On Wedny the Times published an able letter from Sir
James Steph.• defending the policy of the Indian Government in demanding possession of all military positions in Afghanistan ; and on Thursdayan immense memo. by Sir Bartle Frere, written in 1874, in the form of a letter to Sir John Kaye, and sketching out a general policy for maintaining relations with Cabul. We have noticed Sir James Stephen's argument elsewhere, and need only say that Sir Bartle Frere's is substantially identical with it, with this difference,
that Sir Bartle nowhere affirms that he would invade Afghanistan. He seems to have believed that we could influence Afghanistan through well-chosen agents, and a free distribution of money. Sir Bartle Frere's memo, is obviously the one upon which the Government has acted hitherto, though it has gone beyond his advice, and is in that view important, but it is not so strong in argument as Sir James Stephen's. Its main assumption that Russia could annoy us by instigating a nondescript army of plunderers to invade India, is, we believe, a fallacy. Such an attempt would consolidate the power of the Indian Government, by compelling the Punjabee and Hindostanee peasantry—who are all good recruits—to look to it for protection. It would have just the effect which the Marhatta raids once had on the population of Bengal. There are no one-legged races, and the natives of Hindostan no more like to have their throats cut, their property seized, and their wives carried off, than any other people.
