The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎609r] (108/239)

THE MISSION TO CABUL.
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treaties with us, but a policy which permitted so generous an in
terpretation of certain of the clauses, that it had become quite
embarrassing to the Government of India, is open obviously to
discussion or to the arrangement of a compromise.
There is no doubt that, since the death of the late Amir Abdur
Rahman, our engagements with Afghanistan have stood in need
of revision. Moreover, it is intelligible that agreements which
were concluded so far back as the Rawal Pindi 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 1885 and
the Durand Agreement of 1893, well might merit further con
sideration in the altered circumstance’s of 1905. Habib Ullah
himself would be probably the first to recognise the material
change which the situation has undergone. In any case he has
fostered the course of events with a growing appreciation of his
own interests, and the importance of his State, and with a sin
gular contempt of his relations with us. Unfortunately, the
position is rendered the more difficult from the fact that the de
velopment of Afghanistan has brought about among the Afghans
a very general feeling that the independence of their country
should be recognised and that its quasi-protected condition should
be finally and formally removed.
In this direction it is possible, perhaps, to feel some little
sympathy with the ambitions of Afghanistan, and, if it were not
an essential part of our policy to maintain Afghanistan as a vassal
State, subject to the requirements of India and of a possible ex
pansion in Indian policy, there is room for the benevolent tolera
tion of not unnatural aspirations. Under existing circumstances,
however, it becomes impossible to entertain the pretensions to in
dependence which the late Amir, and the present ruler, each put
forward through their unexpected interpretation of their treaties
with us. In the main, where the views of the late Amir, as also
those of the present Amir, diverged from the Indian interpretation
of our agreements with Afghanistan, were in connection with the
subsidy and the right to purchase and import provisions of war
through India. Through disagreements with the Government of
India, and with the view of maintaining the claim of Afghanistan
to independence, the late Amir Abdur Rahman declined to draw
the subsidy of eighteen lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees of rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. , a refusal which has been
continued by his son, Habib Ullah, from the time when that ruler
succeeded his father. Again, while the ruler of Afghanistan has
been permitted to disburse the subsidy in whatever manner he
chose, if the strict reading of the treaty be observed, it will be
seen that it was granted with a view to the pecuniary relief of the
Amir’s exchequer in the payment of the troops and for other
purposes requisite to the defence of the north-western frontier of
Afghanistan. These two questions, together with those raised