THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN.
THE Radicals may be too impatient upon some points, but we cannot but think that as regards Afghanistan their impa- tience is primal fade not unreasonable. We do not advance a step there in any direction. If the leaders of the late Opposition gave any pledge at all to the country, it was that they would put an end to this miserable business in Afghanistan, and this not only on the ground that we were wasting men and money there, but on the higher ground that the invasion of the country was an unjust aggression, unprovoked by the people, and un- justified by any of those reasons which can alone excuse aggres- sive war. Afghans could no more invade India than they could invade the moon, and had not the faintest inten- tion of doing it. The Government gave the country a promise to retire, the Viceroy issued orders which pointed to retirement, yet weeks elapse and the British position in Afghanistan is in no degree improved. General Stewart, in command at Cabul, it is true, executes nobody ; but we remain encamped around Cabul, and if armed men gather together a few miles off, it is considered necessary to disperse them, slaughtering them even if they fly. That has happened within the past week, and the officer entrusted with the work is praised as if he were doing something heroic. He is not to blame, having his orders, and, we dare say, showed high personal gallantry ; but what is the object of the orders themselves ? Why are British soldiers chopping Afghan roughs who happen to have got together in a mob, not to mention storming villages and driving away their inhabitants? Lord Hartington says no gathering of armed Afghans can be allowed; but why not ? We are not going to annex Afghanistan ; we are not going to occupy it ; we are not going to punish it. Then why are we constantly killing Afghans, spending British lives in the work, and for no reason except that Afghans wish us to carry out our own policy of going away ? These attacks on small col- lections of troops, and refractory villages, and " trouble- some " tribes, in a country we are about to quit, are no better than raids, and thoroughly discreditable to the British name. They are not operations of war, for we are not at war ; they are not measures of police, for they produce no order ; and they are not punitive measures, for we have sustained no wrong. They are measures of terrorism, intended to strike awe, and make it easier for the British to retreat, when the Government has made up its mind what course to pursue, apparently a difficult process. The object is to find an Ameer, seat him, and then leave him to hold his throne, or lose it, as he would have done had we never invaded ; but that object, which can only be secured by an act of resolution, seems to be no nearer of attain- ment than at first. There are objections to Abdurrahman, objections to Yakoob Khan, objections to Hashim Khan, ob- jections to Moose Khan, objections to every conceivable candi- date; and in considering these objections, the necessity of final decision seems to be lost sight of, and the conflict of opinion grows so hot, that the Times actually discusses annexa- tion as if it were among possible plans, and not the plan of all others condemned by the verdict of the country.
Indeed, it is by no means certain that another war is not about to begin in Afghanistan. No native party there recog- nises the justice of an arrangement under which, without a treaty, by the mere fiat of the invading Power, the richest division of the State is made permanently independent. Abdurrahman Khan, with a throne offered him in compensa- tion, would not hear of the independence of Candahar. Yakoob Khan, if the truth were known, is probably almost as "refrac- tory." And Ayoub Khan is so indignant that, indolent and irresolute as he has shown himself to be, he has decided to upset the arrangement by force, and has marched from Herat
upon Candahar. Instantly the radical weakness of Lord Lytton's pompous decision manifests itself to the world. The Wall Shere Ali, whom we have made "independent," cannot protect his independence for five minutes. He is a mere creature of the British, and though threatened by the weakest of the Barukhzyes, he at once falls back upon the British for support. If we do not support him, everybody knows what will happen. Ayoub Khan will cross the Helmund, half Shere Al's army will desert him, Candahar will rise in insurrection, and the newly-appointed sovereign will either submit or be executed off-hand ; and the State of Caudahar will tumble down, like any other house of cards. Consequently, Shere Ali "must be supported," and not only is a British brigade of all arms despatched to the Helmund to his assistance, but a new Reserve Division, organ- ised by Sir Richard Temple, has been sent from Bombay into Afghanistan, to keep down Candahar. So far from retiring from the country, we are increasing our great army there, and engaging in operations which a single and trifling reverse would expand into a war, and which, for all that appears, may drag on for years. If we stay in force in Candahar we have, in fact, incurred all the risks without any of the advantages of annexation ; while, if we do not stay there in force, Shere All will be attacked once a month, till he is beaten or killed. The Afghans do not want their country dismembered. They are proud of it, and proud of themselves, and will no more surrender Candahar without a fight than we should surrender Cornwall. Any Ameer who may be appointed will be compelled to make it his first object to regain his lost province, and will on every occasion drag the British, as Ayoub Khan is dragging them,. into a tedious and objectless war.
What, then, are we to do ? That is for Lord Hartington to decide, and it will be by the success of his decision that his administrative capacity will be judged ; but there must be a decision of some kind. The knot must be cut, if it cannot be untied. It is obvious that the British Government must announce a change of policy of some kind, and the simplest course would be to say plainly that it had changed its mind about Yakoob Khan, to restore him at once to his throne, to buy out Shere Al's claims, and to quit Afghanistan at once and altogether. That there is risk in this course, we do not deny. There is risk in any course, but it is nothing to the
risk involved in remaining in a country where we have to behave like invaders without an object, employ sixty thousand men, and expend £:500,000 a month for no end, except the- excitement of bitter and justifiable hatred against ourselves Nobody will hear of common justice as an element in war, but the House of Commons might at least consider Lord Hartington's statement of Tuesday, that already the cost of the Afghan war "has exceeded the estimates by nine millions."
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