Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎78r] (159/312)

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we have lately been favoured with the official
explanation of the mission at Cabul. A significant
comment on both is furnished by the detailed infor
mation on the subject of Afghanistan extracted from
the records of the Kussian .Military Department, of
which we print a second instalment this morning in
our Berlin letter. It is not a little remarkable
that Russia should manifest so sustained an in
terest, and should have collected such an amount
of minute information as to the condition and re
sources of a Power which she has repeatedly de
clared to be entirely beyond the sphere of her in
fluence in Asia. To return to S here A m , however,
it is manifest that he did not at first receive the
overtures of Russia without suspicion, nor without
a strong leaning towards the alternative of British
support. A succession of untoward circumstances,
however, seems to have strengthened his growing
animosity towards the Indian Government. In
. 1873 he made overtures for an alliance, which wore
declined, as they had previously been after the
jfr Umballa Durbar A public or private audience held by a high-ranking British colonial representative (e.g. Viceroy, Governor-General, or member of the British royal family). of 1869, though a less definite as
surance of continued friendship and of conditional
support was eiven. Already in 1871 he had been
irritated by the result of an arbitration which the
Indian Government had undertaken between Persia
and Afghanistan concerning the boundary of
Seistan. The result was a compromise, which, as
often happens, was satisfactory to neither party,
and S hebe Au resented it deeply as an infringe
ment of his sovereignty, which, as he erroneously
held, the Indian Government was bound to pre
serve unimpaired. Again, in 1875, in return for
courtesies shown by the Ruler of Wakhan, a vassal
of S here Aut, towards the British Mission to
Yarkand, a letter and gifts were sent by the
V iceroy without previous reference to the A meer.
This S here A u resented as another breach of his
sovereignty. But the supposed slight was mani
festly nothing worse than an oversight, and if our j
diplomatic relations with Cabul had been in a mora I
satisfactory condition, it would never have oc- 1
etured. The result o f all these un toward mis
understandings and unintentional slights was that
the A meer's disposition became gradually more and
more unfriendly towards the Indian Government.
Meanwhile, though the signs of this disposition
were unmistakably exhibited in his acts, little evi
dence of it was furnished by the reports of the
native agents Non-British agents affiliated with the British Government. maintained by the Indian Govern
ment at Cabul. It was with a view to establish a
more satisfactory state of afiairs that Lord L ytton
consented in 1876 to the conference at Peshawur
between Sir L ewis P elly and an envoy of the!
A meer. A s Lord L awrence says, no official ac-
- count of the results of this conference has yet been
made public. But it is undecstood that Sir L ewis ]
P elly was authorized by the V iceroy to offer to !
the A mker's envoy the treaty and guarantee which
S here A li had previously sought in 1869 and 1873,
on the condition that British officers should have
access to points of the A meer's frontier exposed to
Russia. It was not, however, proposed to establish
a British agent at Cabul, for it was already known
that such a proposal would prove unacceptable to
the A meer . The conference proved abortive.
S here A li's envoy recapitulated the grievances of
which his Sovereign complained, but suggested no
way of removing them, or of establishing better re
lations ; at the same time, though he professed to
have no authority to conclude a definite treaty, he de
clared that S here A li held the British Government
pledged under any circumstances to protect his
1 territory.lljOn this important point, however, we
must assume that he was left in no doubt when the
j conference came to an end as to the view which the
Indian Government took of its own obligations
towards Afghanistan.
Thus the chief result of the Peshawur conference
was to disclose the unfriendly and intractable dis
position of S here A li towards the British Govern
ment. The causes of this disposition as regards our
selves seem to be twofold—one, the difficulty of
reaching S here A li save through native agents Non-British agents affiliated with the British Government. ,
wholly untrustworthy and very possibly corrupt;
the other the hesitating and at times ill-con
sidered policy of the Indian or, which is at least
as probable, of successive Home Governments.
To have held entirely aloof from Afghanis
tan and all its affairs might have been wise
as long as it was possible. It might have
been equally wise to have secured the alli
ance when it was first proffered. But it
cannot have been wise to have declined its alli
ance and then to have chilled by untimely mistakes
and misunderstandings the friendship which it
was all important to secure. On the other hand,
it is impossible not to discern a third and
LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1878.
It is not often that the public at home takes a
very keen interest in the frontier policy of the
Indian Government. When, as occasionally
happens, that policy suddenly becomes a matter
of Imperial conc«rn, we find ourselves very much 1
in the dark about matters which it vitally con- j
cerns us to know. At this moment, for instance, we
know beyond all question that our relations with the
Ameer of A fghanistan have reached a most critica^
point ; but the successive stages by which tha t .
point has been reached are known only to a few.
Lord L awrence , who was once an actor in the long
and eventful drama, is no doubt entitled to say, as
he did in the letter we published yesterday, " that
" we were wrong in the outset in our policy
" towards the A meer in many instances which
" could be pointed out but even he, in spite of
his Indian knowledge and experience, is forced to
confess that we are still in the dark as to what
occurred at the meetings at Peshawur towards the
end of 1876 between the A meer's agent and Sir
L ewis P elly . It would certainly be well if the
manifest defects in our information on the subject
could be supplied from authentic sources. Unfor
tunately, it is only too clear that nothing which we
can now learn about the past will be of much
service in solving the present difficulty. States
men must deal with circumstances as they arise,
and cannot relieve themselves of responsibility by
idle recrimination as to past blunders ; but, as all
human affairs exhibit a more or less continuous
train of cause and effect, often circuitous, but
generally traceable, the public is entitled to know
all that can without imprudence be disclosed of
the course of events which has led to the present
crisis in the relations between S here A li and the
Indian Government.
When the history of Indian frontier policy for
the last few years comes to be written, it will pro- i
bably be found that there have been faults and j
mistakes on both sides. Thus much, on grounds of :
general probability alone, we are ready to concede ;
to Lord L awrence . The Indian Government, on ;
the one hand, may have neglected opportunities
which have been eagerly seized by its rivals ; and
S here A li , on ihe other, may without real provoca
tion have passed from an attitude of jealous sus
picion to one of undisguised hostility. On more
than one occasion, as is well known, successiveS
Viceroys have been authorized to give to the
A meer promises which, though purposely couched i
in indefinite terms, may have seemed to him
to amount to a virtual guarantee of independ-
enoe and of territory against all comers. In
spite of these promises, which doubtless meant
more to him than we ever sanctioned or intended,
we seem to have acted more than once in a way
rather to repel than to secure the friendship of
a haughty and suspicious Sovereign like S here |
A li . When, for instance, Y akocb K han , his j
eldest son, had stirred up civil war in Cabul
in resistance to the succession of the youngest I
son, A bdclla J an , the Government of India i
remonstrated with S here A li , and expressed i
its disapproval of the harsh treatment of the rebels |
and their leader. On the same occasion General;
K auemann , the Russian Governor of Turkistan, i
warmly sympathized with the A meer . Indeed, in j
•pite of the repeated pledges given by the ;
Cabinet of St. Petersburg to the effect that:
the affairs of Afghanistan were entirely beyond
the sphere of Russian influence in Asia,
General K aufmann found means of making
his sympathy known to the A meer through native
agents, who had already begun to pass between
^ashkend and Cabul. S heer A li is said fET
have been at first surprised and alarmed by
these insidious and unexpected overtures, and j
applied to the Indian Government for ad- i
vice as to how he should deal with them.
He was told, [Jwith due courtesy, but, as
events have proved, with somewhat shortsighted !
indifference, that he would do well to keep on good ;
terms with Russia, and that if he gave offence to !
.that Power, the British Government would not i
hold itself pledged to do more than exert its
good offices in his favour. After this it is not, |
perhaps, surprising that the Indian Govern- \
ment received little mora authentic information j
concerning the relations between Russia and
Cabul. Russia's spontaneous and repeated pledges |
on the subject have long ago been made known,and 1