TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GOVERNMENT'S AFGHAN POLICY. BUT for their utter contempt for honesty in forcing on the war, we could find it in our hearts to pity the position of the Government in Afghanistan. They sought the war as one which would enable them to boast of a spirited foreign policy, yet which would be "a war with limited liability," and have found that its liabilities extend with every day. They thought Shere Ali would yield and be meek, and they found him as obstinate as a mule. They thought Yakoob Shan would be a useful tool, and found him at once vacillating and powerless. They thought the Treaty of Gundamuck, bad or good, would last their time ; and the Envoy, whom it was the object of the Treaty to guarantee, was killed by a popular revolt in his own quarters. They thought that when Cabul was reoccupied and terrorised, all resistance would cease, and find that the war has only begun,:and another campaign must be carried through. And now they are groping about for a policy, and cannot find one anywhere, except, perhaps, in that effort to recall the past which theologians say is the limit on omnipotence. It is per- fectly evident, from the speeches both of Lord Beaconsfield and Sir Stafford Northcote, that they have no definite idea of what they mean to do in Afghanistan. They do not like to go forward, as Lord Lytton advises ; they cannot bear to go back, as the Liberals advise; and they have a dim perception that they cannot conveniently stand still, and so they take refuge in the most vague and puffy generalities. The Queen is made to say that "the principle upon which my Government has acted remains unchanged, and while determined to make the frontiers of my Indian Empire strong, I desire to be in friendly relations with those who may rule in Afghanistan, and with the people of that country,"—which is perfectly true, and per- fectly meaningless. Nobody questions that her Majesty desires her frontiers everywhere to be strong, the point in dispute being how to make them so ; and nobody denies that the Queen wishes everybody, Afghans included, to be friendly to her Government. The controversy is whether invading a country without reason, killing its people, seizing and trans- porting its Prince, and hanging its clergy, is the easiest way or the most righteous way to make its rulers and population friendly. There are people who think that if the Afghans invaded India, killed our soldiers, hung our Missionaries, and deported Lord Lytton, we should not be " friendly " to the Afghans ; and it is they who are asking for an answer, which Lord Beaconsfield—poor, bewildered man !—has not to give. He can only say that "those who have looked into the question" know "that only a very limited pro- portion of the population is against us,"—which is only a cool denial of patent facts ; that "we must be guided by cir- cumstances over which we have not entire control,"—which is the defence that every man in a mess instinctively offers ; and that "it may be necessary that we should restore Afghanistan to the state in which it was previous to the accession of Dost Mahommed, in respect to the division of authority. That is highly possible. The noble lord must not suppose that we are sitting down with our hands in our pockets. Although we have our English interests first of all to look to—that is to say, the securing of our Empire—our next object is to have prosperous, happy, and contented neighbours. Well, we are taking those steps which we think are wise, and which, in our opinion, are the best calculated to bring about the results which we desire." "You will do what is proper and necessary," said Sir Pompous Pumpkin. "But if so-and-so occurs ?" " Then, Sir, you will do what is necessary and proper." The only gleam of an idea in the Premier's mind, and that he got from Sir Henry Rawlinson, is that if we cannot find an Ameer, we may do without one, making treaties with the tribal chiefs, who, before Dost Mahommed, Lord Beaconsfield vaguely thinks had no one over them. He does not say her Majesty's Govern- ment will do this. He has not the strength to come to that decision, or any decision at all ; but remarks, in a dreamy way, that before Dost Mahommed there was a state of things, and it is possible—only possible, mind—that state of things may come back. He does not know, but it may come. Sir Stafford Northcote, the Leader of the Lower House, is even more indefinite. In that plain- tively powerless way he has whenever he is not smoothing ugly facts away, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said :— ‘. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we have never desired to annex territory, but simply to secure a sufficiently strong North-West Frontier to our Indian Empire to inspire our sub- jects within it with confidence, and to put an end to all anxieties and suspicions which may have existed in their minds from fear of possible invasion in consequence of a weak frontier. We also wished that in carrying out this plan we should maintain friendly relations with States which might touch our frontier, and for that reason we were anxious to, keep on good terms with the Ameer and the people of Afghani- stan; but the result has been that which the House so well and so sorrowfully knows. Our position is, however, the same in every respect ; but events have not as yet sufficiently developed themselves for her Majesty's Government to be able to say defin- itely that they will or will not retire from the position,. geographically or politically, which they have taken. As at present advised, our position is the one which we have always held in regard to this question." Was such feebleness ever seen in a British Ministry ? Here we are actually at war in Afghanistan, with forty-five thousand British troops on - service, and an arduous campaign authorised for the spring, the very date—March 15th—being fixed in the orders to officers to rejoin, and her Majesty's advisers do not know what they are going to do,—whether they will advance or retire, whether they will or will not abandon their position, geographical and political I All they know is that their position is the same as before. So is that of a fowl with its beak to the ground and a chalk line round it, and a most ridiculous and powerless position it is, and very unpleasant to the fowl. And then these Ministers, who thus write themselves down incompetent to manage eves the wars they have provoked, grow cross when they are criti- cised, sputter with rage when they are laughed at, and demand that a people hungering for leadership shall place implicit trust in them. We hold the policy hinted at to-day, but probably to be repudiated to-morrow, to be the worst conceivable, involving, on the Liberal theory of the situation, six or seven guarantees, instead of one ; and on the Tory theory, so dividing Afghanistan that Russia may- eat it like an artichoke, leaf by leaf ; but that is quite a minor point. The serious one is, that even this poor policy is not certainly that of her Majesty's Ministers ; that they are only groping about in a fog for a lost walking-stick ; that they have not the capacity even to make up their own minds. Punch says Lord Beaconsfield is playing at blind-man's-buff; but Pundds overrates the Premier. He is only thinking that when he enters. the game, he may stumble helplessly and hurt his shins.
The answer to the charge that we are conducting the war savagely, is just as helpless. The Premier is asked whether a British General, whose ability is not questioned and has nothing to do with the matter, did or did not threaten, in a formal proclamation, to execute the Generals and soldiers of an invaded State for resisting us? To that, Lord Beaconsfield replies that there is no evidence of soldiers being executed for that offence, and Sir Stafford Northcote maunders. about charges being preferred against an absent man who, has done brilliant things. Evidence, says the latter, ie being collected, and all will be shown to be quite right. The question whether the proclamation was issued, and whether- her Majesty's Government will stand by it, is meanwhile not answered or discussed. We have always maintained that General Roberts would produce some explanation of the facts other than that made for him by Tory journals, and in his. telegram to his brother-in-law he does so. He says distinctly,. in the teeth of the Correspondents, that he has executed nobody not implicated in the attack on the Residency ; and as he has the records of the courts martial at his quarters, he- can without doubt produce the corroborative evidence essential when serious charges are preferred. When they have arrived, there will be an end of the charge about executing soldiers for being soldiers; but the pro- clamation will remain unexplained and inexplicable, except upon the theory that General Roberts thought it good policy to threaten executions which are contrary to every law of war, and which he had no intention of ever carry- ing out. But the Government is so indifferent or so ill- informed, that it did not even know that this was its General's defence, or it would have produced it at once, if only that the denial might be telegraphed to Liverpool. The truth is, it is a weak Government, stumbling into scrapes and stumbling out of them ; unaware of its own desires, except for votes ; and ignorant of the commonest facts, till its own agents get impatient of its ways, and do as they like, and Sc) include themselves, as the Duke of Argyll said, "among the circumstances over which her Majesty's Government have not complete control."
Previous page
