annexation of 
 Hanover, declared ''that to attend to like considerations would 
 be to substitute the superficial for the essential, and that his 
 objects must be carried through ly blood and iron. Upon those 
 who venture to rem nstrate against such imperial doctrines. Lord 
 Beaconsfield strives to .\ffix the stigma " of peace at any price 
 advocacy," and backed by his present large majorities in both 
 Houses of Parliament, he is enabled to snatch a temporary 
 triumph ; but it remains to be seen whether, when the whole case 
 is before the country, this verdict will be confirmed.
 
 26 
 
 Mr. Burt, the honest and able representative of the working 
 classes in the House of Commons, stated : — 
 
 " He had many opportunities of ascertaining the feelings of the 
 working classes, and he did not know a single man who believed that we 
 wei e right in this war. He had not met with any working man who did 
 not believe that we were engaged in an unjust and cowardly war."" 
 
 The instincts of the working men of England, in favour of 
 justice and fair play, are as strong and as true as of many of those 
 who, by the accidents of outward position, exercise a more 
 authoritative voice in determining the policy of the country. Lord 
 Canning, when he set his face like a flint against the ravenous 
 cry for blood, and earned, to his immortal honour, what was then 
 considered by the unthinking many, the opprobrious epithet of 
 " Clemency Canning," lived to witness the revulsion in his favour ; 
 and the illustrious names of Gladstone and of Lawrence, in com- 
 mon with hundreds of England's most distinguished citizens, can 
 afford to fling back with scorn the " peace at any price " stigma 
 sought to be cast upon them by Lord Beaconsfield. It may be 
 stated, once for all, that those who are the foremost in condemning 
 the injustice and impolicy of the present Afghan war, would be 
 the first, in the event of unprovoked aggression by Russia, or by 
 any other Power, to advocate the putting forth the whole strength 
 and resources of England to avert any real danger from our Indian 
 Empire. 
 
 The conduct of Russia having been so " very satisfactory," 
 according to Lord Beaconsfield, where was the necessity of driving 
 Sher Ali into a corner, so that he could not but stand at bay, or lose 
 his influence with the ignorant and fanatical tribes over whom he 
 exercised a precarious sway ? Was the danger to India so pressing 
 and imminent that we were obliged to act "with breathless haste?" 
 to use Sher All's expression. We learn from Lord Northbrook 
 that when he left India, " though Sher Ali would have disliked any 
 interference on the part of England, he would have disliked any 
 shown on the part of Russia to a far greater extent." Sir Henry 
 Norman confirms this statement. What induced Sher All's change 
 of feeling ? It was owing to the various measures adopted by Lord
 
 27 
 
 Ljrtton, which, step by step, were inevitably leading up to the 
 present calamitous war. This was foreseen by the most expe- 
 rienced members of Lord Lytton's Council, while those best 
 conversant with Indian affairs at home watched the progress of 
 events with undisguised alarm. Under this aspect the subject 
 was brought before both Houses of Parliament, in order to eUcit 
 explanations from the Ministers who are primarily responsible for 
 our Indian policy. Before the attempt is made to trace the suc- 
 cessive measures adopted by Lord Lytton, which have culminated 
 in the present disastrous results, it will be important to point out 
 the nature of the Ministerial explanations which have proved so 
 much at variance with the real facts of the case. It will be 
 advisable also to state clearly the distinctive features of the past 
 and present poHcy in reference to the North- Western frontier of 
 India. 
 
 On the 9th of August, 1877, in answer to Mr. Grant Duff, 
 Sir Stafford Northcote spoke thus : — 
 
 " My honourable friend, the member for the Elgin Burghs, with the 
 knowledge he has, and the clearness with which he alwaj's speaks on 
 these subjects, speaks of two schools in respect to this frontier question, 
 the one which is called the forward policy, and the opposite school which 
 is rather for looking back, and not committing ourselves to advancing 
 beyond our frontiers. \Yell, I have, as my honourable friend reminded u?, 
 always leant to the policy of the second of those schools. I have always 
 demurred to the idea, which has been put forward by some, that the best 
 way to meet danger is to advance beyond our own frontier ; and I have 
 always maintained that the true lines we ought to lay down for ourselves 
 are those to strengthen ourselves within our own frontiers, and to do so 
 by a combination of measures moral and material." 
 
 Then, after giving a rapid sketch of the measures that com- 
 mended themselves to his judgment, Sir Stafford added : — 
 
 " In all these views, which I have been always led to hold, as to the 
 best mode of protecting India from direct attack, I believe there is no 
 change whatever in the policy of Her Majesty's Government." 
 
 Lord Salisbury spoke to the same effect, in answer to the 
 
 Duke of Argyll, in the House of Lords. Sir Stafford Northcote, 
 
 having himself filled the office of Secretary of State for India, 
 
 must hav3 been well aware that, for years past, there have been 
 
 two antagonistic schools of opinion, with reference to the policy to
 
 28 
 
 be pursued on our North- Western frontier. He must bave had 
 before him the recorded views of all the eminent servants of the 
 Government on both sides of this much vexed question. He must 
 have studied and weighed theee views, and having come to 
 deliberate conclusions, he must have brought them before the 
 Cabinet of which he was a member, and then, as the organ of 
 that Cabinet in regard to the affairs of India, he must have 
 embodied the decision of himself and his colleagues in the various 
 despatches transmitted to the Viceroy. Sir Stafford Northcote, 
 therefore, speaks with authority upon a question with which he is 
 familiar, on which he has had the best opportunity of forming a 
 correct judgment, and in the right decision of which the most 
 important results to India and to England are involved. There 
 is no doubt also that the views he expresses have been held and 
 acted upon by successive Administrations, through a long series of 
 years, and have been recommended and enforced by all the 
 eminent Viceroys from Lord Dalhousie to Lord Northbrook. 
 What then is the policy which has received the sanction of so 
 many distinguished Statesmen, both at home and in India, which 
 has been acquiesced in with satisfaction by the British nation 
 generally, and from which Lord Lytton has been the first to 
 depart, in obedience to instructions from the Ministry who 
 appointed him to the Viceroyalty ? It is not, as one of its 
 opponents states, in an elaborate article, written in defence of 
 Lord Lytton, in Blackwood's Magazine, of August 1877, " absolute 
 inaction withm, and indifference without, the border." It is not, 
 as a distinguished ofB.cer, Sir Henry Havelock, wrote in a letter 
 to the Daily News, " to do nothing, sit still, fold your arms, let 
 matters gHde, and let us hope that it wiU all come right in the 
 end." It is not a timid, hesitating, half-hearted policy, blind to 
 the march of events, ignoring possible dangers, wrapped in a 
 fool's paradise, without prevision of the future, or apprehension 
 of any change of circumstances which might necessitate modifi- 
 cations, or even an entirely new course of action. Its main 
 features are dehneated in the following pregnant paragraphs of 
 Lord Ellenborough's proclamation of 1st October, 1842 : —
 
 29 
 
 " Content with the limits nature appears to have assigned to its Em- 
 pire, the Government of India will devote all its efforts to the establish- 
 ment and maintenance of general peace; to the protection of the 
 Sovereigns and Chiefs, its allies ; and to the prosperity and happiness of 
 its own faithful subjects. The rivers of the Punjab and Indus, and the 
 mountainous passes and barbarous tribes of Afghanistan, will be placed 
 between the British array and an enemy approaching from the west, if, 
 indeed, such enemy there can be. and no longer between the army and 
 its supplies. The enormous expenditure required for the support of a 
 large force in a false military position, at a distance from its own 
 frontier, and its resources, will no longer arrest every measure for the 
 improvement of the country and of the people. The combined army of 
 England and of India, superior in equipment, in discipline, in valour, and 
 in the officers by whom it is commanded, to any force which can be 
 opposed to it in Asia, will stand in unassailable strength upon its own 
 soil, and for ever, under the blessing of Providence, preserve the glorious 
 Empire it has won in security and honour." 
 
 These paragraphs sketch in hroad outhne the frontier policy- 
 adopted at that date, and persevered in until Lord Lytton's 
 accession to the Viceroyalty. No doubt, in the thirty-six years 
 that have elapsed since that period, vast changes have taken 
 place. England and Eussia have advanced to meet each other 
 across the continent of Asia with giant strides. As Sir Eobert 
 Peel stated in the debate of June 23rd, 1842, " between civilized 
 nations and nations very much their inferior there is a great 
 tendency in the former to extend their empire in order to give 
 security to what they possess." England on her part has added 
 to her dominions the country of the Amirs of Sinde, a conquest 
 designated by Sir Henry Pottinger as " the most unprincipled 
 and disgraceful that ever stained the annals of our Empire in 
 India." Sir James Outram also spoke of it " as most tyrannical, 
 positive robbery." Colonel Meadows Taylor writes: — "I do not 
 believe that Lord Ellenborough ever desired the conquest or 
 annexation of Sinde ; but he was in the hands of a man who, led 
 on by personal unscrupulous ambition and daring, formed, as it 
 appears to me, from the beginning, the resolution of displacing 
 the Amirs, and regarding its strategic importance of converting 
 Sinde into a British province." In the Contemporary Review of 
 November 1876, Mr. Gladstone states : — " The organization of the 
 Empire (Russian), efficient for many purposes, does not appear
 
 30 
 
 to secure effective control from the head over the more distant 
 members. At different periods our own Central Government 
 has had occasion to feel the insufficiency of its restraining force. 
 A notable example occurred in 1843, when Sinde was conquered 
 by Napier, under the auspices of Lord Ellenborough. That 
 conquest was disapproved, I believe, unanimously by the Cabinet 
 of Sir Robert Peel, of which I can speak, as I had just entered 
 it at that time. But the Ministry were powerless, inasmuch as 
 the mischief of retaining was less than the mischief of abandoning 
 it, and it remains an accomplished fact." This weakness of the 
 extremities is, as Burke writes, "the eternal law of extension 
 and detached empire." It is scarcely needful to point the moral 
 of this incident to the case of Khiva. Russia has her Kauf- 
 manns, as we have our Napiers. 
 
 In 1848 we conquered the Punjab, the land of the five 
 rivers, with its area of 95,768 square miles, and its population 
 of 17,500,000 souls. In 1856 the fertile and flourishing king- 
 dom of Oude was brought under British sway. In striking 
 contrast to these rich acquisitions of territory it is curious to 
 read Mr. Schuyler's account of the Russian possessions in 
 Central Asia. He writes : — 
 
 " Central Asia has no stores of wealth, and no economical resources; 
 neither by its agricultural, nor by its mineral wealth, nor by its com- 
 merce, nor by the revenue to be derived from it, can it ever repay the 
 Russians for what it has already cost, and for the rapidly-increasing ex- 
 penditure bestowed upon it." Again — '' Of the whole of Russian Central 
 Asia (excluding the late annexed Kyzilkum desert), only ly^^ per cent, 
 is cultivable, which speaks plainly as to the value of the recently- 
 acquired possessions." Again — " Owing to the actual insufficiency of 
 the local production, most of the grain for army use has to be brought 
 from Vierny, Kopal, and Southern Siberia." 
 
 A well-informed writer, in the Quarterly Bevieiv, of January 
 1879, states : — 
 
 *' Russian Turkestan, notwithstanding its great extent, is not in any 
 point of view, in productiveness, in trade, in population, or in military 
 power, to be compared with one single province of the Punjab." 
 
 In addition to the Punjab and Oude, year after year witnessed 
 the annexations of Sattarah, Jhansi, Nagpore, Pegu, and other 
 small Native States. Lord Dalhousie thus announced his policy : —
 
 31 
 
 *' It is my strong and deliberate opinion that, in the exercise of a 
 wise and sound policy, the British Government is bound not to 
 neglect or put aside such rightful opportunities of acquiring 
 territory or revenue as may, from time to time, present them- 
 selves." Although there is no case so flagrant as that of the 
 unfortunate Amirs of Sinde, yet, weighed in the scales of 
 justice, some of the annexations under the rule of Lord Dalhousie 
 will scarcely be deemed by impartial judges to merit the designa- 
 tion of " rightful." It behoves an Englishman, therefore, "to cast 
 out the beam out of his own eye, and then he will see more 
 clearly to cast out the mote out of his brother's eye." While 
 England was gradually absorbing native kingdoms and princi- 
 palities in the Indian peninsula, and pushing forward her 
 territories to the great mountain border line beyond the Indus, 
 Russia was overrunning large tracts of country in Central Asia, 
 and subduing Mohammedan States, where tyranny and misrule 
 prevailed to an extent, equalled perhaps, but never surpassed, in 
 the history of the world. 
 
 What British heart does not throb with indignation at the 
 recollection of the sufi'erings of Stoddart and Conolly in the 
 dungeons of the fiendish Nasiroollah Khan, Amir of Bokhara, 
 who reigned from 1826 to 1860 ? The common saying 
 was, "In Bokhara nobody knows what is to be done, to-day 
 you are alive, to-morrow they behead you." One of 
 Nasiroollah's last acts was to order the execution of his 
 wife. "The executioner tied her hands, and shot her with a 
 pistol in the back of her head.* He did not kill her at once ; she 
 fell, and struggled for some time. The executioner kicke 1 her 
 twelve times on her breast and back tiU she died." Yambery 
 states " that she was executed close to the dying Amir, and 
 the abominable tyrant breathed his last with his glazing eye 
 fixed upon the gushing blood of the sister of his detested enemy." 
 What a picture Mr. Schuyler gives of another Ruler, Khadayar 
 Khan, of Khokand : — " Under him, neither virtue nor life was 
 safe." "By the wholesale butchery of 20,000 Kiptchaks he 
 excited the hatred of his subjects." 
 
 * Schuyler, Vol. I. p. 97.
 
 32 
 
 As a contrast to these Eulers, Sir Bartle Frere writes thus of 
 the Kajah of Sattarah : — '' The late Rajah having been a liberal 
 and humane, a just and popular, Ruler, any supposed want of 
 equity in the appropriation of his dominions will lack the 
 popularity which a similar measure, whatever its grourds, 
 would always find amongst the industrious and peaceful inhabit- 
 ants of a State delivered from anarchy and oppression." In 
 spite of the remonstrances of Sir Bartle Frere, and of other 
 eminent men, Sattarah, a model of good native administration, 
 fell a victim to the dominant passion of annexation, which 
 then prevailed in Indian councils. 
 
 Not to enlarge more on this branch of the subject, sufficient 
 to say that, exemplifying the truth of Sir Robert Peel's statement 
 thirty-six years ago, instead of the two Empires of England 
 and Russia being divided by half the continent of Asia, 
 there is now intervening between their political frontiers a 
 mere narrow strip of territory a few hundred miles across. 
 By the force of circumstances, as some would say, but rather 
 under the control of a Higher Power, who mysteriously works 
 out His own purposes known from the beginning, through the 
 instrumentahty of war, and who regulates all things to subserve 
 one great end, step by step two mighty Christian nations seem to 
 be closing in upon the Mohammedan kingdoms of the world, and 
 bringing them under Christian domination. 
 
 There is no foundation for the oft-reiterated assertion that the 
 various Indian Governments which preceded Lord Lytton were 
 blind to the results that might flow from the gradual advance of 
 the Russians in Central Asia. In his despatches of the 3rd of 
 September, 1867, and of the 4th of January, 1869, Lord 
 Lawrence draws the attention of the Home Government to this 
 question, and suggests the course to be pursued. But the 
 proceedings of Russia were not viewed through an exagge- 
 rated medium; they were not regarded with a petty selfish 
 reference to British interests alone, but under the broader aspect 
 of the benefits that would accrue to mankind generally by the 
 substitution of a great Christian and improving Government in 
 lieu of the oppression and barbarity of Mohammedan tyrants.
 
 33 
 
 In the same spirit, Sir Herbert Edwardes wrote twenty years ago, 
 " Can anyone say that to substitute Russian rule for the anarchy 
 and manstealing of Khiva, the dark tyranny of Bokhara, and the 
 nomad barbarism of Khokand would be anything but a gain to 
 mankind ? " 
 
 England has preceded Russia in her mission of introducing 
 civilization and Christianity into Asia, and, in spite of many 
 drawbacks and shortcomings, her rule has been a beneficent one, 
 and she has given order, and security for hfe and property, and 
 respect for law, where formerly anarchy and misrule for the most 
 part prevailed. Our conquests have been generally the result of 
 unforeseen circumstances, and frequently carried out against the 
 express orders of the Home authorities. There was no settled 
 policy of territorial aggrandizement. In the pursuit of commercial 
 advantages the East India Company from an insignificant factory 
 built up a magnificent Empire, and bequeathed it as a legacy to 
 the Crown. Wherein lies the great difference between the conduct 
 of Russia and that of our own country ? Even admitting that 
 the impelling force is stronger in Russia, including as it does the 
 religious element, and that the restraining force is less powerful 
 and persistent, from the absence of free discussion, and indepen- 
 dence of thought and action, still, without having recourse to the 
 apocryphal Will of Peter the Great, every thoughtful reader of his- 
 tory wiU recognize the same causes which underlie the advance both 
 of England and Russia, and in like manner forbid retrogression. 
 
 Is it then for England with her Colonies and possessions, 
 and vantage strongholds snatched from other nations in all quarters 
 of the globe, to arrogate the right to say to another great nation, 
 " Thus far thou shalt go, and no further" ? Would England her- 
 self submit to such dictation ? Why should England look at these 
 questions only in the light of a jealous rival of Russia, watching 
 each movement with jaundiced eye, putting the most unfavour- 
 able construction on every act, and thus creating a state of angry 
 feeling which must inevitably, sooner or later, lead to colHsion, 
 and thereby entail immeasurable evil on both countries? 
 
 In a despatch of Lord Mayo, dated June 3rd, 1870, he
 
 34 
 
 recognizes the fact of England and Russia having "a com- 
 mon mission in Asia, namely, the establishment of good 
 government and the civilization of the mighty nations com- 
 mitted to their care," and recommends a course of action which 
 Sir Henry RawHnson pronounces to he " thoroughly unselfish," 
 but " hardly practical." Would to heaven that British policy 
 with regard to this question could at all times have merited the 
 epithet of ''thoroughly unselfish." There is little doubt that 
 eminently practical results would have followed. But then the 
 unselfishness must have been real, without spot or blemish, patent 
 to the world. There must have been no secret conventions, no 
 sharp practice, no attempt to over-reach other nations. Lord 
 Carnarvon told us recently that the old jealousies and sources of 
 irritation between England and America had died away; and 
 how has this been brought about ? " By the right intention of 
 each Government, and by the exercise of tact, judgment, good 
 feeling and sense, on the part of their representatives." 
 
 Alas ! such is not the position of England and Russia. To 
 the hindrance of progress, to the misfortune of mankind, to the 
 opprobrium of our common Christianity, these two mighty nations, 
 with no conflicting interests, no conceivable reason why they should 
 interfere with each other, have drifted into an antagonistic attitude 
 fraught with the direst evils to themselves and to the world. 
 
 Let it be admitted that there are classes in all countries 
 which, from ignorance, inertness, or interested motives, are blind 
 to the tremendous consequences and calamities of war. Still, the 
 government of the world is not carried on by these classes. 
 Rulers and Statesmen, it may be charitably supposed, are actuated 
 by higher impulses, and have a deeper sense of their responsi- 
 bilities. Attila, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, and Napoleon have 
 passed away, and have left the brand of infamy attached 
 to their names in the world's annals. Can it be believed 
 that Russian Rulers and Russian Statesmen, in defiance of 
 all laws human and divine, are bent on a settled and 
 deliberate course of territorial aggrandizement? Is it credible 
 that the Czar, with whom the chief power rests in such
 
 35 
 
 matters, like the Oriental Despot held up to execration in the 
 burning words of Burke, "resolves, in the gloomy recesses of 
 a mind capable of such things, to compound all the materials of 
 fury, havock, and desolation into one black cloud, to pour down 
 the whole of its contents" on the peaceful and fertile plains of 
 India ? 
 
 Russia has ample work before her for a long time to come, 
 to apply a healing salve to the bleeding pores of her wide-spread 
 territory, to allay internal disorder, to restore her impoverished 
 finances, and to consolidate her conquests in Central Asia. But, of 
 course, if England adopt towards her an irritating pohcy in 
 Europe and in Asia ; if so many English pens, dipped in gall, 
 constantly hold her up to scorn and indignation, and sow hatred 
 broadcast between the two nations, but one result can follow. 
 Years ago, Montalembert wrote : — " L'insupportable arrogance 
 de la diplomatic Anglaise en vers les faibles, et de la presse Anglaise 
 envers tout le monde, a souleve la juste indignation d'une foule 
 d'honnetes gens." There are noble exceptions in the EngKsh 
 press, but their voice is drowned in the general chorus of exciting 
 language and indiscriminating abuse. 
 
 Granting, however, the fact, that Russia means mischief, 
 what course ought England to pursue? We should not, I 
 presume, "idly and stupidly gazing on the menacing meteor," 
 fold our arms, sit still, and let matters glide. We should 
 prepare to meet the danger. We should, in fact, have 
 been in a state of preparation long before the crisis. There 
 is not the smallest probability of Russia being able to steal a 
 march upon us, so as to take us unawares. The measures of 
 defence to be adopted would depend on the nature of the attack ; 
 the whole strength of the British Empire would be put forth to 
 maintain the security of our Indian dominions. There is no 
 difference of opinion on this vital point between the advocates of 
 a forward policy and the supporters of the opposite school. The 
 only question is as to the means by which this end is to be 
 sought. 
 
 Until lately the Governments at home and in India have held
 
 36 
 
 the opinion of Sir Robert Peel, when he stated : — " Whatever may 
 be the conduct of Russia, I believe that the Governments of 
 England and of India are sufficiently powerful to protect them- 
 selves. I do not think that we are, as a nation, dependent on the 
 co-operation or good faith of Russia or of any other Power." These 
 few words contain the germ of a great truth, which it would be 
 well if England's Ministers of the present day, and England's 
 citizens, would take to heart. We need no entangling alliances 
 with unknown future responsibilities as a bulwark to India or to 
 any other portion of British territory. England relies upon her- 
 self; in quietness and confidence is her strength. She seeks not 
 to give offence, and is not easily provoked ; but, while apparently 
 passive, she silently concentrates her power, and is not the less 
 ready in a just cause, if, unhappily, such cause should arise, to 
 defend her rights, and to preserve unsullied the rich inheritance 
 of fame and dominion transmitted to her from her forefathers. In 
 the case of undoubtedly aggressive measures on the part of Russia 
 in regard to India, England would not hesitate to accept the chal- 
 lenge ; but the main brunt of the shock of conflict would not be 
 on the banks of the Indus, but in Europe ; and God forbid that 
 the necessity should arise for such a gigantic trial of strength 
 between the two nations. To avert this calamity, the greatest 
 wisdom, prudence, and forbearance on the part of the States- 
 men and representatives of Russia and England are imperatively 
 required ; and herein Kes the essential distinction between the 
 advocates of what Sir Stafi'ord North cote designates ^' the forward 
 policy " and the policy pursued up to Lord Lytton's Viceroy alty 
 by the British Government. 
 
 It is now time to ask. What is this forward policy? How 
 did it originate ? by whom has it been chiefly advocated ? Let 
 us endeavour to trace its rise, progress, and development in 
 the recorded opinions of its chief supporters. Foremost 
 in the controversy we have two distinguished servants of 
 the Indian Government, Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir Bartle 
 Frere ; Major-General Jacob, however, preceded them in the 
 field, a born soldier, with true military instincts, but not
 
 37 
 
 on that account best fitted to determine a great political question. 
 His suggestions towards the permanent defence of the North- West 
 frontier were submitted for the consideration of Government five 
 and twenty years ago. " The Queen of England formally to 
 assume the style and title of Empress of India " was one of his 
 recommendations, and his policy may well be called an Imperial 
 policy, requiring Imperial resources. He states that "England 
 committed an egregious error in not driving every Russian back 
 to the Caucasian range," a task more easily spoken of than 
 accomplished. He was a strong advocate for the advance to 
 Quettah ; and having occupied that post, and located a large force 
 there, he would under certain circumstances, have subsidized all 
 Afghanistan with money and arms. In a previous minute he 
 had stated that ''the Afghans were utterly faithless and untrust- 
 worthy, that he never even admitted one of their nation into the 
 ranks of the force he commanded." Further, " looking onward 
 to a great European war, he would garrison Herat with 
 20,000 men, which would not necessarily, he stated, cause any 
 increase to our Indian army, or at least to its cost." It may be 
 here observed that it is a favourite argument with the advocates 
 of a forward policy, that our military expenses would not be 
 increased, as the garrisons and troops stationed in Sinde and the 
 Punjab might be diminished, and an improved frontier line 
 obtained with little additional outlay. The same argument was 
 put before the Russian Government. Mr. Schuyler teUs us : — "It 
 was said that the diminished expenses of Orenburg and Western 
 Siberia would furnish sufficient funds for the Government of 
 Central Asia, but it was found that the expenses of Orenburg 
 and Western Siberia had rather increased than diminished." 
 After specifying other details. General Jacob concludes : — " Unless 
 these and other subsidiary arrangements are speedily applied, 
 and manfully carried out, our Indian Empire will be lost within 
 the next generation of men." In reference to General Jacob's 
 recommendations, Sir Herbert Edwardes, to say the least, an 
 equally eminent authority, wrote at the time : — "So vast a pile of 
 impracticable schemes seems more like some dream of conquest
 
 38 
 
 than a sober system of Imperial defence. The meaning of 
 distances, the necessity of support, the physical difficulties of 
 countries, the moral difficulties of races, past experience of 
 them all, the future outlay involved, and present financial 
 position of India, seem alike defied or ignored in such astounding 
 speculations." 
 
 Sir Henry Rawlinson, a disciple of Sir John McNeill, 
 is the most powerful and persistent advocate of the forward 
 policy. His views are stated at length in his book, '' England 
 and Eussia in the East," which he published as a sort of 
 manual for students of the Eastern question. It is indeed a mine 
 of information on all questions connected with Central Asia and 
 the North-West frontier of India. But it is written entirely from 
 the standpoint of a thorough, and doubtless sincere, conviction of 
 Russian intrigue, perfidy, and settled purpose of territorial 
 aggrandizement, undertaken with the ultimate object of hostile 
 designs upon our Indian dominions. Sir Henry writes : — " I take 
 some credit to myself that at so early a period as 1865 I forecasted 
 the development of Russian power very much as it has since 
 occurred, and I then suggested the policy to which I now recur, 
 of proceeding on the approach of real danger to man the outposts 
 of our Indian Empire at Herat and Candahar, in order to prevent 
 their falling into the hands of the enemy." " Real danger." A 
 great deal depends upon the interpretation put upon these words. 
 Lord Sandhurst, a man eminently qualified for the task as a 
 soldier and statesman, with large Indian and European experience, 
 controverted Sir Henry Rawlinson's views in an article which 
 appeared in the Edinhurgh Review of July 1875. He had 
 previously, as Commander-in-Chief in India, recorded his dissent 
 from Sir Henry Rawlinson's memorandum on the Central Asian 
 question, dated 20th July, 1868, which had been forwarded to 
 India by order of the Secretary of State. All the other members 
 of the Indian Government, which it may be remarked was at that 
 time exceptionally strong in ability and in Indian experience, 
 expressed, at great length, their deliberate judgment upon this 
 memorandum. The opinions also of officers holding high employ-
 
 39 
 
 ment on tlie ^S'orth-'West frontier were collected and sent home 
 with the minutes of the Government to the Duke of Arg}^ll as 
 accompaniments to the Government despatch of the 4th January, 
 1869, of which it will be sufficient to quote the two following 
 paragraphs : — 
 
 " The various proposals brought forward in that memorandum, in 
 order to counteract in some measure the advances of Russia in Central 
 Asia, and to strengthen the influence and power of England in 
 Afghanistan and Persia, have received from us that careful consi'ieration 
 which is due to the well-known career and abilities of the writer, and to 
 the magnitude of the events and interests of which he has treated. A 
 careful perusal of the memorandum forwarded to us, and a further dis- 
 cussion of the subject in all its bearing, has not led us to recommend any 
 substantial alteration in the course of policy to be adapted on the frontier 
 or beyond it. On the contrary, the closer and more constant the atten- 
 tion which the subject receives at our hands, the more settled is our con- 
 viction that any serious departure from the principles which we have 
 already enunciated would be the cause of grave political and financial 
 embarrassments, and would probably involve us in doubtful under- 
 takings, the issue and duration of which no Statesman would venture to 
 predict." 
 
 To one who has been associated with Sir Henry Rawlinson in 
 pubHc life, and who has always entertained a high opinion of his 
 ability, industry, and rare knowledge on all topics connected with 
 the East, but has still felt it his duty to oppose his views, it is 
 matter of surprise, and it may be added sorrow, to find that, in 
 spite of the overwhelming weight of authority whicb so long 
 resisted his forward policy, as unsound and dangerous, that policy 
 has at length obtained the ascendency in the Councils of the 
 British Empire. It is to be hoped that Sir Henry and the abler 
 advocates of his side of the question will be moderate in their 
 triumph, and give no countenance to the schemes of annexation, 
 and large extension of frontier, which find support in many 
 quarters, and which it is understood Lord Lytton favours. Sir 
 Henry Rawlinson has himself denounced "the iniquity of 
 extinguishing independent States for the mere purpose of obtaining 
 a convenient line of territorial demarcation." On every question 
 connected with Persia, Sir Henry Eawlinson speaks with bigh 
 authority ; but his suggestion, that it would be better for England 
 to meet Russia (coming as an invader of India) in Persia rather
 
 40 
 
 than upon our Indian frontier, Lord Sandhurst pronounces to be 
 "one of the wildest which ever crossed the imagination of a 
 military diplomatist labouring under a fixed idea." 
 
 Sir Henry Rawlinson would also make the Russian advance 
 to Merv a casus belli. He writes : — " So long as she held aloof 
 from Merv we should hold aloof from Herat; but if she deliberately 
 threw down the gauntlet, she must expect it to be taken up." 
 He attaches paramount importance to Herat, as the key to India, 
 and considers that an expeditionary column detached from India 
 to hold it need not exceed a strength of 10,000 men, 5,000 only 
 being allotted to the garrison of Herat, the remainder for the 
 occupation of Gerishk, Furrah, Candahar, Quettah, and Pisheen. 
 
 Lord Sandhurst considered this force too small to occupy so 
 many forts, and protect such a long line of operations. In order 
 to subdue a single tribe of Afghans, General Wilde, an ex- 
 perienced frontier officer, demanded 20,000 men. In the Umbeyla 
 expedition in 1863, we lost 36 British officers, and 871 British 
 and native soldiers killed and wounded. It should be recollected 
 that convoys, with supplies and munitions of war for the troops, 
 must constantly be passing to and fro, exposed to attacks from 
 hostile tribes, and that, at such a distance from our base, provision 
 must be made for unwonted sickness, which very often in these 
 countries greatly reduces the strength of regiments. Lord 
 Sandhurst estimated the force required at 31,000, instead of 
 10,000 troops, and the number deemed necessary for our present 
 advance into Afghanistan exceeds even this larger estimate. 
 
 Sir Henry Eawlinson, however, professed to believe that we 
 should be able to carry out the policy he recommended in concert 
 with the Afghans and with the Amir ; but he was prepared for 
 the other alternative, as he added : — 
 
 " Of course if the perversity of the Amir were to continue, and he 
 were inclined to thwart the expedition, from feelings of jealousy, or from 
 a mistrust of our intentions, the difficulties of the march would be much 
 increased, and our preparations would require to be made upon a larger 
 scale, including, perhaps, a demonstration at the mouth of the Khyber; 
 but under no circumstances need the expeditionary column, as far as I can 
 form an opinion, exceed a strength of 10,000 men."
 
 41 
 
 With regard to the occupation of Quettah, Sir Henry 
 RawHnson also assumed that we had the concurrence of the 
 Amir, and his language deserves to be weighed in reference to 
 the causes that have led to the present war : — 
 
 " It is doubtful,'' he writes, " how far such a proceeding would be re- 
 garded at Candahar and Cabul. If our position were already secured 
 with Sher Ali Khan, and he could thus be led to look upon the Quettah 
 post as a support to his own power, then we should hardly be deterred 
 from undertaking it by mere considerations of expense; but if, as is more 
 probable the tribes in general regarded the erection of a fortress above 
 the passes as a menace, or as a preliminary to a further hostile advance, 
 then we should not be justified for so small an object in risking the 
 rupture of our friendly intercourse.'' 
 
 This is a very significant admission in respect to one of Lord 
 Lytton's measures on the part of a strong advocate of the forward 
 policy. All Statesmen, from the time of Mountstuart Elphinstone, 
 have been of opinion that we should go to Afghanistan as defend- 
 ers, and not as invaders. The Afghans would receive aid against 
 invaders with gratitude, and if they needed aid they would be 
 quick enough in asking for it ; for, as Sir Harry Lumsden writes, 
 ''modesty has never been an Afghan weakness;" but whatever 
 Power invaded their country they would be glad to seek the 
 alliance of any other Power to drive them out. 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere's views may be gathered from his 
 elaborate letter to Sir John Kaye^ of June 12th, 1874, 
 and from an important memorandum, dated 10th Novem- 
 ber of the same year. In opposition to Sir Henry Rawlinson, 
 he deprecates the idea of making the advance of the Russians 
 to Merv a casus belli: — "The place is nothing to us except 
 as a necessary step towards Herat and Cabul, and it is not a 
 necessary step to either." He emphatically condemns our *' negative 
 policy," but he admits that " a defensive policy is not necessarily 
 inactive, nor merely stationary, still less is it necessarily weak." 
 This is the very point for which those who stand on the ancient 
 ways contend. The active measures which seem to him to be 
 essential are — 1st, the placing of an advanced post at Quettah ; 
 2ndly, well-selected English agents should be stationed at Herat,
 
 42 
 
 Cabul, and Candahar, thus establisliing a perfect intelligence de- 
 partment of European officers in Afghanistan. He would not 
 attempt the subjugation of the country nor its military occupa- 
 tion, nor would he hold Herat by a force of our own troops ; at 
 least, not until we had tried the effect of such measures as Todd, 
 and Pottinger, and Rawlinson proved could be so effectual in like 
 cases." These instances, adduced by Sir Bartle Frere in support 
 of his argument, appear to be singularly unfortunate. The politi- 
 cal assistant to Sir Henry Pottinger, stationed at Shikarpore, in 
 Sinde, in 1838 — 1840, had access to all the correspondence, 
 official and non-official, connected with the period Todd and Pot- 
 tinger were at Herat. Pottinger's heroic conduct in saving that 
 city from the Persians ought to have ensured him the eternal 
 gratitude of the Herat Chief and his people. But not two months 
 after the siege Pottinger was subjected to the grossest treatment, 
 insulted in the presence of the King, and ordered to leave the 
 Herat territory. He was then asked to remain, but was again 
 insulted, his house attacked, and one of his servants seized and 
 publicly mutilated. 
 
 The amouni of Todd's expenditure at Herat used to startle 
 the officers of the Sinde Residency, for they had the means of 
 knowing what was going on from the Shikarpore merchants, 
 through whom many of the bills were cashed. Sir John Login, 
 who was attached to Todd's mission as surgeon, states that the 
 advances amounted to £190,000 in a short period. They have 
 been estimated at upwards of £300,000, Yar Mahomed Khan 
 received £2,500 a month, and during aU this time he was carry- 
 ing on a treacherous correspondence with the Persian Governor of 
 Mushed, having for its object the expulsion of the infidel English 
 from Afghanistan. Just as Sultan Mahomed Khan, the 
 brother of Dost Mahomed, whom we loaded with benefits, 
 requited us by betraying to the Sikhs our officers who 
 had taken refuge with him after the outbreak at Peshawur. 
 Finally, Major Todd, unable to submit any longer to the 
 humiliating insults of an ungrateful miscreant (to use the 
 words of Sir John Login), withdrew the mission to Candahar. 
 
 i
 
 43 
 
 Under these circumstances, what Sir Bartle Frere can mean, 
 by affirming that the measures adopted by Todd and Pottinger 
 proved effectual, it is difficult to understand. Sir Henry 
 EawKnson was shut up in Candahar with Sir Wm. Nott's 
 division of the Cabul army. There is no analogy between his 
 position under the wing of a large military force and that of 
 officers stationed in isolated situations, like Herat and Balkh, 
 dependent upon their individual influence, and the prestige of 
 distant British power. 
 
 This question of stationing British officers in Afghanistan may 
 not seem of great moment to those unacquainted with the 
 Afghan character. The English mind can scarcely understand 
 the repugnance exhibited by Dost Mahomed and Sher Ali. Lord 
 Salisbury, having no knowledge on the subject, dismissed it in the 
 House of Lords with the remark, "If an ally could on such 
 a ground exhibit any soreness of feeling, I cannot think he can 
 be an ally about whose temper we need trouble ourselves much.'* 
 Syed Noor Mahomed, Prime Minister of Cabul, who was 
 more immediately concerned, says : — " Grey Sahib wrote me a letter 
 recently, referring to my acquiescence, when at Simlah, to the 
 coming of British officers to Cabul. It was as much as an order 
 for my death."* The atmosphere of Cabul in such matters is very 
 different to that of the House of Lords, as Lord Salisbury would per- 
 ceive if he were suddenly transported to the Capital of Afghanistan. 
 
 Lord Lytton also, looking at the question from a purely 
 English point of view, considers that "the presence and every- 
 day acts in their midst of earnest, upright English gentlemen " 
 was the one thing required to civilize the Afghans. To those who 
 know the Afghans from the habit of daily intercourse with them, 
 these words of the Viceroy denote an ingenuous simplicity, and 
 tend to provoke an involuntary smile. " Earnest, upright 
 English gentlemen " would have little chance of influencing Chiefs 
 like Yar Mahomed Khan, unless endowed with other and rarer 
 qualities ; and their " every-day acts " would be as distasteful to 
 fanatical >Ioollahs, Mouluvees, and Mohammedans, as the every- 
 day acts of Afghan Chiefs and people would be distasteful to 
 * " Afghanistan Correspondence," p. 195.
 
 44 
 
 English minds. Sir Bartle Frere says : — '' Train up men like 
 Malcolm, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe ; " but such men are not as 
 plentiful as blackberries, even in services of which Mr. Canning 
 long ago said " that no monarchy in Europe had produced 
 within a given time so many men of the first talents in civil and 
 military life within the same period." 
 
 Dost Mahomed may be supposed to have known the 
 temper of his countrymen better than Lord Lytton, and with 
 all his desire to cement a friendly union with the English, 
 the one thing he shrank from was a British ofiicer, as 
 dry-nurse, at his Capital. Gholam Houssein Khan, whose fidelity 
 to British interests has never been doubted, and whose oppor- 
 tunities for forming a judgment must be allowed to have been 
 exceptional, gave the same advice. Sir Harry Lumsden also 
 writes : — " Unless under the most pressing danger to Afghan- 
 istan, and at the spontaneous and urgent demand of that 
 Government itself, no proposition involving the deputing British 
 officers into the country should, for a moment, be entertained." 
 It has been the fixed and settled opinion of the various eminent 
 men who have ruled India before Lord Lytton, that " one of 
 the best securities for success and harmony in our dealings 
 with the Afghans, and for the avoidance of embarrassments, 
 consisted in our having as few points of contact with them as 
 possible." 
 
 We have in previous paragraphs passed rapidly in review some 
 of the main features of the recommendations and suggestions 
 advanced by the most eminent advocates of " the forward pohcy." 
 Following in the train of these greater luminaries are numerous 
 sateUites of inferior brilliancy, whose schemes for the preservation 
 of our Indian Empire from Russian aggression take a wider 
 range, and embrace measures which would seem to require a 
 fathomless exchequer and a perennial supply of soldiers, w^hich 
 our Crimean experiences would scarcely give us warrant to 
 believe that the British Islands could furnish. Many of these 
 writers are not satisfied with rectifying our frontier in India by 
 obtaining a footing in Afghanistan, and by garrisoning Herat,
 
 46 
 
 Candahar, Balkh, and Cabul, but they would push our outposts 
 to the Oxus, and some even contemplate with complacency hostile 
 expeditions to the deserts of Central Asia. As a specimen of 
 the Imperial scope of such projects, it will be sufficient to quote 
 from a recent letter, published in the Scotsman, and transferred 
 to the Morning Post, of the 11th October, 1878. After alluding 
 to the possibility of a Russian advance "by Persia and the 
 valley of the Attreck to Herat," the writer goes on : — 
 
 "In the meantime, what should England be doing? Carrying out 
 heartily the Anglo-Turkish Convention ; constructing a railway from the 
 Bosphorus to Bagdad, another from the Mediterranean to join it, and 
 another branch to Erzeroum ; making roads in all directions, both for 
 commercial and strategical purposes ; encouraging, and creating if neces- 
 sary, a large seam flotilla on the Tigiis; possessing ourselves, by 
 purchase or otherwise, of the Island of Karrack. With all this, preparing 
 by every means a strong military position near Erzeroum." 
 
 It is worthy of remark, and of serious consideration, that the 
 
 Prime Minister endorses this proposition in his speech at the 
 
 Mansion House, in which he stated that " the city of Erzeroum 
 
 will in all probability be the scene of the strongest fortifications 
 
 in Asia Minor." But to return to the work that the 
 
 writer of the letter in the Morning Post cuts out for 
 
 English brains and English money : — 
 
 " Surveying all the passes leading from Asia Minor into Persia, 
 aiding in every way in the regeneration of the Turkish army by lending 
 British officers, &c." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 " If we make proper use of the time we shall have at our disposal, we 
 ought to be able to collect in that country (Asia Minor) at short notice 
 (shorter than Russia could collect 10u,00u men at Herat) 50u,0U0 men- 
 British, Turks, and Indians. With such a force at our disposal, we 
 ought to be able to hold in check the Russian army of the Caucasus, and 
 in addition to form columns which could enter Persia in different 
 directions through the Western frontier, and attack the rear as well as 
 the communications of any Russian army in its advance on India." (This 
 is Sir Henry Rawlinson's idea, commented on by Lord Sandhurst.) 
 "Further, another force, dispatched from India to the Persian Gulf, 
 could operate from the South, while from Beloochistan a force could act 
 from the East — in fact, holding Asia Minor, we could absolutely paralyze 
 Persia from the West and from the East and from the South."
 
 46 
 
 A little farther on, in the same letter, we find : — 
 " In spite of every opposition on the part of many eminent men, the 
 Indian Government has been induced to occupy Quettah, in Beloochistan, 
 which position is being turned into a powerful ''place d'armes^'' in which 
 a British army could assemble with all the resources of England and 
 India at its back, and meet the advance of a Russian one." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 " I have now tried to point out that if we carry out the Anglo- 
 Turkish Convention, and have as a condition, absolutely essential, the 
 alliance of Turkey, we have nothing to fear from Russia. But Russia 
 knows as well as we do the necessity of a Turkish alliance to us, and 
 every effort will be made by her to prevent its being realized. She holds 
 in her hand a fearful weapon to use in her favour— the indemnity, and it 
 would be worth our while to pay it ourselves sooner than lose the 
 alliance of Turkey ! " 
 
 This last proposition, surely, is a climax. It is piling Pelion 
 on Ossa with a vengeance on the shoulders of British tax-payers. 
 As we read, with bated breath, the startling list of all we ought 
 to undertake to preserve ourselves from the machinations of 
 Russia, the reflection could not but arise. Who is sufficient for 
 these things ? But when we are told that we are to pay the 
 Turkish indemnity, there is a feeling of relief, because we may be 
 certain that even the blandest and most audacious of Chancellors 
 of the Exchequer, however imbued with Imperial doctrines, would 
 hardly venture, especially after the experiment of the Rhodope 
 grant, to make such a proposition to Parliament. Money, the sinews 
 of war, is the great want of Russia, and we ourselves are to 
 supply this want, and for what purpose ? to secure the alliance of 
 Turkey. It does not seem at all incredible to those who have 
 studied the cavernous workings of the Asiatic mind, that before 
 any great length of time we may be brought to loggerheads with 
 our friends the Turks. Mountstuart Elphinstone, no mean 
 observer of the teachings of history, wrote long ago : — '* I never 
 knew a close alliance between a civilized and an uncivilized State 
 that did not end in mutual hatred in three years. Our payment 
 of the Turkish indemnity would be worse than our pouring thou- 
 sands into the lap of Yar Mahomed Khan of Herat, all the time 
 that the wily Afghan Chief was chuckling in his sleeve, and 
 telling the King of Persia, the Asylum of Islam, that " he merely
 
 47 
 
 tolerated the presence of the Englisli Envoy from expediency, as 
 he (the Envoy) was by no means niggardly in the expenditure, 
 jewels," &c. If this sort of language is used to the Turks, they 
 must indeed believe that we are in great straits for their alliance, 
 and that no demands which they could make would be too onerous 
 for us to grant. "Capital fellows these Feringhees" (the 
 Belooches used to say on the occasion of our first advance to 
 Afghanistan.) " We sell them our camels one day, steal them 
 the next, and sell them again to them on the third day." All 
 these suggestions must appear, one would imagine, to soberminded 
 practical Englishmen as dreams, vague unsubstantial dreams, like 
 those put forward in former years, that England should go to war 
 with France to prevent the annexation of Savoy and Nice, or step 
 in with armed interference to forbid her acquisition of the left 
 bank of the Rhine ; or, at a still later date, that Germany should 
 be coerced into the relinquishment of any claim she might make 
 to the possession of French territory. But these are not the sug- 
 gestions of '' anonymous paragraph writers," nor " the harebrained 
 chatter of irresponsible frivolity;" they are the deliberate and 
 matured recommendations of General Sir Henry Green, a dis- 
 tinguished military and political officer, who has done excellent 
 service on the Sinde frontier, and has always been one of the 
 busiest and most persistent advocates " of the forward policy." 
 His letter was published in the Scotsman, as was said, at the 
 request of the Duke of Sutherland, who endorsed its sentiments as 
 emanating from an Officer who had spent his Hfe in India, chiefly 
 in Afghanistan and Beloochistan, and who was weU able to judge 
 of the effect of European politics on the minds of the natives of 
 India. 
 
 Moreover, these views are to a certain extent recognized and 
 sanctioned by the Prime Minister himself, as we can gather from 
 his speech at the Mansion House, and from other utterances. 
 They are built up on the same foundation as the secret Anglo- 
 Turkish Convention, which gave us *' peace with honour ;" they 
 are conceived in the same spirit which would fain make us believe 
 that Cyprus was an outlying bulwark of the British Empire, and
 
 48 
 
 a defensive post for our Indian territories. The Prime Minister 
 tells us that '' if Asia Minor and the valley of the Euphrates were 
 in the possession of a very weak, or a very powerful State, it 
 would be by no means impossible for an adequate army to march 
 through the passes of Asia Minor, and through Persia, and 
 absolutely threaten the dominions of the Queen/' Here we 
 have the germs of the suggestions of Sir Henry Green, of the new 
 Imperial policy, which Lord Lytton was sent out to India to 
 inaugurate, and which no doubt found a responsive echo in his 
 ardent and poetical. imagination. The same master mind which 
 has linked free and enlightened England, teeming with life and 
 progress, to an effete and decaying Sovereignty, approaching the 
 last stage of decomposition, which has pledged British resources 
 to fight the battle of the Turks, and meet a formidable adversary 
 on her own ground in Asia Minor, no doubt contemplated with 
 satisfaction the rectification of our Indian frontier, and the loca- 
 tion of British troops in the midst of a hostile population, on the 
 confines of the Hindoo Koosh mountains, or on the edge of the 
 Turkuman deserts. In this lies the grand distinction between 
 the old policy of Lord Canning, Lord Lawrence, Lord Mayo, and 
 Lord Northbrook, and of the successive Ministries under whom 
 they served, and the new Imperial policy of Lord Lytton, Lord 
 Salisbury, and Lord Beaconsfield. The marvel is that, with this 
 broad distinction existing, which must be patent to all men now 
 that it is revealed, Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote 
 should have both stated, so late as June 1877, " that there was 
 no change in the policy of the Grovernment." 
 
 The first result of the new policy is an unnecessary, impolitic, 
 and unjust war ; but before we proceed to substantiate this 
 charge, and to show that the measures adopted by Lord Lytton 
 have been the main cause of this great calamity, it will be 
 necessary to explain the state of affairs on the North- Western 
 frontier at the period of Lord Lytton's arrival in India. One of 
 the first questions Lord Lytton had to decide was connected with 
 the Khan of Khelat, and the tribes which owe him more or less 
 real allegiance. This question had been constantly before Lord
 
 49 
 
 Northbrook's Government throughout his administration, and 
 had given rise to voluminous correspondence. At length matters 
 had reached such a state that the Commissioner in Sinde, Sir 
 William Merewether, had recommended armed intervention. 
 To this Lord JN'orthbrook would not consent, but at the same 
 time he determined that a complete change of policy must take 
 place. We had hitherto endeavoured to deal with the frontier 
 tribes entirely through the Khan, giving them to understand 
 that they were regarded solely as his subjects. This policy, after 
 long and patient trial, had failed. It was now decided to make 
 our own arrangements direct with the frontier tribes, or rather 
 to mediate between the Khan and the Chiefs of the tribes, thus 
 treating the Khan more as primus inter pares than the absolute 
 Ruler of the country. Before the measures requisite to inaugurate 
 this new policy were completed. Lord ^orthbrook quitted India, 
 and Lord Ljiton succeeded him, and proceeded to carry out the 
 details in a different spirit, and with a different object. In 
 order to bring out the striking contrast between the measures of 
 Lord Northbrook and Lord Lytton, a reference may be made to 
 one of Lord Lytton's speeches (commenting on Sir John Strachey's 
 financial statement of March 1877), in which he uses the 
 strongest condemnatory language in regard to the poHcy of his 
 predecessors in the Yiceroyalty. He says : — 
 
 " Those neighbouring regions, after twenty-five years of the closest 
 geographical contact between us and them, remained almost the only 
 ones in the whole world which are forbidden ground to British footsteps, 
 except on some mission of vengeance, and tor the purpose of burning 
 the homes and destroying the property of our neighbours, in retaliation 
 for outrages committed by them upon our own territory. Surely this is 
 not a state of things which any Englishman can contemplate with 
 unmitigated satisfaction, or which any English Statesman would wish to 
 perpetuate. . . . I do not think that, consistently with its high duties 
 to God and man, as the greatest civilizing Power, this Government can 
 watch, coldly and immoveably, its closest neighbours floundering in 
 anarchy and bloodshed without extending to them, in their hour of need, 
 a kindly and a helpful hand, if they seek its assistance and invoke its 
 guidance. Such a policy would be, in my opinion, an atheistic and 
 inhuman one." 
 
 What the exact meaning the Viceroy intended to convey by 
 
 D
 
 60 
 
 the use of the word " atheistic " it is difficult to determine, but 
 the word *' inhuman" is easily understood. Lord Lytton had 
 only been a few months in India ; his previous training and 
 experience had given him no acquaintance with Indian affairs, or 
 quahfied him in any way to pronounce an authoritative judgment 
 on a difficult administrative problem, to the solution of which the 
 best intellects and the largest practical experience of officers of 
 the Indian civil and military services had been devoted since the 
 time when the Punjab came under British rule. Lord Lytton 
 had evidently not read carefully the despatches of the Home 
 Authorities, nor the reports of the officers employed on the 
 frontier, but formed a hasty opinion from imperfect information, 
 and clothed it in strong expressions. Had he studied the question 
 he would have found that the orders sent out by the various 
 Secretaries of State, and acted upon by the Lieutenant-Governors, 
 and the able officers employed under them, inculcated anything 
 but " an atheistic and inhuman " policy. The following para- 
 graphs from a despatch by Lord Halifax, dated 16th January, 
 1864, after the Umbeyla campaign, gives in detail his views of 
 the poKcy to be pursued towards the tribes on the Korth-West 
 frontier : — 
 
 "Our true course ought to be not to interfere with their internal 
 concerns, but to cultivate friendly relations with them, and to endeavour 
 to convince them, by our forbearance and kindly conduct, that their 
 wisest plan is to be on good terms with us, in order that they may derive 
 those advantages from intercourse with us whicli are sure to follow the 
 interchange of commodities and mutual benefits." Again :- " Advantage 
 should be taken of every opportunity to conciliate the Chiefs of these 
 tribes, and to create and improve a friendly feeling in the minds of these 
 hereditary leaders, whether religious or otherwise, who in semi-barbarous 
 communities usually exercise so great an influence over the minds of their 
 followers, and whose own conduct, when not influenced by caprice, is gener- 
 ally determined by self-interest." Again : — "It is of paramount importance 
 that these Chiefs should be made to understand that our policy is peace, 
 and, w^hile resolute to repel and chastise any aggression upon our own 
 territories, we do not seek to extend our frontier, nor do we desire to 
 interfere with our neighbours." 
 
 These we believe to have been the principles which animated 
 and directed our officers from the earliest period after the annex- 
 ation of the Punjab.
 
 51 
 
 Can any exception be taken to this policy of conciliation 
 mingled with firmness — the determination to uphold British 
 supremacy, in order to afford protection to British subjects living 
 in the vicinity of the frontier, and yet at the same time to use 
 every effort to cultivate friendly relations with the wild and 
 independent tribes inhabiting the mountain ranges ? Is it just to 
 brand such a poHcy with the epithets of atheistic and inhuman ? 
 If rumour is to be credited, Lord Lytton soars above details, and 
 he has probably, therefore, never turned his attention to the deeply 
 interesting and instructive reports of the Punjab administration, 
 nor even to the published statements of the moral and material 
 progress of India, presented annually to Parliament. These 
 statements are not exhaustive of the numerous subjects of which 
 they treat, and they are very unequal, depending on the industry 
 and abihty of the officer selected to prepare them ; but they are 
 founded on authentic documents at the India Office, and are 
 generally compiled with care and judgment. An attentive perusal 
 of them shows a gradual improvement in our relations with the 
 frontier tribes, that the border has of late years become decidedly 
 more peaceable, and that there are causes at work, certain, if not 
 interfered with, to produce, in course of time, most important 
 results. The establishment of hospitals and dispensaries, the 
 offer of waste lands on liberal terms, the interchange of friendly 
 visits, and, above all, the admittance into the ranks of our army, 
 pohce, and civil establishments, of large and increasing numbers of 
 these border tribes, are measures tending gradually to create 
 respect for our power, and confidence in our good feehng and 
 justice. The philanthropic efforts of British officers employed on 
 the frontier are beyond all praise ; they are known to few, but 
 they reflect the highest credit on the officers and on their country. 
 Many of them, no doubt, read with pain Lord Lytton's hasty 
 and unjust remarks, betraying such a want of knowledge of the 
 subject, and such an absence of due appreciation of their 
 persevering and self-denpng labours. The same precipitation 
 and inexperience in Asiatic modes of thought, usages, and 
 prejudices characterize Lord Lytton's conduct in reference to the
 
 52 
 
 affairs of Afghanistan, and have mainly contributed to the present 
 rupture with the Amir of Cabul. 
 
 All the proceedings, however, of Lord Lytton have met with 
 the entire approval of Her Majesty's Government, and both 
 Houses of Parliament have ratified that approval, after a very 
 brief time afforded them for studying the correspondence connected 
 with this important question. It remains to be seen whether the 
 people of England when they have had the opportunity of examin- 
 ing the whole case will confirm the verdict. Those who believe 
 that the new poKcy adopted by Her Majesty's Government, and 
 carried out in such a hasty and inconsiderate manner by Lord 
 Lytton, has plunged the country into an impolitic and unjust war 
 are bound to use their best endeavours to place the facts of the 
 case before their countrymen. In furtherance of the instructions 
 conveyed to him by Lord Salisbury in his Despatch of the 28th 
 February, 1876, the first step taken by Lord Lytton on his arrival 
 in India was to send his Native Aide-de-Camp Eesaldar Major 
 Khanan Khan, with a letter to the Amir dated 6th May, 1876, 
 barely twenty-five days after his assumption of the Viceroyalty, 
 announcing a proposed British Mission to Cabul. Sher Ali 
 declined to receive this Mission ; and we learn from Lord Lytton's 
 Despatch of 10th May, 1877, that his grounds were " that he 
 desired no change in his relations with the British Government, 
 which appeared to have been defined by that Government to its 
 own satisfaction at the Simla Conference. If the British Govern- 
 ment had now anything new to say about them, he would prefer 
 to send his own Agent to the Viceroy, in order that the subjects 
 of discussion weighed by a minute and exact investigation, might 
 be committed to writing." Sir William Muir has recorded his 
 opinion that Sher Ali's refusal was couched "in as courteous 
 terms as the case admitted." But Lord Lytton took offence 
 immediately, as if he desired to seize the first opportunity and pre- 
 text for pushing matters to extremities. It must be borne in 
 mind that Sher Ali firmly believed, that under the solemn promise 
 of Lord Mayo, he might consider himself safe from having British 
 Ofiicers forced upon him against his will, and against the wishes 
 of his Chiefs and people.
 
 53 
 
 Lord Northbrook distinctly states, when Syed ]N'oor Mahomed 
 objected to the step on similar grounds, that " he felt he had no 
 right under the assurance that had been given by Lord Mayo, 
 that British Officers should not be sent against the opinion of the 
 Amir, to consider that any offence had been committed against 
 the British Grovernment." Lord Lytton was of a different 
 opinion, and but for the interposition of the more experienced 
 members of his Council, he would have written to the Amir in 
 such menacing terms that a favourable answer could hardly have 
 been expected, and the British Government would then have 
 been placed at the very outset in the embarrassing position either 
 of sitting down quietly under an open affront, or of being com- 
 pelled to have recourse to measures of coercion. Eventually a 
 modified letter was addressed to Sher AH, dated the 8th July, 
 1876, closing with the intimation amounting to a threat, that if 
 he hastily rejected the hand of friendship, the Viceroy would be 
 obliged " to regard Afghanistan as a State which has voluntarily 
 isolated itself from the alliance and support of the British 
 Government." Lord Lytton writes at this time : — " We authorized 
 Dr. Belle w and others to address the Amir and his Ministers 
 letters, unofficially explaining our sentiments, and the importance 
 of the opportunity then offered to the Afghan Government for 
 materially strengthening its position at home and abroad." This 
 appears to have been a very unusual and illadvised step, as it 
 would only tend to confuse and perplex the Amir, and to make 
 him suspicious of his Ministers. The thought would occur to 
 him that underneath all this pressure there was some deep-laid 
 scheme, which threatened his o^vn interests, and boded ill for 
 Afghan independence. Asiatics are naturally suspicious, especially 
 the Afghans, and to negotiate successfully with them it is important 
 to pursue a simple straightforward course, and to deal with the 
 Chief, and not with his subordinates. Finally, the Amir sends 
 an answer submitting two alternative propositions. Lord Lytton 
 accepts the second, that the British Yakeel at Cabul should 
 proceed to Simla, charged with a confidential explanation " of 
 the personal views and sentiments of the Amir on the subject 
 of his relations with the British Government."
 
 54 
 
 The British Agent, Nawab Atta Mahomed Khan, reached 
 Simla on the 6th of October, 1876, and on the next day Sir 
 Lewis Pelly, Lieut. -Colonel 0. T. Burne, and Captain Grey had 
 an interview with him. A summary of the conversation that 
 took place is given in the Afghanistan Papers (p. 180). Atta 
 Mahomed assigns eight reasons for the estrangement of the Amir. 
 
 1. The decision on the Seistan boundary. 
 
 2. Our recent proceedings in Khelat territories. 
 
 3. Our remonstrances, in 1874, on behalf of i akoob Khan. 
 
 4. The transmission of presents to Wakhan. 
 
 5. The results of the mission of Syed Noor Mahomed in 
 1873. 
 
 6. Matter contained in a recent letter from the Commissioner 
 of Peshawur to the British Agent at Cabul. 
 
 7. The Amir's impression that our policy is one of self- 
 interest, irrespective of the interests of Afghanistan. 
 
 8. Our refusal to sign a definite treaty of alliance in 1873. 
 Lord Lytton, in his letter to Lord Salisbury, of 10th May, 
 
 1877, alludes to only four of these grievances — the first, third, 
 fourth, and eighth, — all of which occurred before his accession to 
 the Viceroyalty. It is not necessary to dwell on each of these 
 four grievances, but it may be observed that not one of them 
 afforded any just ground of complaint against the British Govern- 
 ment. Much of the ill feeling, therefore, manifested by Sher Ali 
 must be attributed to his own morbid temperament. Sir Harry 
 Lumsden described him, twenty years ago, '^ as a man of violent 
 temper and cruel disposition," but " possessed of intelligence 
 and aptitude for business." He is prone to fits of depression, 
 causing, at times, the belief in his insanity. His conduct, on the 
 death of his favourite son, Mahommod Ali, at the battle of 
 Kujbaz, gave countenance to this belief. In dealing with a man 
 of this disposition, a Viceroy, desirous of promoting peace, would 
 have been slow to take offence, and would have exercised more 
 than usual forbearance. The decision with regard to the Seistan 
 boundary in 1872, no doubt excited a deep feeling of resentment 
 in the mind of Sher Ali. The objects of the British Government
 
 55 
 
 were wholly disinterested. They desired to remove a cause of 
 quarrel between Persia and Afghanistan, and to avert, if 
 possible, the chance of colHsion and bloodshed. No of6.cer better 
 fitted to carry out their wishes could have been selected as Com- 
 missioner than Sir Frederick Goldsmid, but he was thwarted 
 throughout by Mirza Maasim Khan, the Persian Commissioner, 
 whose conduct afforded sufiB.cient ground for breaking up the 
 Commission, and leaving the question for settlement at Tehran. 
 This would have been the wisest plan, as, although the decision of 
 the British Commissioner was perfectly equitable, it gave offence 
 both to Persia and to Sher Ali. The less we interfere with the 
 internal affairs and disputes of Asiatic Rulers the better. 
 
 Lord Lytton makes no mention of the second alleged griev- 
 ance — " the recent proceedings in the Khelat territories.'' These 
 included the occupation of Quettah, which the Amir described to 
 the Tiu^kish Envoy as " placiQg an armed man at the back door 
 of his house," adding, " what can be his motive, except he wants 
 to find his way in when you are asleep?"^ Under an article in 
 our treaty with the Khan of Khelat, we had a perfect right to 
 occupy Quettah, as it is situated in Khelat territory. But Lord 
 Northbrook has stated that its occupation did not form part of his 
 contemplated arrangements for the settlement of Khelat affairs. 
 As a significant step in the direction of Lord Lytton's rumoured 
 policy, combined with the threatened advance of Kashmir troops 
 towards Chitral, at our instigation, and the opening of new rela- 
 tions with the Chiefs to the north of the Cabul river, it naturally 
 alarmed the Amir. At this period, also, preparations were being 
 made on the banks of the Indus in the collection of supplies and 
 means of transport ; a bridge of boats was thrown across the river 
 at Kooshalgur, and the air was full of warhke rumours. No 
 wonder the Amir became anxious and distrustful. Sir Henry 
 Eawlinson suggests that " it was the Amir's consciousness of his 
 
 * This forcible expression of the Amir, uttered to the Turkish Envoy in the 
 confidence of private intercourse with a co-rehgionist, is strong e\ddence of his 
 feehngs on the subject of the occupation of Quettah. It is related in Mr. 
 Grattan Geary's Work, " Through Asiatic Turkey," Vol. II., page 323, as com- 
 municated to him by a Turkish politician at Constantinople.
 
 56 
 
 own disloyalty whicli made him regard the movement on Quettah 
 as a menace." But up to the time of Lord Lytton's aggressive 
 measures, Sher Ali had shown no symptom of disloyalty to us. As 
 a weak State between two mighty Powers, he naturally felt sus- 
 picious both of England and of Russia. Sir William Muir, when 
 endeavouring to prevent the Viceroy from sending his menacing 
 letter, writes: — "Hitherto his whole line of conduct has ex- 
 hibited an alarm and distrust of Russia, which has, up to the 
 present time, made him entirely dependent upon us. What the 
 effect of the present menacing letter may be it is impossible to 
 foretell." Lord Northbrook and Sir Henry Norman both support 
 this statement. 
 
 Had we adhered to the wise policy of keeping within the 
 boundary line which had marked the limits of our Indian 
 territories for so many years, no cause of distrust could have 
 arisen; and, on the first serious difficulty with Russia, Sher 
 Ali would most probably have sought the protection of the 
 British Government. It would seem evident to all unpre- 
 judiced minds that, under the old aspect of aff'airs, Sher Ali 
 and the Afghans would naturally cHng to England rather than 
 to Russia. Since the withdrawal of our armies from Cabul, the 
 British Government has conferred nothing but benefits upon the 
 Chiefs and people of Afghanistan. Constant intercourse must have 
 made known generally the advantages of a British alKance, while 
 the contrast between an aggressive and a non-aggressive Power 
 must have tended to inspire confidence in us, and increasing 
 distrust of Russia. The Afghans are a manly race, and admire 
 manliness in others. The attachment shown by many of them 
 who have enhsted in our ranks to their officers is remarkable. 
 Personal friendships have also existed between British Officers 
 and Afghan Chiefs. All these elements of goodwill are in our 
 favour in comparison with Russia. One deeprooted feeling, how- 
 ever, separates alike the Englishman and the Russian from these 
 Mohammedan nations — religious fanaticism, " the springs of which 
 are as obscure as the effects are tremendous." Baron Jomini, in 
 arguing that he saw no reason for " mutual jealousy " between
 
 57 
 
 England and Russia, remarked " that, should the two Govern- 
 ments act more together, in the interests of general progress and 
 civilization, it might be the means of strengthening both in their 
 respective Eastern dominions, where a powerful antagonistic 
 element existed in the Mussulman population, a menace to both 
 Governments, and should at any time a leader of daring character 
 arise, much was to be feared by such an event. "^ There is great truth 
 in this observation, and Lord Lytton would do well to bear it in 
 mind in his dealings with the contingents of Native Princes to 
 further schemes of territorial aggrandizement. We are a handful 
 of foreigners ruling over conquered millions, and it would be a 
 fatal error to fritter away our military strength and resources, more 
 especially our European troops, in the distant regions of Afghan- 
 istan. Wo can never trust to India as a secure base of operations 
 as we would trust to England in the event of an European 
 emergency. In any struggle with an European Power our mili- 
 tary strength in India must be increased rather* than diminished. 
 It was a vain flourish of trumpets, which deceived no one 
 acquainted with the true state of afi'airs in India, to bring native 
 troops at a vast expense to Europe witli the view of intimidating 
 Hussia. 
 
 On the 10th of October another meeting was held with 
 Atta Mahomed Khan, at which the Viceroy was present. Sir 
 Lewis Pelly, Colonel Burne, and Captain Grey also attended. It 
 wiU be observed that the Foreign Secretary of the Government 
 was absent from both of these important meetings, that is to say, 
 the responsible head of the o£B.ce through which the Viceroy's 
 communications with ah Chiefs and Princes are invariably con- 
 ducted, was not present at discussions which had an important 
 bearing on orders that he would eventually have to carry out. If 
 the Foreign Secretary was unable to attend through ilhiess, or any 
 other cause, the Under-Secretary in the Foreign Department 
 could have attended. This was done in Lord Dalhousie's time in 
 a similar contingency. Thus, also in regard to the afi'airs of 
 Khelat, it will be remembered that the Viceroy deputed his own 
 Mihtary Secretary to be the bearer of confidential communications 
 
 * " Central Asia Papers," p. 45.
 
 58 
 
 to the Khan, and to the British political Officer at that Court. In 
 the despatch of the 2'3rd of March, 1877, in vol. 2 " Beloochistan 
 Papers,*' paragraph 27, it is stated that " Colonel CoUey carried 
 out his mission with care and judgment." Admitting fully the 
 qualifications of Colonel Colley, it is clear that he was only one 
 of the officers of the Viceroy's own staff, and had no official or 
 responsible position connected with the Government of India, 
 neither had Colonel Burne as Private Secretary. The advice and 
 assistance of these officers in their proper sphere are calculated to 
 be of great value to the Viceroy, but that is not a solid ground 
 for allowing them to supersede the regularly- appointed officers of 
 the Government of India, who are the responsible advisers of the 
 Government, and who possess, what officers on the personal staff 
 of the Viceroy generally do not, trained experience in the working 
 of our Indian Administration, and are therefore better fitted to 
 carry out the decisions of the Government. One of the disad- 
 vantages of this irregular proceeding was, as will be remarked in 
 this case, that there is no official record of instructions to Colonel 
 Colley, nor any formal report from him. Under the old system 
 of government, these irregularities would have been animadverted 
 upon by the Homo Authorities. In connection with this new 
 mode of transacting business we have, in the published 
 "Afghanistan Correspondence," extracts from private notes and 
 memoranda put forward to establish certain important points (the 
 details, for instance, of what passed at the Umballa Conference) 
 which have been shown to have been positively incorrect. In fact, 
 in one instance, a gentleman not present at an interview is 
 allowed, years afterwards, to put his own interpretation on what 
 passed at the time, and what was really recorded then and there 
 by the Under-Secretary in the Foreign Department. 
 
 At the second meeting with Atta Mahomed, Lord Lytton 
 took occasion to explain to him, as he said subsequently, 
 " without reserve all that he had in his mind ; he had no doubt 
 that the British Agent would convey this faithfully to the Amir." 
 How Lord Lytton, holding as he did in his hand the momentous 
 issues of peace and war, could conceive that the use of language,
 
 59 
 
 so calculated to provoke the bitterest feelings of hatred and 
 indignation in the breast of the Amir, was becoming the dignity 
 of his high office, it is difficult to understand. Let us select a 
 few of the choice expressions of this conciliatory message to Sher 
 Ali : — " Our only interest in maintaining the independence of 
 Afghanistan is to provide for the security of our own frontier. 
 But the moment we cease to regard Afghanistan as a friendly and 
 firmly-allied State, what is there to prevent us from pro\'iding for 
 the security of our frontier by an understanding with Russia, 
 which might have the effect of wiping Afghanistan out of the 
 map altogether? If the Amir does not desire to come to a 
 speedy understanding with us, Russia does, and she desires it, at 
 his expense." " If the Amir remained our friend, this military 
 power (the British) could be spread round him as a ring of iron, 
 and if he became our enemy, it could break him as a reed.'' 
 " His own son is his opponent, conspiracies are rife in favour of 
 his son, the people are discontented, the treasury is empty. The 
 Amir's position is surrounded with difficulties. This is the man 
 who pretends to hold the balance between England and Russia, 
 independent of either. His position is rather that of an earthen 
 pipkin between two iron pots." This latter homely illustration, 
 although, perhaps. Lord Lytton is not aware of it, is a term of 
 low abuse amongst Orientals, and conveys a gross insult. Imagine 
 Atta Mahomed's astonishment at such language in the mouth of 
 the Viceroy. A chord of sympathy pervades the hearts of all 
 Mohammedans. With many high qualities, and capacities for 
 rule, they are a haughty, unforgi^-ing, fanatical race ; they 
 cherish the memories of their glorious Past ; and, doubtless, in his 
 inner mind, Atta Mahomed felt the insult offered to the Amir, 
 and commented upon it, in no friendly spirit to the British nation, 
 when closeted with his co-religionists. 
 
 " Is He the Angel Gabriel come down from heaven that he 
 should talk to me in this manner ?" said an old Mohammedan 
 Chief on the banks of the Indus forty years ago, when addressed 
 in somewhat similar language by a young political Agent, whose 
 careless words bore bitter fruit in after times of trouble. Mr. E. 
 Schuyler tells us " that the Russians personally have not so much
 
 60 
 
 of that contemptuous feeling wliicli is so marked in the dealings 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race with people of lower culture and civiliza- 
 tion." The evil effects of such a pernicious example on the part 
 of a Viceroy are incalculable. We read in Gibbon of the haughty 
 message of the Mohammedan Caliph to the Kuman Emperor in 
 the Ylllth century, and its barbaric grandeur strikes the imagi- 
 nation. ''In the name of the most merciful God, Harun Al 
 Rashed, Commander of the Faithful, to Nicephorus the Roman 
 dog. I have read thy letter, thou Son of an unbelieving 
 mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply." 
 " It was written in characters of blood and fire on the plains of 
 Phrygia." In the XlXth century we look for more measured 
 language and Christian humility from a Viceroy, who, Lord 
 Salisbury has the hardihood to tell the House of Lords, "in 
 caution and sound hard discretion has never been exceeded by any 
 Viceroy." The same Minister, when pressed home to explain his 
 misleading and unsatisfactory replies, says boldly, with true 
 Strafford ring, " In the future no answer at all shall be given to 
 questions of that kind." Let Englishmen who love the liberties 
 of their country beware of such '' Grand Viziers of government by 
 prerogative." On the 11th of October Lord Lytton addressed a 
 letter to Sher AH, and intrusted it to Atta Mahomed Khan, who 
 returned to Cabul at the end of that month. In this letter Lord 
 Lytton sent an invitation to the Amir to attend the assemblage at 
 Delhi on the 1st of January, 1877, for the proclamation of Her 
 Majesty's Imperial title. This was a mistake. It was not likely 
 that the Amir, as an independent Sovereign, would be flattered by 
 the invitation, or would accept it, as it would place him on a level 
 with the feudatory Princes of India. He returned no answer. 
 Lord Lytton also intimated that Sir Lewis Pelly would meet Sher 
 All's Prime Minister at Peshawur, if the Amir still desired to 
 enter into a treaty engagement. 
 
 Various letters from Atta Mahomed, after his arrival at 
 Cabul, state the result of discussions by Sher All's Ministers on 
 the question of receiving British officers. " Such an arrangement 
 filled them with apprehension." " Their opinion was that this
 
 61 
 
 request of the British Government should be declined." In the 
 end, however, " owing to helplessness," " though considering that 
 the residence of British ofi&cers would not at all be advantageous 
 to the two Governments," the Amir consented, and his Prime 
 Minister, Syed ^oor Mahomed Shah, was despatched to Peshawur, 
 where he arrived on the 27th January, 1877, in very ill health. 
 Sir Lewis Pelly met him, and it may be remarked, without any 
 imputation upon that officer, who has filled many responsible 
 situations with credit, that his selection for this duty seems to 
 have been unfortunate. His Sinde antecedents were not Hkely to 
 prepossess the Afghans in his favour, nor his previous connection 
 with the Persian Mission at Tehran. He was a well-known sup- 
 porter of the aggressive policy of General Jacob and Sir Henry 
 Rawlinson. His name, too, had been prominently associated with 
 the deposition of the Guikwar. He was a new man on the 
 Punjab frontier, having had no dealings with the Afghans, nor 
 they with him. The Amir had been informed that he was the 
 Special Envoy whom Lord Lytton had brought out with him 
 from England, and intended to send to Cabul, and whose mission 
 the Amir had declined to receive. 
 
 The previous measures of the Viceroy were calculated to 
 alarm Sher Ali, and it was very probable that he would connect 
 Sir Lewis PeUy in some way with these measures. Syed Noor 
 Mahomed Shah had suggested the name of Colonel Pollock as 
 Commissioner to meet him : — *' On account of our former intimacy 
 they would be able, when they met, to talk over all matters 
 frankly and fully together." Sir Henry Rawlinson calls Syed 
 Noor Mahomed "the Amir's evil genius," and says, "he was 
 bitterly opposed to us." But this desire to meet an old friend is 
 rather proof to the contrary. The conditions sought to be im- 
 posed upon the Amir by Lord Lytton were, many of them, 
 entirely inconsistent with Sher Ali's independence. The Viceroy 
 certainly ojffered to become the jailer of Yakoob Khan, a conces- 
 sion, one would imagine, scarcely in accordance with the dignity 
 of Her Majesty's Representative. Even such a concession was not 
 likely to reconcile the Amir to proposals for the establishment of
 
 62 
 
 telegraphic communication through his dominions, to the indis- 
 criminate admission of Englishmen, official and non-official, into 
 Afghanistan, and to the location of British Agents in Herat, 
 Balkh, and other Afghan cities. 
 
 There were other solid advantages no douht, if only Sher Ali 
 could be brought to appreciate them, and that he would do so in 
 the end Lord Lytton, looking at the matter from a purely English 
 point of view, apparently believed, as he states in his telegram of 
 the 2nd August, 1878: — ''We believe we could correct situation, 
 if allowed to treat as a question between us and the Amir, and 
 probably could do so without recourse to force.'^ No opportunity, 
 however, occurred of ascertaining whether the Amir would accept 
 the conditions proposed by Lord Lytton, as the prel'minary con- 
 dition on which Sir Lewis Pelly was directed to insist as a sine 
 qua non (viz., that of stationing British officers in Afghanistan) 
 occupied the whole time of the Conference, until the death of 
 Noor Mahomed Shah, which took place on the 26th March, 1877. 
 
 It is impossible to read the proceedings of the Conference, 
 without perceiving that one single question was uppermost in the 
 mind of the dying Envoy, charged as he was to convey the 
 sentiments of the Amir, and of the Afghan Chiefs and people. 
 " Why all this pressing," he says, " to send British officers to 
 Afghanistan, when you declare that you have no wish to interfere 
 in the internal affairs of Afghanistan ? It has roused the suspicion 
 of the Amir, and his suspicion is confirmed by the arbitrary acts 
 of your Government, and he is now convinced that to allow 
 British officers to reside in his country will be to relinquish his 
 own authority, and the lasting disgrace thus brought on the 
 Afghan people will be attached to his name, and he will sooner 
 perish than submit to this. The British nation is great and 
 powerful, and the Afghan people cannot resist its power, but the 
 people are self-willed and independent, and prize their honour 
 above Hfe." * What are Afghan honour and Afghan independence 
 to Lord Lytton? The distant and unreal danger of a Russian 
 advance on India overleaps such minor considerations. What are 
 villages burned, and homes destroyed, and women and children 
 "Afghanistan Papers," p. 195.
 
 63 
 
 starved, and misery and hatred and despair sown broadcast 
 throughout the land, in comparison with ideal British interests 
 and the scientific rectification of a frontier ? Yes, the British 
 nation is great and powerful, as the dying Envoy said, with 
 marked earnestness and gravity, and the Afghan people are 
 weak, and Lord Lytton can break them as a reed, and trample 
 them under foot as an earthen pipkin, if they venture to stand in 
 the way of his Imperial policy. But God resisteth the proud ; 
 and this temper of mind, whether in indi\TLduals or in nations, 
 makes to itself great reverses. 
 
 On the death of Syed Noor Mahomed, Lord I^ytton lost 
 no time in closing the Conference, although he was aware 
 that a fresh Envoy was on his way from Cabul, who, it was 
 reported, had authority to accept all the conditions of the British 
 Government. Instead of exercising forbearance, and seizing on 
 every opening which afforded a prospect of bringing about a 
 peaceful settlement. Lord Lytton seems on all occasions to have 
 taken the exactly opposite course, and to have determined to cut 
 the Gordian knot of difficulties with the sword. At this critical 
 juncture, when it was especially desirable that some representative 
 of the British Government should be near Sher Ali, to take 
 advantage of any propitious moment to soothe his angry feelings, 
 to allay his suspicions, and to place matters in as favourable a 
 light as possible, not only with the Amir, but with the Chiefs 
 about his Court, Lord L}i:ton withdrew the British Agent from 
 Cabul. It is dif&cult to imagine a more ill-advised step. If 
 Russian intrigues were dreaded, this was to act precisely as they 
 would wish, and to throw the game entirely into their hands. 
 It deprived the Amir of all moral support, removed every check, 
 and, with a Chief of his moody and sullen disposition, sharpened 
 his sense of wrong, and gave him additional grounds for appre- 
 hension. It discouraged the well-wishers of the British Govern- 
 ment, and left them without a rallying point to make head 
 against the fanaticism of the anti-British party. They could not 
 trust each other, but they could trust a British Agent of rank of 
 their own creed, who would report favourably on their conduct,
 
 64 
 
 and ensure them a reward. It was indeed a hostile measure, 
 and calculated to provoke hostility. It had the further disad- 
 vantage of leaving the British Government in ignorance of what 
 was going on at Cabul. Intelligence from that quarter hence- 
 forth only reached India through questionable and uncertain 
 channels of communication. 
 
 From March 1877 until July 1878 there appears to have 
 been no correspondence between the Viceroy and Sher AH. 
 Then came the news of the arrival of a Russian Mission at Cabul, 
 " the true purpose of which," Sir Henry Rawlinson tells us, 
 " was to confirm Sher Ali's hostility to England, and to provoke 
 us to enter on an armed conflict with the Afghans, the benevolent 
 aim of Russia being to lead us on to exhaust our strength in 
 what she hoped would be an endless and profitless struggle at 
 Cabul." This is mere conjecture ; we know little or nothing of 
 the real relations between Sher Ali and the Russian Mission, one 
 of the mischievous consequences of the withdrawal of the British 
 Agent at Cabul. We know that the Russian Mission was 
 detained a month on some pretext before it was permitted to 
 proceed through Afghan territory. The Amir declared he did 
 not, in the first instance, invite it. Lord Northbrook says '' that 
 he tried to prevent its going ; " but he gave it permission to come 
 on when he had no alternative. Its object, he said, was only to 
 exchange civilities. " He had no desire to give Russia a right of 
 way through his country." It was a source, no doubt, of embar- 
 rassment to him, and led to the postponement of the British 
 Mission, which it will be recollected he did not reject, but only 
 postponed. If, however, it was the " benevolent aim " of Russia 
 to involve us in war with the Afghans, she succeeded. One of 
 Napoleon's maxims in war was " never to do what the enemy 
 wished you to do, for this reason alone, that he desired it." 
 Lord Lytton seems to have acted on the contrary principle. This 
 Russian Mission of four or five Europeans, and a few Cossacks, 
 which Lord Beaconsfield admits was quite allowable, and which 
 was withdrawn immediately on a representation being made at 
 St. Petersburgh, fills Lord Lytton with alarm, and is the basis of
 
 65 
 
 the violent poKcy subsequently pursued towards tlie Amir. He 
 despatches an urgent telegram, dated the 2nd of August, to the 
 Secretary of State, announcing " his intention to insist on 
 reception of suitable British Mission at Cabul, that he did not 
 anticipate serious resistance, that to re-establish the preponderance 
 of British inflaence in Afghanistan was necessary for the safety of 
 India," that influence apparently, in the Viceroy's opinion, being 
 endangered by the temporary presence of a few Russian Officers 
 at Cabul. If such were the case the safety of India must indeed 
 rest on a very sandy foundation. Lord Metcalfe certainly did 
 say " that we were sitting on a barrel of gunpowder in India, and 
 never knew when it would explode ;" and again, "that we should 
 wake up some morning, and find that we had lost India." But 
 Lord Metcalfe pointed to danger from within, and not from 
 without. In reference to the present state of affairs, that eminent 
 Statesman made another striking remark. " Depend upon it," he 
 said, " the surest way to bring Russia down upon ourselves, is for 
 us to cross the Indus, and meddle with the countries beyond it." 
 
 Lord Lytton, ignoring alike the lessons of history and of past 
 experience, fixes his eyes on Russian machinations, and seems 
 blind to other contingencies. It is decided by the Yiceroy that 
 Sir Neville Chamberlain shall be deputed to Cabul, as British 
 Envoy, and Kawab Gholam Hussein Khan is directed to pro- 
 ceed in advance with a letter to the Amir. On the 17th of 
 August, AbduUa Jan, the heir apparent, dies; and a delay occurs 
 before the Mission can commence its journey. Meantime Lord 
 Lytton telegraphs to the Commissioner of Peshawur, to inform one 
 of the Amir's principal officers that the Mission will, in any case, 
 leave Peshawur about the 16th of September; that a refusal of 
 free passage and safe conduct will be considered " an act of open 
 hostihty." Nawab Gholam Hussein Khan reached Cabul on the 
 10th of September. He was well received on the journey, and 
 hospitably entertained on arrival. On the 12th he had an inter- 
 view with the Amir, and reported him to be very much displeased, 
 and as saying, "It is as if they were come by force. I do not 
 agree to the Mission coming in this manner. It is as if they wish 
 
 E
 
 66 
 
 to disgrace me. I am a friend, as before, and entertain no ill 
 will.'' If Mission advance now, " resistance anticipated." Again, 
 " that the Amir intimated that he would send for the Mission to 
 clear up mutual misunderstandings, provided there was no attempt 
 to force the Mission upon him without his consent being first 
 granted, according to usual custom, otherwise he would resist it, as 
 coming in such a manner would be a slight to him.""^ In a later 
 letter, dated Cabul, 15th September, Gholam Hussein states :— " If 
 Mission starts on 18th, without waiting for Amir's permission, 
 there would be no hope left for the renewal of friendship or recon- 
 ciliation."! On the 19th of September, Sir Neville Chamberlain 
 telegraphed to the Viceroy, that it was now quite evident that the 
 Amir was determined on asserting his claims to total independence 
 of action with regard to the Mission; but that he held out the 
 hope that hereafter he would receive it honourably. " Unless 
 your Lordship accepts this position, all chance of a peaceful solu- 
 tion seems to me gone." Under instructions from the Yiceroy, 
 the Mission moved out of Peshawur to Jumrood on the 21st of 
 September, and Major Cavagnari was sent forward with a small 
 escort in the direction of Ali Musjid, to demand a passage through 
 the Khyber from the commandant of the fort, Faiz Mahomed, 
 who declared that, without orders from the Amir, he could not 
 allow the Mission to pass his post, but " who from first to last," 
 Major Cavagnari writes, " behaved in a most courteous manner, 
 and very favourably impressed both, Colonel Jenkins and myself."| 
 Major Cavagnari asks, " Shall I make another attempt to- 
 morrow morning, and try to bring Faiz Mahomed to reason, or 
 make him fire upon us ?" Sir Neville Chamberlain does not wish 
 to push matters to this extremity, and returns to Peshawur, and 
 the Mission is dissolved. He writes in his report : — " The Mission 
 had failed ; it had been turned back at the threshold of the Amir's 
 dominions mth an afi'ront delivered before all the world." The 
 affront was the more pointed, as two scions of the noble families 
 of Tonk and Jeypore accompanied the Mission. But whose con- 
 duct led up to this afi'ront ? Was it not that of Lord Lytton ? He 
 knew well beforehand that the Mission would not be allowed to 
 
 *p. 243. 1243. J p. 249.
 
 67 
 
 pass without the Amir's previous consent, and he had every reason 
 to beHeve, also, that if he waited a short time that consent would 
 be obtained. 
 
 Eugene Schuyler says justly, with reference to the Khokhan- 
 dians, what apphes equally to the Afghans : — " Asiatics do not 
 practise common sense, which would forbid them to begin a strug- 
 gle disproportionate to their means/' With the overwhelming 
 strength of British power we could have afforded to wait. It was 
 as certain as anything could be that by hurrying matters we 
 should bring on a conflict, and that that conflict would entail the 
 shedding of blood — the blood of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 
 innocent persons, inhabiting the hills and valleys where their 
 forefathers had dwelt for ages in freedom, owning allegiance 
 neither to the Amir, nor to the British Government, nor to any- 
 one except to their own Chiefs. With our improved arms of pre- 
 cision, our mountain guns, and formidable field artillery, our 
 almost unlimited resources in men and money, there was no doubt 
 that we could coerce these wild, undisciplined mountaineers. We 
 could carry fire and sword throughout their homes ; and if we 
 chose, we could, as some have recommended, exterminate whole 
 tribes. But is such conduct worthy of a great Christian nation ? 
 Will it commend itself to the millions of Asiatics over whom we 
 rule in India ? Will it tend to allay the feehngs of dishke and 
 disafi'ection with which there is little reason to doubt, unfortu- 
 nately, that the larger portion of our Mohammedan subjects regard 
 British domination ? 
 
 There is a Hp service founded on fear, and there is a deeper 
 service of the heart based on justice, which all men in all 
 countries can reverence and appreciate. Sir Henry Eawlinson 
 writes : — " War with the Afghans is to be deprecated beyond all 
 other wars, because, however it may end, it will leave behind it a 
 heavy legacy of debt, and the hatred of a people who ought to 
 be our friends." Again : — " Our old blood feuds with the 
 Ghilzyes and Duranis will be revived and intensified, so that it 
 will be next to impossible to restore that mutual confidence, 
 which could alone warrant our placing in the hands of the
 
 68 
 
 Afghans the permanent defence of our extreme Northern 
 frontier." There are not only present evils, but the seeds of 
 future evil sown, to bring forth a plentiful harvest of trouble 
 hereafter. All this is done, according to the Viceroy's proclama- 
 tion, in order that " the British Government may find the best 
 security for its Indian frontier in the friendship of a State whose 
 independence it seeks to confirm." In the same strain Sir 
 Neville Chamberlain writes : — " The object of the Mission was to 
 promote peace, and to bring about, if it was possible, a return to 
 friendly and close relations with the Amir." 
 
 Surely all this talk of peace and friendship is a strange 
 perversion of language taken in connection with what was 
 evidently to be the result of the course Lord Lytton was pur- 
 suing. But to blame Lord Lytton is not to exculpate the Amir. 
 Everyone can see that Sher Ali behaved like a madman, and 
 hurried on to his own destruction. An individual may behave 
 badly when a quarrel is forced upon him, but if he is not the 
 aggressor, allowances are made for his conduct. In Sher All's 
 case, we have on the one side Christianity and a boasted higher 
 civiHzation, and on the other a half-civilized Ruler and a still 
 less civilized aggregate of ignorant and fanatical tribes, and quasi 
 independent Chiefs, on whose fitful support the Amir could place but 
 Httle reliance. *' Had there been no Hussian Mission at Cabul," 
 Sir Henry Eawlinson writes, " no indication of a desire on the 
 part of the Turkestan authorities to interfere in Indian poKtics, 
 we might have allowed the Amir to be sulky and grumbhng, and 
 even insolent, for the term of his natural life." 
 
 Here we have stated in plain and direct terms the real grounds 
 of our forward movement into Afghanistan. Sher Ali and the 
 Afghan nation were powerless by themselves to cause any anxiety 
 or alarm, unless backed by Russian troops and Russian resources. 
 
 Now it may be asked with confidence whether it was in the 
 smallest degree probable that Russia, at the close of an exhausting 
 war with a comparatively feeble antagonist, where her losses in 
 men and officers had been so great, and her expenditure so heavy, 
 would have been likely to provoke a fresh contest with one of the
 
 most powerful nations in tlie world. If the Russian Mission was 
 pregnant with disastrous consequences to India, as has been so 
 persistently affirmed, but which remains to be proved, we had 
 only to demand its withdrawal, and Russia would have acquiesced, 
 as in fact she did acquiesce. We could have then dealt with 
 Sher Ali at our leisure. Lord Lytton's course of action had no 
 doubt complicated the question, alarmed the Amir, and thrown 
 obstacles in the way of friendly negotiations. But with the dis- 
 appearance of the Russian Mission the greatest difficulty would 
 have been removed. Sher Ali declared that on the departure 
 of the Russians he would receive the British Mission, and he 
 might have been persuaded to meet the Yiceroy at Peshawur, or 
 elsewhere, where by an interchange of friendly courtesies, as at 
 UmbaUa in 1869, a better state of feehng might have been 
 brought about. But to effect this, the obnoxious condition of 
 stationing British officers in Afghan territory must have been 
 withdrawn. This, however, was a cardinal point in the policy of 
 Lord Salisbury and Lord Lytton to be forced on Sher Ali at aU 
 hazards, and on the Afghan people, who were more averse to this 
 measure than Sher Ali himself. We find, at page 367 of M. 
 Ferrier's " Caravan Journeys," a narrative of the risk he ran at 
 Candahar, though under the protection of Kohundil Khan, a 
 brother of Dost Mahomed, then Ruler of that city. The people 
 were dying of cholera. One of the TJlemas declared that "while 
 Candahar was sullied by the presence of an infidel, the enemy of 
 God and man, there would be no cessation of their affliction." 
 M. Ferrier's house was besieged for three days ; Kohundil Khan 
 himself was obhged to take refuge in the citadel until a rein- 
 forcement of troops arrived and put an end to the insurrection. 
 The same spirit of fanaticism stiU exercises unbounded sway 
 over the large majority of the Afghan population, and though, 
 under the coercive influence of a British force, it may be quiescent 
 for a time, any favourable opportunity would bring its dormant 
 elements into dangerous activity. 
 
 On the dissolution of Sir NeviUe Chamberlain's Mission, Lord 
 Lytton directed the assemblage of troops, with a view to early
 
 70 
 
 ulterior operations. Shortly afterwards the answer of the Amir, 
 dated 6th October, to the Viceroy's letter, conveyed by Nawab 
 Gholam Hussein, was received. This answer of Sher Ali was 
 couched in a tone of indignant remonstrance, complaining of 
 letters transmitted to the Cabul Officials by the Commissioner of 
 Peshawur, and of the harsh and breathless haste of the pro- 
 ceedings of Lord Lytton, but it was neither defiant nor insulting. 
 The Viceroy, however, considered it as conveying a direct chal- 
 lenge, and would have immediately commenced hostihties. 
 
 Lord Canning's reluctance to enter upon warlike operations 
 against Persia forms a marked contrast to Lord Lytton' s precipi- 
 tancy in hurrying on a collision with the Amir. Lord Canning 
 writes to Mr. Vernon Smith, April 22nd, 1856 : — " Do not be 
 afraid of my being unduly hasty to punish Persia. Unless the 
 Shah should steam up the Hooghly with Murray swinging at his 
 yard arm, I hope that we shall be able to keep the peace until 
 your instructions arrive." Lord Lytton sent a telegram to the 
 Secretary of State counselling instant action, but her Majesty's 
 Government very properly determined to make another effort to 
 avert the calamities of war, and the Viceroy was directed, before 
 crossing the frontier into Afghanistan, to demand an apology from 
 Sher Ali in temperate language. Unfortunately the Ultimatum 
 was not drawn up in a conciliatory tone, the acceptance of a 
 permanent British Mission was still insisted upon, and a very few 
 days were allowed for the Amir to make up his mind. Sher Ali 
 returned no answer to the Ultimatum within the appointed time, 
 the 20th of November, and on the 21st of that month the 
 Viceroy issued his Proclamation of War. On the same day the 
 British troops advanced and, as was to be expected, complete success 
 crowned their operations. In spite of advantages of position, and 
 the great natural obstacles of the country, the Afghan undisci- 
 phned tribes have always succumbed easily to the valour and 
 discipline of a British force when well handled, and have never 
 made any determined resistance like the Goorkahs or Sikhs, or 
 even the Rajpoot and Mahratta armies. Many of the Afghans 
 are individually brave, but they have no cohesion, no trust in
 
 71 
 
 their leaders, who possess little military capacity. Each Afghan 
 fights for his own hand, and they have always proved themselves 
 contemptible enemies when they have been met in the open plains. 
 
 The Cabul catastrophe casts a dark shadow over past cam- 
 paigns in Afghanistan ; our constant easy victories during years 
 of warfare faded out of sight, and Afghan prowess was much 
 exaggerated. Sir WiUiam Nott wrote : — " The Army at Candahar 
 has defeated the enemy in some sixteen actions, tranquillized the 
 whole country, made every Afghan bend the knee, never met with 
 a reverse, however outnumbered by the enemy." * It must be 
 recollected also, in Sir Wm. Nott's days, the range of the British 
 musket in the hands of the Sepoy was inferior to that of the 
 Afghan weapon (the Jezail). It is a very different matter at the 
 present time, when the superiority of our arms of precision gives 
 us an immense advantage. 
 
 Any danger from an invasion of India by Afghans, which 
 has been held up by some as a reason for an advance of frontier, 
 may be dismissed as undeserving of serious consideration. Sir 
 Henry Rawlinson tells us that " Aryans, Greeks and Scythians, 
 Turks, Persians and Afghans, have, at different periods of history, 
 swept down upon India, and that it has never been found possible 
 to arrest the progress of the invader before he crossed the Indus." 
 Sir Henry does not add, what is an important element in the cal- 
 culation, that invaders of the present day would have to meet a 
 very different enemy to those of former periods of history — a 
 well-disciplined, well-equipped British army, composed of as fine 
 troops as any in the world, and furnished with the latest arms of 
 precision, and any amount of artillery and munitions of war. 
 These troops, led by ofScers of the highest professional skill and 
 capacity, acting under a strong united Government, abounding in 
 all the resources that vast wealth can provide, in complete con- 
 trast to the Governments that existed at the time of successful 
 invasions of India, which were, without exception, weak, corrupt, 
 and divided amongst themselves, with traitors in their camps and 
 Councils, who looked more to their own interests than to the defence 
 
 of their country. 
 
 " Sir W. Nott's Life," Vol. II., p. 66.
 
 72 
 
 In 1868, Sir Henry Eawlinson drew " an alarming picture of 
 50,000 Persian Sirbaz, supported by a Russian column, and 
 hinted that it might be successful, owing to the prevalent dis- 
 affection of the Mohammedan population of India." In like 
 manner, quite recently, he brings to notice the rumoured project of 
 the Russian Minister of War to transfer bodily across the Caspian 
 to Asterabad the army of the Caucasus for an attack on Herat ; 
 but in subsequent paragraphs he demolishes this scheme, " as all 
 the Yolga steamers would be quite insufficient to move 70,000 
 men," and, " without the co-operation of Persia, which could not 
 be relied on, neither carriage nor provisions could be obtained for 
 the march through Khorasan." If these important elements for 
 the success of an invading army would not be available in 
 Khorasan, the want of them v^rould be likely to be still more 
 felt in Afghanistan, where, as Sir Henry Lawrence wrote in 
 1856, " a large army would be starved in a week." In 
 reference to Sir Richard Temple's statement of Mohammedan 
 disaffection in India, Sir Henry Rawlinson characterizes the 
 language used as " alarmist in tone, and exaggerated in sub- 
 stance." Many persons will be inclined to think that the threat- 
 ened danger of 50,000 Persian Sirbaz in 1868, and of 70,000 
 Russians in 1878, may well be classed in the same category. 
 
 The immeasurable superiority of the power of the British Empire, 
 compared with the petty disorganized kingdom of Cabul, is beyond 
 dispute. When the season permits of a renewal of warlike opera- 
 tions, if the Afghans have not previously submitted, at more or 
 less cost of life and money, according to circumstances, it is clear 
 that we can overrun, and, if we choose, subjugate the country. 
 But, as the Duke of Wellington said in reference to the cam- 
 paign of 1839, "our difSculties will commence where our military 
 successes end." The important question then arises. What do we 
 intend to do ? Has the Government any fixed policy, or is it 
 drifting along, the creature of circumstances, to find itself, at no 
 very distant period, saddled with responsibilities political and 
 financial, which, at the outset, never entered into its calculation, 
 and which may prov^e disastrous to the welfare and prosperity of
 
 73 
 
 our Indian Empire ? Lord Wellesley always spoke contemptu- 
 ously of the folly of occupying a land of " rocks, sands, deserts, 
 ice, and snow." Is this what Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Lytton 
 have in contemplation ? Lord Lytton states in his Proclamation 
 that "with the Sirdars and people of Afghanistan this Govern- 
 ment has still no quarrel, and desires none. They are absolved 
 from all responsibility from the recent acts of the Amir, and as 
 they have given no offence, so the British Government, wishing 
 to respect their independence, will not willingly injure or interfere 
 with them." General Roberts's announcement that the districts 
 occupied by his troops are henceforth to be considered British 
 territory is scarcely in accordance with the Proclamation of the 
 Viceroy ; but how far this apparent pledge of annexation commits 
 the Government remains to be seen. Sher Ali has fled from 
 Cabul, whether, like Dost Mahomed, to appear again upon the 
 scene, time will show. Lord Northbrook's Government tells us 
 in their despatch of 28th January, 1876, " there can be no ques- 
 tion that the power of Amir Sher Ali Khan has been consolidated 
 throughout Afghanistan in a manner unknown since the days of 
 Dost Mahomed. jSTowhere has intrigue or rebellion been able to 
 make head in the Amir's dominions." 
 
 It was foreseen by those acquainted with Afghan politics that 
 our advance into Afghanistan would shatter the Government. Our 
 object was to have a strong and friendly State upon our Xorth- 
 Westem frontier. The first result of our present policy is to weaken 
 and disintegrate the cohesion, which, for the last ten years, had been 
 assuming a more permanent fi)rm, and to let loose the elements of 
 disorder, which have so generally prevailed in Afghanistan. Besides 
 breaking up their Government, we have made the Afghans our 
 enemies. As long as they believed that we had no intention of 
 annexing any territory beyond the passes, they would have felt more 
 fear of Russia than of ourselves. Our advance to Quettah alarmed 
 them, and our present proceedings will have confirmed them in the 
 view that it is our determination eventually to occupy their country. 
 This is not a good foundation for a safe frontier. We desire to 
 raise up a barrier against Russian intrigues. There could not have
 
 74 
 
 been a better barrier than Afghan jealousy of interference and 
 love of independence : all those feelings are now enlisted against 
 us, and on the side of Russia. We may build fortresses at great 
 cost, but unless we hold the country in strength, with a hostile 
 population, our posts would be always in danger, and useless for 
 the purpose for which we profess to advance them. And to what 
 point are we to advance ? A recent writer in i\iQ Quarterly Review, 
 evidently master of the subject, sketches out what we may have 
 to do : — " It might be necessary to take up strong and command- 
 ing positions in front at Mymeneh, at B ami an, and on the river 
 of Badakshan, so as to overawe Turkestan, and compel the Rus- 
 sians to act on the defensive rather than the offensive." 
 
 If we contemplate the relative distances of Mymeneh, Bamian, 
 and the river of Badakshan, how far removed they all are from 
 our base, how great the difficulties must be of obtaining sup- 
 plies, how vast the expense of maintaining garrisons in these 
 remote provinces, and, after all, how inadequate such precautions 
 must prove to overawe Turkestan, the British Government may 
 weU pause before it embarks upon such a crusade. Moreover, 
 should these advanced posts be really threatened by Russia, rein- 
 forcements must be hurried up at all hazards, stores of all kinds, 
 especially munitions of war, must be transported at enormous cost. 
 Major Wood states that every round shot brought to Central Asia 
 by the Russians is computed to have cost nearly two pounds ster- 
 ling in transport. The difficulties of obtaining carriage and sup- 
 plies for the convoys, regular communication with the rear being 
 certain to be interrupted, would be almost insurmountable. 
 
 Those who are opposed to the present advance into Afghanis- 
 tan do not believe in the wisdom of a policy that would seek to 
 overawe Turkestan. They do not consider that Russia has either 
 the power or the resources to undertake so gigantic an enterprise 
 as a hostile invasion of India. Her hold on Central Asia requires 
 consolidation. She has overrun rapidly a vast extent of territory 
 sparsely inhabited, the inhabitants being chiefly nomad hordes 
 — poor, fanatical, as hkely as not to break out into insurrection 
 should a favourable opportunity occur. India does not afford us
 
 75 
 
 35 secure a base of military operations as we could wish, but it is 
 much more secure than Turkestan to the Eussians ; and all the 
 resources of the British Empire are nearer and more easily avail- 
 able on the banks of the Indus than the resources of Eussia on 
 the banks of the Oxus. Mr. Schuyler tells us '' that the revenues 
 of Central Asia are insufB.cient to meet the expenses of adminis- 
 tration, more and more taxes are demanded, and since the 
 occupation of the country by the Russians, the condition of the 
 population has not only not grown better, but on the contrary is 
 every day getting worse and worse." 
 
 We may put aside any prospect of present danger from Russia, 
 but it is said we must provide for the future. We must convert a 
 haphazard into a scientific frontier. Until lately this so-called 
 haphazard frontier was considered the best adapted for our security 
 by the highest military authorities. At the present moment, it is 
 believed that the preponderance of military authority is against 
 an advance of frontier, even on purely strategical grounds. Ad- 
 mitting, however, that there may be a question on this point, as 
 there are doubtless names of great weight on either side, there 
 can be no question of the political and financial disadvantages 
 that must result from a further extension of our Indian territories. 
 These disadvantages, will, of course, prove of greater or less mag- 
 nitude, according to the final arrangements made by Her Majesty's 
 Government for the settlement of Afghanistan. If we are 
 moderate in our demands, and forbearing in our hour of triumph, 
 we may yet limit our responsibilities, and spare India a financial 
 burden she is ill fitted to support. If, on the contrary, the easy 
 success which has hitherto attended our arms becomes a 
 snare and a delusion to lead us on to the permanent 
 occupation of Afghan territory, and to direct intervention in 
 the fathomless gulf of Afghan politics, the wisest Statesman 
 may be at fault in rightly estimating future difficulties. 
 Prominent among these difficulties is the establishment of 
 satisfactory relations with the independent Afghan tribes 
 inhabiting the mountain ranges between our present border, 
 and the country owing allegiance to the Amir of Afghanistan.
 
 76 
 
 These tribes have enjoyed their independence for hundreds of 
 years ; strong in their mountain fastnesses, inured to arms from 
 their youth upwards, their hand against every man, and every 
 man's hand against them, they cHng \Ndth tenacity to their 
 republican institutions, and have never bowed their necks to any 
 settled government. They were a thorn in the side of the Mogul 
 Emperors, and on several occasions inflicted severe defeats on 
 armies sent against them. 
 
 In a night attack, for which the Afghans have always been 
 famous, the Eusofzyes killed Bir Bal, one of Akber's favourite 
 Generals, and destroyed many thousands of his troops. Mr. 
 Elphinstone writes : — " They were never more formidable than in 
 the reign of Aurungzebe ; they resisted repeated attacks from the 
 Kings of Persia and Cabul, and retain their turbulent independence 
 undiminished to the present day." When E-unjeet Sing pushed 
 his dominions beyond the Indus, these tribes carried on an i'nter- 
 necine war with the Sikhs, who vainly strove to coerce them, by 
 building forts, and punishing them with Draconian severity. 
 General Avitabile, Governor of Peshawur, dared not leave his 
 capital, except accompanied by a large force. On the annexation 
 of the Punjab the country afSicted with this chronic state of dis- 
 order passed under our rule, and ever since it has been the endea- 
 vour of the British Government to place our relations with these 
 border tribes on a better footing. Progress in this work of concilia- 
 tion and improvement has been necessarily slow ; the habits of 
 centuries are not overcome in a few years, and the administrative 
 exigencies of a vast Empire are so various and extensive that 
 attention could not be concentrated on one corner of our territories, 
 so as to produce very rapid effects. But all acquainted with the 
 subject will admit that very tangible results had been produced, 
 the chief dif&culties had been overcome, and greater results would 
 have followed. Now, however, we are to commence afresh on a 
 new course of action, we are to take all the passes into our own 
 hands, and keep down by force of arms tens of thousands of these 
 warlike and independent mountaineers. With this object we are 
 to place isolated posts in exposed positions, where they will have
 
 77 
 
 enough to do to take care of themselves, and will exercise little or 
 no influence over the mountain fastnesses on every side of them, 
 from whence the predatory tribes will have the opportunity of 
 issuing forth to plunder convoys which must be continually passing 
 to and fro to supply the garrisons. 
 
 While these tribes were in front of us, we could always meet 
 them at an advantage, when they ventured into the plains. We 
 generally had timely notice of their approach, and could collect a 
 sufficient force to preclude the chance of any untoward accident ; 
 but with an immensely extended area of operations, it will be 
 more difficult to use the same precautions, and to provide against 
 aU contingencies. Although they owned no allegiance to the 
 Amir of Cabul, and set his authority at defiance whenever it 
 suited their purpose, plundering the baggage of Dost Mahomed 
 and Sher AH, as they plundered the property of every one who 
 trespassed on their confines whenever they saw an opening, still 
 the rulers of Afghanistan had a certain amount of influence, 
 which when exerted in favour of peace and order was not 
 without its value. In rendering the Afghans hostile to us we 
 add another disturbing element to the task of conciHating the 
 tribes and pacifying the frontier, and also another element of 
 discontent with our rule, which may prove contagious at a 
 moment when we are least prepared with means of repression. 
 The native army, reorganized since the mutiny, contains within 
 its ranks a larger proportion of Mohammedan soldiers, many of 
 them enhsted from the tribes on the frontier. When stationed 
 amongst their own native hills, and employed to coerce their own 
 countrymen, the loyalty of these troops will be put to a test to 
 which in its full extent it has not hitherto been subjected, and 
 which is not without danger. Twenty years ago we passed 
 through a tremendous ordeal, and through God's mercy emerged 
 from it triumphantly. What has happened may happen again. If 
 at that period large bodies of our troops had been stationed in 
 forts and garrisons far distant beyond the passes in Afghanistan, 
 it may be left to any reasonable person to determine whether our 
 difficulties would not have been greatly increased.
 
 78 
 
 WMe there is danger in tliis respect, on the other hand service 
 in Afghanistan will always be unpopular with natives of Hindostan 
 of all castes and classes. The Sikhs and Goorkhas will view with 
 inveterate dislike any prolonged residence at such a distance from 
 their homes, which involves separation from their wives and 
 families, in an uncongenial climate where all the necessaries of 
 life are so expensive. The Goorkhas are especially sensitive in 
 regard to separation from their families. If the service in 
 Afghanistan is distasteful to native troops, much more so must it 
 prove to the numerous class of camp followers so essential in 
 India to the well-being and efficiency of an army in the field. 
 The sufierings of these poor creatures in our last advance to Cabul 
 and in the disastrous retreat were dreadful, and if rumour speaks 
 truly, the heaviest burden has also fallen upon them in the present 
 campaign. 
 
 All these causes of future embarrassment and difficulty 
 connected with an advance of frontier are overlooked by 
 many persons who have neither the time nor the opportunity 
 to study this important question. In the lapse of years 
 the lessons of the former war in Afghanistan have been 
 forgotten by the people of England, but its baneful eflTects have 
 left a deep impression on the minds of the people of 
 India. This impression is not Hkely to be efi'aced, or to conduce 
 to their contentment, when, according to the decision of Her 
 Majesty's Government, they are called upon to pay additional 
 taxes in order to defray the expenses of the present war. At the 
 time Lord Canning was leaving India, Raja Dinkur Rao wrote a 
 memorandum for him, full of suggestive remarks, from a native 
 point of view, as to the policy the British Government should 
 pursue towards its native subjects. He says : — " To every Govern- 
 ment the foundations of security are twofold — 1st, the strength of 
 the army ; 2nd, the contentment of its subjects. Both these are 
 essential. Then after enumerating the benefits conferred upon 
 India by British rule, he writes : — " While all these things are 
 before the subjects in favour of a Government which does so 
 much for their comfort, they are still greatly dissatisfied with the 
 severity of some of the regulations which are against their
 
 79 
 
 customs, and with various kinds of stamp duties and taxes, almost 
 all classes are very mucli bewildered from being harassed in all 
 the ordinary occupations of their lives. By this means the people 
 have forgotten the goodness of the British Government, the love 
 which they once entertained for it, and have begun to prefer the 
 tyranny of Native Princes." He goes on to complain of the 
 income tax, the license tax, and the heavier salt tax, as especially 
 obnoxious to the people, and adding to causes of former discontent. 
 All those acquainted with India are aware that increased taxation 
 becomes more and more dangerous to the tranquilhty of the 
 country. Several of the distinguished Statesmen who have filled 
 the high oflB.ce of Viceroy have brought this subject, of late years, 
 to the notice of the Home Authorities in forcible language. Owing 
 to the recurrence of famines, the depreciation of silver, the general 
 depression of trade, and other causes, India, at the present 
 moment, is less able than ever to support additional financial bur- 
 dens, and the cost of an unnecessary war is not likely to render 
 them more palatable to native opinion. What would entail a very 
 light pressure on England might prove of serious moment in India. 
 Lord Salisbury has himself stated : — " The difiference between 
 England and India in matters of finance is this, that in England 
 you can raise a large increase of taxation without in the least 
 degree endangering our institutions, whereas you cannot do so in 
 India." According to a statement in ParKament by the Under 
 Secretary of State for India, based upon a calculation made by the 
 Indian Government as to what the war was hkely to cost, the 
 expenditure to be incurred within the present financial year, which 
 closes on the 31st of March, 1879, was put down at £950,000. 
 And as there is an estimated surplus of £1,550,000, the Secretary 
 of State adds: — "It must be perfectly obvious that the Indian 
 Government could pay the whole cost of the war during the pre- 
 sent year without adding a shilling to the taxation or the debt of 
 the country." 
 
 It may be observed that the gist of the matter is not what may 
 be actually expended from the Treasury on the war up to the 31st 
 of March, but what wiU be the whole expenditui-e by the time the
 
 80 
 
 war is brought to a conclusion. It is to be hoped that the san- 
 guine expectations of the Government may be realized, but those 
 who recollect the expenditure incurred in the last war in Afghan- 
 istan may be permitted to express a doubt upon this vital point. 
 
 From the published Parliamentary papers, it appeared there 
 were ten millions of accumulated surplus in the various treasuries 
 of India, when the war in 1839 began. Not only was this entirely 
 expended by the end of the year 1841, but a loan of five millions 
 had to be raised at an unusually high rate of interest. Sir Eobert 
 Peel stated in Parhament, on the 23rd June, 1842, that there had 
 been a surplus revenue, just before the commencement of the war, 
 of a million and a half, which, in 1840-41, was converted into a 
 deficit of £2,324,000. In his letter to Lord Aberdeen, of Sep- 
 tember 1841, Sir Henry Willock stated that so severely were the 
 finances of Calcutta pressed, that a stoppage of payment at Fort 
 "William was at one time contemplated by the Supreme Council. 
 
 On the 6th April, 1842, the Court of Directors brought to 
 the notice of the President of the Board of Control, that the 
 Government of India had intimated their intention '' to discon- 
 tinue their remittances for the supply of the Home Treasury, by 
 means of advances upon goods hypothecated to the Court. The 
 Local Government have been compelled to adopt this course by 
 their financial difiiculties, which have been wholly caused by the 
 expensive operations in which they have been engaged beyond the 
 Indus." 
 
 The total military expenditure of India, during the five years 
 ending with 1837-38, amounted to a little more than thirty-eight 
 millions sterling; in the following five years it exceeded forty- 
 eight milhons. It was affirmed, on good authority, that nearly a 
 miUion sterling was expended on camels alone — 70,000 of these 
 animals were reported to have perished during the campaign. 
 The loss of horses also was very great. Major Hough states that 
 in one day it was requisite to shoot fifty-three horses. Want of 
 forage for the cattle, and want of provisions for the troops and 
 followers, characterized the former advance into Afghanistan. It 
 is well known that in many parts of the country the population
 
 81 
 
 itself is constantly in a state of semi-starvation. There is no 
 reason to believe that the productiveness of Afghanistan has 
 increased of late years, but, on the contrary, that it has diminished. 
 What must, therefore, be the difficulty and expense of procuring 
 supplies for men and cattle during a long campaign? British 
 energy, and a lavish expenditure of money will, no doubt, over- 
 come these difficulties; but all this Avill contribute to swell the cost 
 of the war, and lead to further embarrassments. 
 
 Sir James Outram writes, in his rough notes, on 29th April, 
 1839 : — '' The army is in great distress for want of provisions, six 
 days' supplies only remain in the Commissariat stores, and 
 the merchants of Candahar, who profess to have nothing in 
 reserve, retail wheat flour in small quantities, at the rate of two 
 seers (4 lbs.) the rupee, everything else being proportionately dear." 
 Again: — "Provisions are daily becoming scarcer, and more dear, 
 and flour has actually attained the exorbitant rate of a single seer 
 for the rupee, a price which is, of course, quite beyond the 
 means of our impoverished followers. Xo grain has as yet been 
 obtained hr the horses." " The effects of the unwholesome food 
 which the wretched followers have been obliged to consume, is 
 everywhere painfully manifest." 
 
 He had previously written: — "The followers of the army 
 were compelled to eke out their subsistence by picking up 
 weeds." Subsequently the followers received their rations from 
 the Commissariat in the same manner as the native troops, a very 
 merciful measure; but the enormous expense entailed upon the 
 Government by such a concession, with provisions at famine prices, 
 may well be imagined. The effect of the exorbitant price of food 
 of all descriptions, and the consequent increased scarcity, must 
 have been to inflict great hardship and suffering on the poorer 
 classes of the population of the country, and on classes with fixed 
 stipends ; and Sir William Macnaghten states that this was one of 
 the causes of British unpopularity. In the present campaign it 
 is believed that the native troops who have crossed the frontier 
 receive rations from the Commissariat, as in the previous war. 
 When it is recollected that the number of troops in the three
 
 82 
 
 armies now employed exceeds those sent forward on tlie former 
 invasion of Afghanistan, some idea may be formed of the expendi- 
 ture likely to be incurred. In order to reduce this expenditure to 
 the lowest point, Lord Lytton has not shrunk from the risk of 
 denuding India of its garrisons, resorting to the questionable 
 expedient of being indebted to Native Princes for contingents of 
 troops to fill their places. Lord Dalhousie, in his minute of 28th 
 February, 1856, observed : — "ISTo prudent man who has any know- 
 ledge of Eastern affairs, would ever venture to predict the main- 
 tenance of continued peace within our Eastern possessions. 
 Experience — frequent, hard, and recent experience — has taught us 
 that war from without, or rebellion from within, may at any time 
 be raised against us, in quarters where they were the least to be 
 expected, and by the most feeble and unlikely instruments." 
 
 As far as can be ascertained, we have now seventeen regiments 
 of British cavalry and infantry, and thirty-eight regiments of 
 native cavalry and infantry, and about twenty-five batteries of 
 artillery employed in Afghanistan, or on the very confines of our 
 North- West frontier, in support of the troops in advance. In order 
 to replace this large portion of the garrison of India, two 
 regiments of British infantry, which were to have come home, 
 have been detained, and fifteen thousand recruits have been added 
 to the native army. If trouble should arise in the interior, or at 
 the other extremity of our dominions, the Government might find 
 itself in a dilemma to provide troops to meet the emergency. By 
 the proposed advance of frontier, we multiply greatly the chances 
 of collision both from within and from without, and impose upon 
 India the absolute necessity of paying for a larger proportion of 
 European troops, as any force stationed in Afghanistan must be 
 chiefly composed of British regiments. On a very moderate 
 estimate, even the occupation of posts above the passes would 
 entail an additional burden on the revenues of India of more 
 than a million sterling a year ; and, in the event of a further 
 advance, which would most probably occur, enhanced expendi- 
 ture would of course follow. The want of means has been the 
 real reason why important works connected with the strengthen-
 
 83 
 
 ing of our North-Western frontier, whicli have been for a series of 
 years recommended by the highest military authorities, have not 
 been executed. The completion of our railway communication to 
 Peshawur, the construction of bridges across the Indus, the 
 erection of fortifications in suitable positions, have all been con- 
 stantly before the Government, and only delayed from financial 
 considerations. These works relate only to the frontier ; but how 
 many undertakings of the highest utility throughout India are 
 obhged to be indefinitely postponed from the same cause? Already, 
 at the very outset of the present war, the local Governments have 
 been compelled to issue resolutions suspending the execution of 
 aU pubhc works and grants of money until the state of the 
 finances will permit of sanction being accorded. 
 
 To use the words of Lord Sandhurst, " it cannot be too often 
 repeated that the occupation of Afghanistan, on account of the 
 financial diflB.cult}^, is the stoppage of progress in India." Her 
 Majesty's Government, it is but fair to conclude, have an equal 
 interest with previous Governments in the welfare and prosperity 
 of India, and in undertaking the grave responsibility of an advance 
 into Afghanistan, they must beHeve that such a step is impera- 
 tively necessary for the safety of our Eastern dominions. But they 
 cannot be blind to the impoverished state of India, nor to the 
 political risks to be incurred by any attempt to impose additional 
 taxation. They must therefore desire, as much as the strongest 
 opponents of their present policy, to reduce to a minimum the 
 burden about to be thrown on the Indian finances. It is clear 
 that, however costly the expenditure incurred in the advance into 
 Afghanistan, the permanent occupation of the country will entail 
 a far heavier pressure upon the revenues of India ; those revenues, 
 according to Sir John Strachey, possessing " no true surplus o\'er 
 expenditure to cover the many contingencies to which a great 
 country is exposed." What, then, is the course to be pursued ? 
 What is the solution of the present dif&cult conjuncture of afi'airs, 
 which is likely to be attended with the fewest political responsi- 
 bilities, and the smallest probable future expenditure ? 
 
 It must be admitted that the dif&culties to be surmounted are
 
 84 
 
 very great, aud depend to a certain extent upon contingencies not 
 to be foreseen. The beginning of strife is as wben one letteth 
 out water, the end is often beyond our own control. The first 
 thing to be achieved is to bring the war to an honourable con- 
 clusion. The brilliant success that has attended the operations 
 already undertaken bear ample witness to the gallantry and 
 endurance of our troops, and to the promptitude, skill, and judg- 
 ment of the generals in command. Whatever our armies may be 
 called upon to perform, it is quite certain they will do their duty 
 with the same valour and efficiency which they have always 
 shown in all previous campaigns in every quarter of the globe. 
 Peace, therefore, will be secured, either by an early submission of 
 the Afghan leaders, or, after a short delay, as soon as the season 
 permits of warlike movements. Hostilities being ended, and our 
 power vindicated, the grand feature of our policy should be 
 moderation in our demands. 
 
 Lord Lytton has proclaimed to the world that "with the 
 Sirdars and people of Afghanistan the British Government has 
 no quarrel, and desires none ; " and that " it will respect their 
 independence." Let us act up to this declaration by insisting 
 upon nothing that will wound the national feeling, and thus tend 
 to keep alive a spirit of bitterness, and sow the seeds of future 
 dissension. Meanwhile, now is the time to place our relations 
 with Russia, in regard to these countries, upon a permanent and 
 definite footing. We have hitherto never gone to the root of this 
 great question with Russia, we have dealt with things on the 
 surface in a vague undecided . manner. Mr. Schuyler, who, it 
 may be observed, is perhaps not wholly impartial, but whose 
 opinion nevertheless carries weight, writes : — " The attitude of 
 England towards Russia, with regard to Central Asia, can hardly 
 be called a dignified one. There are constant questions, protests, 
 demands for explanation, and even threats, at least in the 
 newspapers, but nothing is ever done." Subsequently to the 
 understanding entered into at the period of Mr. Gladstone's 
 administration, Russia certainly endeavoured to fasten upon 
 England the responsibility of controlling Sher AH, but this was
 
 85 
 
 entirely repudiated by Mr. Gladstone in his important speech of 
 23rd April, 1873. iiussia then let it be understood that, if 
 England had preserved her freedom of action, Russia had done 
 the same. Again, Mr. Schuyler writes, evidently speaking from 
 a Russian point of viev/ : — " Unless some new arrangement 
 should be made, Russia has a perfect right, in case of troubles on 
 the Oxus, to cross it and inflict punishment on tiie troops and 
 provinces of Sher Ali." A new arrangement should undoubtedly 
 be made between the two Governments, not a mere understanding, 
 but a binding engagement. In order, however, that negotiations 
 should have the best prospect of a happy termination, England 
 should bear in mind the advice of a friendly French Minister 
 (quoted by Sir Charles Dilke in a recent speech): — "It is of the 
 most essential importance that the English Government should 
 avoid, both in attitude and in language, everything in the least 
 like arrogance.'' We should approach the discussion of this 
 important question in no spirit of dictation nor of jealous rivalry, 
 but on the footing of the perfect equality which belongs to two 
 of the greatest nations in the world. We require nothing more 
 from Russia than that she should enter into permanent and 
 definite engagements, in accordance with her former assurances, 
 with regard to Afghanistan, we on our part binding ourselves 
 to respect the integrity and independence of the Afghan kingdom, 
 and to abstain from all interference with the affairs of Central 
 Asia beyond the Oxus. We should also undertake to exercise 
 our influence to prevent the Ruler of Afghanistan from giving 
 offence to Russia, or embroiling himself with his neighbours, and 
 we should seek no commercial advantages to the prejudice of 
 Russia. It is so much to the interest of both countries that such 
 an engagement should exist that it is difficult to imagine that 
 any serious obstacle could arise to prevent its conclusion. 
 
 We proceed, then, to deal with Afghanistan. Weighty 
 arguments have been put forward by the highest military 
 authorities against any advance of frontier in that direction. 
 General Sir Henr}^ Norman, himself a high authority, writes in a 
 recent number of the Fortnightly Revieiv : — *' While many opinions
 
 86 
 
 have been given as to the folly of advancing our frontier, it 
 seems an undoubted fact that no opposite opinion ever was 
 expressed by any of the able Governors-General who have held 
 sway in India up to the arrival of Lord Lytton, by any Com- 
 mander-in-Chief in India, by any Lieutenant-Governor of the 
 Pimjab, the officer through whom, imtil 1876, all Cabul affairs 
 used to be transacted, or by any member of the Supreme Council, 
 before which all important questions affecting the Indian Empire 
 come. Many officers in these positions have left on record the 
 strongest possible objections to a forward movement except as an 
 operation of war.'' In reference to the occupation of any post 
 beyond the Khyber, General Hamley writes: — "There is much 
 to be said against it, nothing for it. It would be a source not of 
 strength but of weakness." He then goes on to say on the 
 question of meeting danger from invasion : — " I should feel con- 
 fident of the result even in the Valley of the Indus, I think our 
 position vastly improved by the occupation of Quettah, but I 
 should think it all we could desire if we occupied Candahar." 
 There is no doubt that Candahar, converted into a strong fortress, 
 and held by an adequate garrison of British troops, would prove 
 a formidable obstacle to an invading army. Its situation in the 
 most fertile portion of Afghanistan, commanding the three roads 
 to India, offers great advantages in a purely military point of 
 view. But cogent political and financial reasons forbid the 
 extension of our frontier, and enjoin the preservation, if possible, 
 of an independent Afghan Kingdom intermediately between our 
 own boundary and that of the Russian possessions in Central 
 Asia. It is a subject of regret that we advanced to Quettah, 
 more particularly without the consent of the Amir, who, if 
 properly approached in the first instance might have acceded to 
 our wishes ; but having done so, and having, under treaty with the 
 Khan of Khelat, an undeniable right to locate troops in his 
 territories, it may not be advisable that we should withdraw from 
 a position of strategical importance, both with reference to the 
 control of the Afghans and Belooches and to ulterior contingen- 
 cies. Whether the town of Quettah itself in respect to salubrity
 
 87 
 
 and other considerations fulfils all the conditions needed to render 
 it the most eligible position we could occupy can only be deter- 
 mined by competent professional advisers on the spot. If not, 
 there could doubtless be found in its vicinity some other locality 
 where a large entrenched camp could be formed, which, held in 
 strength, would secure all the required objects defensive and 
 offensive. Our first duty should be to complete the communica- 
 tions with our base, including the railroad to Dadur, and a bridge 
 across the Indus at Sukkur, with posts in support of adequate 
 strength along the Kne to the rear. 
 
 These works, essential on military grounds, would be highly 
 beneficial also commercially. Our domination of the Bolan and 
 the other passes near at hand, and our necessarily more intimate 
 connection with the countries beyond, by rendering traffic more 
 secure, and by guaranteeing freedom from vexatious imposts and 
 restrictions, would give a great impulse to trade. Amongst 
 the measures to be taken on the cessation of hostilities, and the 
 renewal of relations with the Ruler of Afghanistan, there should 
 be an arrangement for placing British commercial interests on a 
 proper footing, and for protecting them against any hostile tariffs 
 or immoderate transit duties. In the absence of official infor- 
 mation it is difficult to determine how far the Government is 
 committed to annexation by the reported announcement of General 
 Roberts that the inhabitants of the Khost and Khurum YaUeys 
 were henceforward to consider themselves British subjects. These 
 raids upon outlying districts of the Amir's kingdom, which have 
 been the cause of an immense amount of human suffering, 
 without exercising any perceptible influence on the main purpose of 
 the war, are to be lamented. The annexation of this territory, 
 which is not likely to produce sufficient revenue to pay the cost of 
 administration, and is certain to require additional troops to protect 
 that portion of the population which is peacefully disposed, would 
 prove a source of future trouble and increased expenditure. It 
 would be well that the British garrisons should be withdrawn 
 within the original border-line of British territory on the right 
 bank of the Indus. In fact, we should eschew aU annexation of
 
 88 
 
 Afghan territory. Our object should be to conclude a treaty with 
 whatever Ruler the Afghan nation may select, without interference 
 -with the integrity of their dominions or with their independence. 
 We should beware of setting up a nominee of our own, but leave 
 the choice to the Afghans themselves. In order to afford them a 
 convincing proof of our desire to maintain their independence, we 
 should make the concession to their prejudices of withdrawing 
 our demand for the residence of British Officers at Cabul, and in 
 other Afghan cities. We should be content with a Mohammedan 
 Envoy of rank and influence at Cabul. His salary should be 
 increased and his establishment placed on a much more liberal 
 scale than has hitherto been the practice. Selected Native Agents 
 of intelligence might also be stationed at Herat, Balkh, or in any 
 other Afghan towns which might appear desirable. 
 
 It was a cardinal maxim of the policy of the Nepaul Govern- 
 ment for many years to keep the secrets of their own fastnesses 
 unspied into by us, and a great jealousy of Europeans still exists 
 in that country ; in Burmah, also, and even in Kashmir, there is 
 an undercurrent of dislike to the presence of British officers. Why 
 should we then insist on the compliance of the Afghans with a 
 condition which it is clear is so repugnant to the feelings and pre- 
 judices of the Chiefs and people? The time may come, and in the 
 interests of humanity and civilization all will desire to hasten it, 
 when the Afghans themselves may be willing to waive the objec- 
 tion on which they have hitherto so strongly insisted, and when 
 this wild fanatical people will be brought under the ameliorating 
 influences which British rule exercises on the population of India. 
 Much has been done within the last half-century, but there is still 
 sufficient work to tax to the utmost British energies, and to satisfy 
 British ambition, without adding more territory to our already 
 overgrown Eastern Empire. It remains to recapitulate the points 
 which it has been sought to establish in the foregoing pages. 
 
 1st. That the settled policy of former Administrations, com- 
 posed of both parties in the State, in regard to the defence of the 
 North- Western frontier of India, has been, without sufficient 
 cause, departed from by Lord Lytton, acting under instructions of 
 the present Ministry.
 
 89 
 
 2n(i. That the danger apprehended from Russian aggression 
 has been greatly exaggerated, and that the measures adopted in 
 consequence are calculated to prejudice the best interests of our 
 Indian Empire. 
 
 3rd. That the hasty, inconsiderate action of Lord Lytton pre- 
 cipitated hostilities, and led to an unnecessary, impolitic, and 
 unjust war. 
 
 4th. That any annexation of Afghan territory would increase 
 our political and financial difficulties, and entail a grievous burden 
 on the revenues of India. 
 
 5th. That an attempt to secure more eJffectual hold on the 
 passes lying between our border hne and Afghanistan, and to 
 coerce the mountain tribes by placing military posts in their fast- 
 nesses, would fail in its object, except at a cost too burthensome to 
 be sustained. 
 
 6th. That the expenses of the present war wiU far exceed the 
 estimate of the Government, and that in the impoverished state 
 of India, increased taxation may be attended with most serious 
 results. 
 
 The essential condition of progress and improvement in 
 India is the continuance of peace. However erroneous the poKcy 
 enjoined by Lord Salisbuiy, it is possible that more temper, 
 prudence, and forbearance, on the part of Lord Lytton, might 
 have averted its worst consequences. In Lord Lytton's hands it 
 culminated in war, and it contains the germs of future wars. 
 Mr. Gladstone wrote of our Indian Empire, in a recent number of 
 the Contemporary Bevieio : — " This astonishing fabric was in the 
 main built up by a mercantile Company, with secondary aid from 
 the counsels and control of the Government, and under the 
 guidance of the practical good sense which is so remarkable in 
 our countrymen, except when some peculiar Ate bewilders and 
 misleads them." And again : — " The Company deKvered India 
 from the flighty genius of Lord Ellenborough, who leant to the 
 ostentatious policy that has lately received, upon more dangerous 
 ground, a more serious development. The toleration they estab- 
 lished was one only too wide. They boldly gave education to the
 
 90 
 
 people. They established a Free Press half a century ago. They 
 laid the foundation of the railway system. They discouraged to 
 the best of their ability aggression on the Native Princes and on 
 neighbouring territories. Their policy was, in the best sense, 
 Conservative, and at the time when they handed over their high 
 office to the Government, there was not a point, in the whole of 
 our case with India, at which we could say they had neglected 
 duty or precaution, or had either feigned or courted dangers." 
 The East India Company may well be proud of this meed of 
 praise from England's greatest and noblest living Statesman. 
 Its calm, equable, sagacious, administration typified admirably 
 English sobriety, moderation, and practical good sense. The 
 names of its illustrious servants are enshrined in the foremost 
 roll of EngHsh Worthies. Mr. Gladstone's allusion to the "flighty 
 genius of Lord Ellenborough " suggests an apt parallel to the dis- 
 tinguishing feature of the intellectual constitution of the present 
 Viceroy. In a letter to the Duke of Wellington, dated 21st 
 January, 1844, conceived in the same spirit of pride and self-suffi- 
 ciency which dictated Lord Lytton's haughty message to the Amir 
 of Cabul, Lord Ellenborough, wrote of the Court of the Directors 
 of the East India Company : — ** I am satisfied that if they were 
 left to themselves they would lose the country in three months." 
 In little more than three months the Court of Directors, in the 
 interests of the good Government of India intrusted to their 
 keeping by the nation, took upon themselves the grave responsi- 
 bility of recalling Lord Ellenborough from his high office. Par- 
 liament and the people of England ratified the act. It may be 
 confidently affirmed that, imder the East India Company's direc- 
 tion of Indian affairs, where party prejudices and prepossessions 
 never intruded, Lord Lytton's impulsive action, disregard of estab- 
 lished forms of procedure, and tendency to personal Government, 
 would not have been lightly passed over. In the fulness of time 
 it is believed that the practical good sense of the English nation 
 will pronounce a just judgment on this second Afghan War, and 
 on the merits of Lord Lytton's Indian Administration. 
 
 *page 411) of Lord Colchester's " Indian Administrations of Lord Ellenborough."
 
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