BOOKS.

SIR ROBERT SANDEMAN.* THE character and career of Sir Robert Sandeman, as clearly set forth in Mr. T. H. Thornton's full and authoritative memoir, possess so powerful an attraction as to make the wonder seem great that a name so justly famous on the Indian frontier should have been comparatively so little known in this country. If the Peace Society on the one hand, and the votaries of Empire extension on the other, practised canonisation, Sandeman would equally deserve a high place on the glory-roll of either school of thought. He was a soldier, and fought with conspicuous courage in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny, and also in one or two frontier expeditions. But his constant aim was the reconciliation of warring in- terests among the native tribes bordering the Indian Empire, and the extension of the power and the civilising influence of England, without fighting ; and in the pursuit of those aims he succeeded to an astonishing degree. Honours in the shape of titles and decorations came to him slowly and sparingly. He died Colonel Sir Robert Sandeman, Knight Commander of the Star of India, Agent to the Governor-General of India for Baluchistan, and Chief Commissioner of British Baluchistan, —he who, Sir Charles Dilke said, with absolute truth, would have been "cheap at a peerage and the salary of a Governor of Madras or Bombay," as the controller of the whole North- West frontier. But none the less was his success so con- tinuous and great as to be almost, if not quite, unique. As Lord Lansdowne, then Viceroy, said, in writing to his widow after his premature death, "the service which he has rendered to the Government of India stands by itself ; I do not think there is any living official who can point to an achievement so distinct and so complete as his ; it will remain and be remem- bered so long as India has a frontier to hold." When, after two years' military service during and after the Mutiny, he accepted civil employ as a Deputy-Commissioner under the Punjab Administration in 1859, and was sent to the Trans. Indus districts, the whole of the mountainous border of our territory was inhabited by turbulent, lawless, and predatory tribes, giving effective allegiance to no one; and, stretching away beyond the frontier for four hundred to five hundred miles, commanding military and trade routes of prime im- portance into Afghanistan and Persia, lay Baluchistan, nominally bound, under the Treaty of 1854, to "subordinate co-operation" with the Government of India, but torn by

• Colonel Si, Robert Sandeman hie Life and Work on our /maim Frontier. A Memoir, with Selections from his COTT6aponclence and Official Writings. By Thcmms Henry Thornton, C.S.I.. D.C.L.. formerly Secretary to the Punjab Government, and sometime F.reign Secretary to the Government of India. London: John Murray.

chronic feuds between the Suzerain Khan of Khelat and the chiefs of powerful clans who owed him fealty on con- ditions which had been agreed to almost in the form of a constitution by his predecessors, but which he persistently failed to observe. With the exception of two early years, when he had Cis-Indus work, Sandeman was employed the whole of the rest of his life on and about the frontier. When he died in January, 1892, he held the posts above-mentioned, and he wielded in the name of the British Government unchallenged sway throughout Baluchistan, and over very many of the once lawless and predatory tribes we have referred to between that country and South-Eastern Afghanistan and the Indian border, along two hundred miles of which peace and order were established. Much more than unchallenged was his sway ; it was beloved and reverenced. It had been gained, except as regards the districts of Pishin and Sibi, which were assigned to Great Britain after the second Afghan War by the Treaty of Gandamak, almost entirely by exclusively pacific means, through Sandeman's amazing power of winning the confidence of wild races. They saw in him a man of perfect fearlessness, absolutely single-minded, able to understand their traditions and modes of thought, full of devotion to their best interests, while loyal to the core to his own country and its policy,—identifying, in fact, the power and glory of England with the peace, prosperity, and progress on rational lines of all those who fell within her sphere of influence. And they gave him their fervent loyalty in return. This is the way in which they received him on his return in 1882, after the only long furlough, we think, which he was ever able to take, during which he had married his second wife. It is Lady Sandeman who tells the story, which it is difficult to read unmoved :—

" On Sir Robert's arrival at Bombay he received many tele- grams, including one from his Highness the Khan of Khelat, and also from the principal Bahich and Bralatii Sirdeirs, welcoming him back to India. On arriving at the borders of Bahichistiin he was met at every station by Balch and Brahtli chiefs, who had travelled down from their homes to meet him. Their delight at seeing him once more was great, and it was a curious sight to see them rush at his carriage directly the train stopped at the stations, climb up and hang on by the windows and doors, stretching out their hands to grasp his, and some actually kissing his hands with every expression of affection. . . . . An address of welcome was presented by the people of Sibi, but the view of the town from the train was in itself a welcome. Every house was illuminated, the edges of the walls and the roofs of the houses- presented a line of light."

Then, as they passed up the Bolan Pass towards Quetta,— " It was a curious sight, at intervals on the road, to see occa- sionally a head on the sky-line, a horseman motionless till he saw the cavalcade, when he immediately disappeared to carry the news of Sir Robert's approach. In an indescribably short space of time he appeared again, followed by numerous horsemen, who tore down the face of the hill over the rocks and stones at break- neck speed, their long white garments flying in the wind, and their carbines and shields rattling ; they did not stop until they were about twenty yards in front of Sir Robert, when they flung themselves from their horses and came forward on foot to welcome back their chief. After greeting him, they fell in behind the party and accompanied it, the cavalcade growing in size as it advanced."

These were for the most part members of the Marri and other tribes in charge of the Bolan, men of whom, but for Sir Robert, not a few would have probably been engaged either in despoiling passing caravans or in deadly fends with neigh-

bouring tribes, or even in raiding from time to time over the Sindi border, and incurring punitive expeditions, from which the innocent must always suffer with the guilty.

There will be no cynics found to say that such demonst..-a- tions of native affection as those described by Lady Sandeman were "got up to order." But it is interesting to remember that for a long time the "Sandemanian " system of dealing with frontier tribes was denounced in some quarters as being "disguised blackmail." Mr. Thornton, and also in a separate chapter Mr. Barnes, one of Sir Robert Sandeman'a most able and trusted assistants, deal very effectively with this pre- posterous criticism. Sandeman employed on honest and useful work, at reasonable rates of remuneration, tribesmen many of whom would probably, if not so employed, haven been, as we have said, fighting or robbing, or both. He always made a point of getting, as be said, a "full quid pro quo for my money." "And seldom," says Mr. Thornton, who, be it remembered, himself filled successively the great posts of Secretary to the Punjab Government and Foreign Secretary to the Government of India,— " Has better value been received for outlay than that received_ from the tribal levies of Balachistan. They guard roads, lines of communication and traffic, protect posts, trace, discover, and surrender criminals, recover stolen property, bring in witnesses

and accused persons carry letters all over the country in places where there is no Imperial post, produce fodder, grain, and commissariat supplies, escort prisoners, protect survey parties, and assist in the collection of revenue, without difficulty or friction, and all this [the italics are ours] at the mere fro,ction of the cost of regular establishments. The system has been extended with variations of detail, to the districts of Derajat, Kohat, Peshawar, and the Khaibar Pass, and everywhere with great success."

Happily, very early in Sandeman's border career, the excellence of his system of employment for trans-frontier tribesmen was recognised by the Indian Government. It is intensely in- teresting to read in this volume of the manner in which, step

by step, the value of his principles of border administration generally was recognised by the Indian Government, and power was given to him to put those principles into practice on an ever-enlarging scale. One cannot blame the Govern- ment for hesitating some years before they definitely accepted his view—which may be called the constitutional view—of the relations between the Khan of Khelat and his feudatories, in opposition to the Tory theory on the subject steadily maintained by Sir William Merewether, then Commissioner in Sind, who had the prestige rightly attaching to almost every one of the trusted lieutenants of that great Warden of the Marches, General John Jacob. And it must have required great and enlightened courage on the part of Lord Northbrook and his colleagues to decide definitely to free Sandeman, when he had at last been sent upon his mission of conciliation to the Khan and the Baluch Sirdars, from the crippling interference with his proceed- ings which Sir William Merewether thought it his duty to attempt. After that, Sandeman's success was so patent to all men, that it would have needed courage of a very questionable sort on the part of any statesman, either at

Calcutta or in London, to decide any important frontier ques- tion against his judgment. In any case, we find that in the territorial arrangements ensuing on the Afghan War—during which, and above all after the Ilaiwand disaster, his presence

in Baluchistan, his control over the lines of communication to Candahar, and his influence with the tribes who could supply food and transport, proved of unspeakable value—his views were followed more closely, probably, than those of any other eminent adviser. He urged the retrocession of Candahar to Cabal, which of course was done, and he urged with equal urgency the retention as British of the districts of Pishin and Sibi, which had been assigned to this country under the Gandamak Treaty. There also he had his way, and there is, we imagine, little, if any, serious difference of opinion now among persona competent to judge, that on both points he was right.

The subsequent gradual extension of the " Sandemanian " system, in the hands of its author and with the hearty good- will of the tribes concerned, over the Z hob Valley behind the Suleiman Mountains, up to and including the Gumal Pass, was undoubtedly a policy of great wisdom. In carrying it out Sandeman showed, at a critical moment, as he had often showed before, courage of the highest quality, by which the confidence of the chiefs and tribes involved—in whom, at the greatest risk to his life, he placed trust—was secured. It is to be regretted that his policy was not, as he desired, allowed a still wider sweep, and that he was not granted a longer life in which to give it full development.

But like many other great Anglo-Indians, he has left a school behind him, men trained in his principles and loyal to his memory ; and we may be sure that they will carry forward his principles wherever and whenever the opportunity comes to them. Mr. Thornton is to be thanked for his careful and

sympathetic memoir, which illustrates, in an eminent degree, as did Mr. Martinean's excellent Life of Sir Bartle Frere, issued by the same publishers a few months ago, the magnifi- cence of the field afforded by our Indian Empire for the development at once of the strongest and of the gentlest of Christian virtues.