'Russia, India and the Persian Gulf' [‎5r] (9/46)

The Western Frontiers of India. 5
to Lord Elgin urging that with the cessation of hostilities
our permanent position and policy should be defined, and
agreeing with the Viceroy that our interference with inde
pendent tribes—so far as they can be called independent
since the Durand line was drawn—should be strictly limited
in order to avoid serious eventual responsibilities involved
in the extension of administrative control over tribal terri
tory. The Secretary of State also urged that the then
existing arrangements should be modified in view to con
centration of force. While he formally concurred with
the Government of India in ascribing the concerted, simul
taneous, and till then unprecedentedly serious, risings of
the tribes to fanaticism, Lord George Hamilton could not
conceal the fact that the delimitation of the spheres of British
and Afghan influence, in accordance with the Durand con
vention, had naturally led the tribesmen to suspect designs
upon their independence. There are not a few interested
in frontier politics who consider that not only was this result
to be expected, but that a mistake was made in determining
upon this delimitation, which necessarily largely increased our
responsibilities and intervention in tribal affairs. Among such
apparently is Sir T. Holdich, a good judge, if there be one.
No doubt there is a difficulty in preserving a state of civilized
administration up to a certain point, and ignoring violence
and rapine immediately beyond it, especially when the
inhabitants of either side are not a constant but a changing
and an interchanging quantity ; but it is possible that our
susceptibilities in this respect are too acute, and have
led us on many occasions into interferences in matters we
might well have ignored, and into vain and expensive expe
ditions. To some, at any rate, it would appear, even from
the narratives of those responsible for the action in question,
that the dynastic and domestic squabbles of the petty
chief of Chitral were such as we might have disregarded.
Yet they led to our occupation of what a great authority
describes as “ a useless, expensive, and burdensome post,”