TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CHITRAL DRAMA. THE great, and as far as we know, the unprecedented, interest taken by the British public in this ex- pedition to Chitral is perfectly natural and a little unfortunate. So perfect are now the means of com- munication across the world, so ready is the Government of India to keep the authorities at home well informed, and so great is the improvement in the heliographic service, by which messages from the front are sent to the telegraphing outposts, that the whole people at home see everything almost while it is occurring. They feel like spectators sitting in the stalls and gazing straight upon the incidents and personages of a most exciting drama. They watch the gathering of the troops beyond the Indus, notice that there are too many camels and too few mules for transport, understand the danger of the route as it winds almost invisible over passes of more than Alpine height, hold their breath as the picked regiments clear the hills, start when an obstacle is visible, like the sweep- ing away of the Panjkora Bridge, and scream almost audibly as they see Colonel Battye die while securing the safety of his men. They actually, as it were, saw him die, and for a whole night awaited the attack which ought to have destroyed the Guides, as breathlessly as the Guides themselves must have awaited it in their impromptu camp. They have discussed the practicability of that suspension-bridge as if they saw the engineers ferried across on rafts tied to a cable, in the act of construct- ing it, and are now watching the advance, and waiting for the ascent of the next tremendous pass, 14,000 ft. in the clouds, among the eternal snows, with as present a feeling, so to speak, as if a good field-glass would show them the soldiers toiling up its slippery and boulder- strewn sides. Each officer is missed by a nation as be talls, as he is missed by his immediate comrades, and people in the Strand read biographies like that of the five brave Battye brothers, who have died for the State in succession, as Eachanis clansmen died for their chief, without remonstrance, without display, each stepping for- ward when duty called, as they would read biographies of kinsmen whose deaths reflected credit on themselves. There is something marvellous about the closeness of the whole scene, its perfect visibleness, though it is trans- acting itself almost in the centre of Asia, on the huge, hill-strewn slopes which lead down from the Hindoo Koosh to the valley of the Indus. The people feel, too, something of the excitement of suspense, for though the clans are retiring, and Umra Khan, who has been perhaps unduly exalted in the popular imagination, is talking of surrender, there are yet dangerous points to pass ; the Ghazees, or picked heroes of the clans, may make one more rush, and more Englishmen may fall before Chitral is attained, and General Low stands victor at the foot of the long wild slope which leads direct to the Roof of the World, the high uninhabited prairie which we talk so much about under the name of the Pamirs. It is natural, as we have said, that under such circumstances our people, though they do not usually notice these hill campaigns, should become alive with excitement, and to the Army engaged the attention must be most gratifying ; but it is unfortunate too.
The Chitrali question is the pivot of an exceedingly grave and complicated dispute ; and we fear the people who have watched so closely these exciting scenes will be reluctant to leave its decision in the hands of men less moved by the dramatic incidents of a mountain campaign. A great contest is going on between the soldiers of the " Forward" party and the statesmen who govern India, as to the policy which, when Chitral has been occupied, ought to be pursued in its disposal. The village which has suddenly attained such a place in the popular regard, is itself but a mere point in space, and of course utterly worthless as a possession, but it has, or is alleged to have, strategic advantages ; and if we keep it we shall undoubtedly keep what is practically the sovereignty of the wild Alpine region which stretches for twelve hundred miles in length, by (say) five hundred miles in breadth, between the Indian Himalaya and the Hindoo Koosh. Part of this territory is occupied by Afghanistan, part by the Pathan clans, part by a spur of Cashmere ; but if we take Chitral, we shall undoubtedly, through the Ameer, through subsidised chiefs, through garrisons in Cashmere and the short interval beyond it, rule in some sense through- out this entire region. We may not annex it, though we have read schemes of annexation, but we must defend it, must. coerce it into some sort of order, must hold some sort of relation with its rulers, from the Ameer of Afghanistan, who in his way is a potentate, to the Chief, or Moollah, or brigand who is obeyed by the smallest and farthest of the fighting clans. The soldiers of the Forward party admit that this is part of their plan, but declare that it is right, because the country between the Himalaya and the Hindoo Koosh is practically the glacis of the Indian fortress. We ought, they say, in the event of an invasion from• the North, to be able to meet the invaders before they reach India, and for that object we must have good roads, and peaceful subjects up to Candahar on one side, if not up to Herat, and up to Chitral on the other. Without this, the enemy's regulars—that is, in fact, the Russian regiments—will descend at their ease into Pathanistan—as it would be convenient to call the entire region—will bind the wild tribes to them by offering them the plunder of India, for which they have thirsted during centuries, and will commence the great attack on the Himalayan passes from a secure base. We should be compelled either to let them choose their own time—which, it is argued, we dare not do because of the agitation in India—or to emerge and fight for the huge glacis, with the Afghans. and Pathans all against us, backed by Russian regiments and Russian artillery, and directed by Russian skill. That,. they say, would be a terrible piece of work, and one for which we should hardly find the strength ; while if we did not succeed in it, we might find all the fighting races of India rising behind our backs. This, briefly and crudely stated, is the substance of the Forward argument ; and we do not think that Lord Roberts will say that we have unfairly omitted any serious point. To this the stationary party, which includes, we believe,. at this moment the entire Government of India, Mr. Fowler, and many soldiers of experience, the mouthpiece and leader of the latter being Sir Neville Chamberlain, reply that the Forward policy involves a great expendi- ture alike of men and money for a long term of years, in order to meet in a very doubtful way a danger which may never arrive. Of the expenditure, there can be no doubt• whatever, and it is not, we believe, seriously contested. The vast country between the ranges cannot be held even with the consent and assistance of the Ameer, without a force of ten thousand Europeans, while if held against his will it would require at least twenty thousand. The fortified posts which we must establish must have garrisons ; the lines of communication, however improved by the engineers,, must be protected ; and as railways are simply impossible, the permanent cost of transport will be very great. The force behind can hardly be reduced, for it has to hold India,. as well as fight Russia whenever the latter invades, and the- total addition to expenditure, if the work were to be thoroughly carried out, could hardly be less than £2,000,000 a year. A small corps d'armee and an income-tax would, in fact, be expended permanently in doing—what ? In smoothing the way for the Russian advance up to the Himalaya. The hills we are to make pass- able, the roads we are to cut, the pacified tribes we are to induce to cultivate and trade, will all be so many facilities for the Russian advance from their true base, which will be a mighty fortified depot on the line of the• Trans-Siberian Railway, one end of which will be at Moscow, in the centre of the limitless Russian Army. If we leave Afghanistan alone, and Pathanistan, and the whole country north of the Himalaya, the Russians will have to conquer them all before they reach us, will have to face all the obstacles we have such difficulty in surmounting, and will be resisted by the unpacified tribes just as we are resisted now. The clansmen are almost all Mahom- medans ; they have as deadly a dislike for Russians as for any other white men ; and they would, while their re- sistance lasted, obtain from the great Southern Empire, officers, engineers, and Gatling-guns, to make that re- sistance more effective. Even when they were defeated, the Russians, who would be five hundred miles further from their base than they would be if we advanced to the Hindoo Koosh, would have to force the passage of the Himalayan passes defended by great fortresses and by the British Army, which would be only twenty days from England, which would be supplied by the whole resources of India, that is, of a military monarchy of the first class, and which would have studied minutely every square league of its own frontier territory. As to an agitated India rising behind us, India is not so fond of Russians ; and even if it were, would wait to see on which side Destiny seemed inclined to declare itself. It would therefore, it is argued, be far wiser to leave the whole glacis alone, even if India had men to waste and a treasury which was paying off debt, and India has neither. She is staggering already under the burden of a European army too large for her internal needs—Lord Canning defeated the mutineers in 1857 with only eighteen thousand men—of a Sepoy army, the wages of which are rapidly increasing—the last increase being 30 per cent.—and of the requirements of a civilisa- tion too lofty for the resources, as yet but half-developed of her over-numerous people. Is it not, therefore, wiser, asks the Government of India—at least as we understand the situation—when we have taken Chitral, to fall back, to abandon Pathanistan, which we have never annexed, and which is no part of India, and to confine our action in Afghanistan to securing from its Ameer a well-sub- sidised friendship, which at least goes this length, that he will not attack us while we pay him, and that he will attack Russia if she invades, so long as we energetically support him ? Why make the lenient government of India nearly impossible by reckless expense beyond our Northern hill frontier, when it is not certain that Russia will attack us at all, not certain that our relations with China may not in a year or two modify, for good or evil, the whole situation, and not certain that if the great catastrophe happens, and we have to accept another Russian war, we may not elect to fight her in a region far removed from the Indian Himalaya ? If Hammerfest is Russian by that time, as Russians hope it will be, it is to that corner of the Empire that we should drag her troops, and if it is not, the scene of conflict might be either the Caucasus or the Valley of the Amoor. In any case, we are advised to risk a certain exhaustion of our strength in order to meet a possible, it may even prove an imaginary, danger ; and can that be wise ?
We shall not attempt to give a dogmatic answer to the question, for we hold that that assumption of the function of experts by irresponsible and possibly half-informed journalists is one of the evils of our time ; but Parliament must answer it very speedily, and we cannot but regret that the events of the last few days may incline Parlia- ment to give an answer, based rather upon sentiment than upon policy. The success of this expedition, if it is successful, and the exciting incidents which have at- tended, and probably will still attend it, have nothing to do with the larger question which will shortly be at issue. We were bound to go to Chitral, but we are in no way bound to stop there. It will be said, of course, that if we retire, the Pathans will despise us ; but mountaineers do not despise men who have faced and defeated them in the most dangerous passes of their most defensible hills. The lesson of the campaign is not, as we think, that we earn respect by annexation, but that by assuming control even of one point, we have involved ourselves in a cam- paign which will cost us a million, and obtain for us absolutely nothing whatever in return, unless it be a certain amount of deadly dislike among clans which can hardly imagine why we should seek their poverty-stricken fast- nesses in order to burn their wretched huts. To keep Chitral in safety, we must cut a road thither, and create on it at least five fortified positions ; and if we annex Pathanistan, Chitral will be but one among a score of necessary posts, and the road but one among twenty routes which must be cleared, kept clear, and solicitously guarded. We yield always to the opinion of experts, but the soldiers who know the frontier, are in this instance divided ; and it certainly seems to us that with no con- scription, with huge slices of tropical territory falling to us every five years, and with the Indian Government talking as if its financial position were hardly to be borne, we are attempting, not for the first time, to do a little too much.
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