TOPICS OF THE DAY.
SIR JAMES STEPHEN ON AFGHANISTAN. THE policy finally adopted by Lord Lytton, and the argu- ments presented by Sir James Stephen to the country, through the Times of Wednesday, both point to the same con- clusion,—that it is expedient for Great Britain to conquer Afghanistan. Lord Lytton, whether restrained by orders from the India Office, or by the remonstrances of his own Depart- ments, or by the advice of the experienced men around him, whom he has hitherto disregarded, has, it is clear, finally decided to abandon his original intention of striking a blow at once. Cabul is not be carried by a coup de main, like a burglar's house by policemen, and even the front door—the Khyber Pass—is to be let alone, until force has been collected sufficient to make all sure. On the other hand, it has been resolved to make the coming campaign a very serious one. An Indian Commander-in-Chief is a very grand person- age, who does not take command of mere expeditions ; and the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Frederick Paul Haines, has himself descended into the field. An Army of 35,000 men is being collected, the Transport and Commissariat are ransacking North India for beasts of burden, and mountain guns are being sent out from the arsenals at home. Officers on leave belonging to regiments stationed in the North are ordered to rejoin their posts, and the regiments to be employed are being brought rapidly up to their full strength. The expenditure necessary for great preparations has obviously been sanctioned, and picked men are being nominated ad interim to high commands. All this means that Afghanistan is to be seriously invaded, and it is in this belief that Sir James Stephen steps forward to say, with all the authority of his clear mind and incisive style, that the invasion is wise. As usual, he throws aside all the inci- dental questions which arise, refuses to discuss past transac- tions, declines any argument as to Lord Lytton's wisdom on matters of detail, pushes behind him the question of our moral right to give orders to Shere Ali, and addresses himself "squarely," as Americans say, to the all-important issue,—Is it or is it not wise to coerce Afghanistan?
He maintains that the Governor-General of that Russian India, "Turkestan," an officer quite as important and inde- pendent as the Indian Viceroy, and far more critically situated, is, rightly or wrongly creeping forward towards our Indian Empire. Very likely the Russian Governor cannot help himself, any more than Lord Wellesley could, and is obeying a law of ad- vance which is irresistible ; but that is a comparatively unim- portant detail. He is, at all events, advancing "in search of a definite frontier," and he will advance until at last he finds one in the Hindoo Koosh,—that is, in the great mountain barrier on his own side. His operations in this direction will be much facilitated by an arrangement with Afghanistan, and he is therefore making one, offering as consideration an offensive alliance against India. With such an affiance, the Afghans, officered and led by Russians, aware that they themselves have held Indian provinces, and allured by the hope of plundering the Peninsula, would at any con- venient moment be most dangerous enemies to British India, which, in fact, with its weak frontier, would lie perpetually at their mercy ; and we must, to guard ourselves, keep a larger army in the Punjab, and spend untold sums upon defensive fortifications. India and Russia would be, in fact, conterminous ; while Russia, and not India, would have the advantage of the Afghan and Pathan Sepoys for any day of battle. The two Empires must meet, and the question to be settled is the place of meeting most advantageous for the British. Sir James Stephen believes that this would be the Hindoo Koosh, with Afghanistan in our own hands.
This is clear speaking, and will convince many who are still doubtful of the policy of the war ; but it admits, as we believe, of very ready answer. We will not complicate the discussion, any more than Sir James Stephen, by any reference to the past, or by raising the question whether we have any earthly right to go and slaughter Afghans, and extinguish the in- dependence of an entire people, because Russia may otherwise grow strong—though we could conceive of Sir James Stephen protesting, if Bismarck destroyed Switzerland lest France should gain over the Federal Council—and will meet him face to face on his own ground. One single but immense fallacy underlies his whole argument. He assumes that in taking military possession of Afghanistan, the Government of India will have changed its position in regard to Russia ; we assert that it will not have changed it at all, except for the worse. We shall, when Afghanistan is held down by "military positions," or annexed—and we must annex, in order to enforce the indus- trial order which alone secures supplies, protects telegraphs, and allows of roads—be just where we are now, or rather, where we should be if Cabul were a dependency of Russia,—that is, we shall be behind a vast mountain-chain, pierced by few passes, and held on the other side by a possible enemy of great mili- tary resources. This chain, the Hindoo Koosh, is not yet proved to be stronger on the Russian side than the Suleiman—which just at this moment is keeping us out in the most suggestive manner—while it is weaker on the Persian side, Persians having repeatedly invaded, and once at least conquered and held, Afghanistan. We should, therefore, have to do in Afghanistan precisely what Sir James says we must otherwise do in India, namely, place a great and ex- pensive army in readiness against attack, and spend endless sums upon fortifications ; and we must do all this in a country 400 miles further from our permanent base, the sea, so rugged that railways would either be hopeless or excessively costly, and so raised into the air that the Sepoys of the plains are cowed, and almost paralysed by the winter climate. "Their fingers," as they say, "become all thumbs." We shall have to do it with a huge mountain-range behind us—recollect that the Khyber Pass is as lofty as that over Mount Cenis—with a hostile population around us, and with the chance that insurrection may cut us off at any moment from the sea. It is true Russia will not have Afghans or Pathans to make Sepoys of, or urge forward under Russian officers in huge forays ; but what is that to Russia ? She has never lacked men enough for her purposes. She can use her penal regiments in the Hindoo Koosh as she did in the Caucasus, expending them in worrying us as she expended them in worrying Schamyl ; or if she wishes for Asiatics, she can organise any number of the inhabitants of the Khanates —not more fanatically Mussulman than the Afghans—or any number of the Tartars now her subjects, who once conquered Asia under Tchengis Khan, and who are among the best military material in the world. The supplies of them are endless, and they are already Russian. We should, in fact, as against Russia be not one whit the safer ; while we should have spent twenty-five millions in order to obtain a most costly series of cantonments in the clouds—Cabul itself is nearly as high as Pilatus, or twice as high as Snowdon — and to drive every Afghan to look to Russia as his natural protector.
For—and this point is the second of Sir James Stephen's assumptions—these Afghans do not want to be conquered, or controlled, or officered by Russians, any more than by English- men. They do not want to be Sepoys at all, but Afghans. The Russians could no more rule them than we can without annexing them, nor could she let them loose for plunder in India without rousing India into a hearty cordial fighting adherence to us, which in a week would make India impregnable. Because India is restless or disloyal everybody assumes that India would be delighted to be plundered. Just let Sir James Stephen think for one instant of the position of the Indian Government with Afghans ravaging the Punjab and the North- West, and Punjabees and Hindostanees, in a half-frightened rage at that proceeding, beginning, as he says, to hoard their possessions. Would not the Government be instantly in the position of a great General with a splendid little army in full order, and forty millions of brave and perfectly trustworthy recruits from among whom to swell its ranks ? Does he, per- chance, think that Punjabees and Hindostanees like being ravaged, if only the ravagers are Afghans ? He may say that the Russo-Afghan army would not ravage, but would fight in the regular way ; but then he gives up his argument about plunder, and except plunder, what tempta- tion has Russia to offer, that Afghans should be so willing to submit to her, and so unwilling to submit to us ? Why is the mastiff going to kill the lion, and let in the tiger? Is there anything in Russians which makes thorn peculiarly acceptable to Mussulmans, or to any of the races of Central Asia? The truth is the Afghans hate all Kafirsalike, as dogs and wolves ; and that we ourselves, and we on/v, are forcing them by our menaces of invasion to trust the Power which makes fairer promises and seems a little further off. That further precautions may be needed we do not deny, but which will cost us most, the creation of a Plevna in the plain of Peshawur, beyond which no marauding army could _pass with- out risking destruction, or the conquest of Afghanistan ? Kurrachee is at this moment twenty-five days' steam from England. In six weeks we could have 40,000 fresh European troops upon the Indus, and yet because an army of Afghans may some day reach the great river, we are, with at least 100,000,000 of unfriends behind us, to go and conquer them, amidst their clouds. Not all our respect for Sir James Stephen's clearness of mental vision can make us believe such a project anything but wild.
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