British Government if his territories were threatened by Russia, Lord Northbrook's Government was prepared* to assure him that, under certain conditions, the Government of India would assist him to repel unprovoked aggression. But Her Majesty's Government at home did not share † his Highness's apprehension, and the Viceroy ultimately informed the Ameer that the discussion of the question would be best postponed to a more convenient season. The effect of this announcement on his Highness, although conveyed in conciliatory language, was not favourable; the policy which dictated it was unintelligible to his mind, and he received it with feelings of chagrin and disappointment. His reply to Lord Northbrook's communication was couched in terms of ill-disguised sarcasm; he took no notice of the Viceroy's proposal to depute a British officer to examine the northern frontier of Afghanistan; he subsequently refused permission to Sir Douglas Forsyth to return from Kashgar to India through Cabul; he left untouched a gift of money lodged to his credit by the Indian Government, and generally assumed towards it an attitude of sullen reserve. 10. Such was the position of affairs when Her Majesty's present advisers assumed office in 1874. The maintenance of Afghanistan as a strong and friendly Power had, at all times, been the object of British policy. The method adopted in attaining that object had not met with the success that was desirable. Its accomplishment was, nevertheless, a matter of grave importance, and it had now to be considered with reference to the rapid march of events in Turkestan. Her Majesty's Government could not view with indifference the probable influence of those events upon the character of an Asiatic prince whose dominions were thereby brought within a steadily narrowing circle between two great military empires, and although no immediate danger appeared to threaten British interests on the frontier of Afghanistan, the situation in Central Asia had become sufficiently grave to suggest the necessity of timely precaution. Her Majesty's Government considered that the first step necessary was the improvement of their relations with the Ameer himself. With this object in view they deemed it expedient that his Highness should be invited to receive a temporary mission at Cabul, in order that an accredited British Envoy might confer with him personally upon what was taking place, might assure him of the desire of the Queen's Government that his territories should remain safe from external attack, and at the same time might point out to him the extreme difficulty of attaining this object unless it were permitted by him to place its own officers on his frontier to watch the course of events beyond it. It was true that the Ameer's relations with the Russian Governor-General of Turkestan had of late become more intimate, and that a correspondence which that official had commenced with the Cabul Durbar in 1871, and which at one time had caused serious disquiet to the Ameer, was being carried on with increased activity, while his Highness's original practice of consulting the Indian Government as to the replies to be sent to General Kauffmann's communications had been discontinued. Nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government were willing to believe that Shere Ali, if his intentions were friendly, would be ready to join them in measures advantageous to himself and essential for the protection of common interests. 11. In view of these interests and of the responsibilities which had morally devolved upon the British Government on behalf of Afghanistan; looking also to the imperfect information available in regard to the country in respect to which those responsibilities had been incurred, Lord Northbrook's Government had in 1873 expressed the opinion that the temporary presence in Afghanistan of a British officer, as then proposed by them, might do much to allay any feelings of mistrust lingering in the minds of the Afghan people, and might at the same time prepare the way for eventually placing permanent British representatives at Cabul, Herat, and elsewhere. Encouraged by this opinion, Her Majesty's Government came to the conclusion that, although Lord Northbrook's efforts to attain the desired object had not met with success, the time had come when the measure thus indicated could no longer with safety be postponed. Your predecessor in Council had indeed, while appre the ciating all the advantages to be anticipated from it, frankly represented to Her Majesty's present advisers the difficulties attending the initiation of it; he believed the time and circumstances of the moment to be inopportune for placing British agents on Afghan borders, and was of opinion that such a step should be deferred till the progress of events justified more specific assurances to Shere Ali, which might then be given in the shape of a treaty, followed by the establishment of agencies at Herat and other suitable places. Her Majesty's Government, however, were unable to agree in this view; they deemed it probable that, if events were thus allowed to march without measures of precaution on the part of the British Government, the time would have passed when representations to the Ameer could be made with any probability of a favourable result; and they considered it important that the actual sentiments of his Highness, in reference to which different opinions were held by different authorities, should be tested in good time. It 12. Accordingly, on your Excellency's departure from England to assume the Viceroyalty, Her Majesty's Government instructed you to offer to Shere Ali that same active countenance and protection which he had previously solicited at the hands of the Indian Government. was clearly impossible, however, to enter into any formal engagement in this sense without requiring from the Ameer some substantial proof of his unity of interests with the British Government. While Her Majesty's Government, therefore, authorised your Excellency to concede to his Highness substantial pecuniary aid, a formal re cognition of his dynasty, so far as it would not involve active interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, and an explicit pledge of material support in case of unprovoked foreign aggression, you were directed not to incur these heavy responsibilities unless Shere Ali, on his part, were prepared to allow a British agent, or agents, access to positions in his territories (other than at Cabul itself) where, without prejudicing the personal authority of the ruler, they could acquire trustworthy information of events likely to threaten the tranquillity or independence of Afghanistan. 13. The measures which your Excellency adopted on your arrival in India to give effect to the instructions of Her Majesty's Government were framed with discretion and in a spirit of consideration towards Shere Ali, You sent your native aide-de-camp, Ressaldar-Major Khanan Khan, to that prince, charged with the duty of informing him of your desire to depute temporarily to his capital, or to any other point in Afghan territory agree able to his Highness, a special Envoy, whose mission was not merely to be one of compliment, but one for the discussion of matters of common interest to the two Governments; and you took care to convey to his Highness verbal assurances of the friendly character of your advances to him. But Shere Ali rejected your overtures and declined to receive your Envoy. 14. Your Excellency exhorted the Ameer to consider seriously the conse quences of an attitude which might end in compelling the British Government to look upon him thenceforth as a Prince who voluntarily desired to isolate his interests from those of the British Government. In a conciliatory spirit you abstained from pressing upon him the reception of your Envoy, and you acceded to a suggestion of his Highness that your Vakeel at Cabul should make personal representations to you on the Ameer's behalf. These representations proved to be a recapitulation of griev ances dating from 1872, and were briefly as follows: (1) The communication which he had received from the late Viceroy in 1874 on behalf of his rebellious son Yakoob Khan, whom he had imprisoned. (2) The decision on the question of Seistan boundary. (3) The gifts sent by the late Viceroy direct to the chief of Wakhan, who is a tributary to the Ameer. (4) The repeated rejection of his previous request for an alliance and a formal recognition of the order of succession as established by him in the person of his son, Abdoollah Jan. 15. These grievances appeared to weigh heavily on his Highness's mind, and you therefore lost no time in assuring Shere Ali, through the Vakeel, of the friendly feeling of the British Government towards him, of your desire to remove, by a frank exchange of views, all causes of irritation on his mind, and of your willingness to accede to his proposal that, in lieu of Sir L. Pelly proceeding to Cabul, an Afghan Envoy should be deputed to meet one from your Excellency at Peshawur. 16. Your Vakeel thereupon returned to Cabul, charged with the duty of explaining to the Ameer, with the assistance of a clearly worded aide mémoire, the favourable treaty which the British Government was prepared, upon certain conditions, to negotiate with him, and its desire to clear up past misunderstandings. His Highness evinced no cordiality in his reception of him; but, after some delay, he deputed to Peshawur his Minister, Syud Noor Mahomed Shah, there to carry on with Sir Lewis Pelly the negotiations which Her Majesty's Government had considered of sufficient importance to have taken place on Afghan soil with the Ameer himself. Although the Ameer had been informed in writing, both of the concessions which the British Government was ready to grant to him and the conditions attached to them, and although, at the same time, it was signified to him that it would be of no avail for him to send his Envoy to Peshawur unless his Highness were prepared to agree to those conditions as the basis of the proposed treaty, it became apparent in the course of the conference that the Minister had received no specific authority to accept them. As, moreover, the language and conduct of Shere Ali, which had so long been dubious, became openly inimical, you judiciously took advantage of the sudden death of his Highness's Envoy to discontinue negotiations the bases of which had been practically rejected. 17. This step on your part, as well as all your proceedings throughout the year preceding the conference, met with the entire approval of Her Majesty's Government. As observed by my predecessor in his despatch of the 4th October, 1877, Her Majesty's Government had felt justified in hoping that the advantages which they were ready to tender to the Ameer would have been accepted in the spirit in which they were offered. At the same time the attitude of his Highness for some years past had been so ambiguous as to prepare them for a different result. Far, however, from regarding the possibility of failure as affording sufficient grounds for total inaction and continued acquiescence in the existing state of relations with the Ameer, they had arrived at the conclusion that while the prevailing uncertainty as to his Highness's disposition rendered caution necessary in their advances, it was in itself a reason for adopting steps which would elicit the truth. From this point of view Her Majesty's Government could not regard the result of the Peshawur conference as altogether unsatisfactory, inasmuch as they were no longer left in doubt as to the reality of the Ameer's alienation, which had previously been a matter of speculation. On the other hand, the proceedings at the conference and the previous negotiations had placed before the Ameer in a clear light the views of Her Majesty's Government as to their existing obligations towards him, and had, at the same time, informed him of the terms, so favourable to his interests, on which they were willing to draw closer the bonds of union between the two countries, and to place their mutual relations on a footing more advantageous to both. 18. Their overtures having been thus treated, Her Majesty's Government were of opinion that no course was open to them but to maintain an attitude of vigilant reserve until such time as the Ameer might better realize his own position and interests. This view had been anticipated by you in the final assurances conveyed to the Afghan Envoy by Sir Lewis Pelly, and your policy since the close of the Peshawur conference has been in accordance with it. While carefully watching the course of affairs in Afghanistan, so far as the imperfect means of obtaining information has admitted, you abstained from all interference in them, in the hope that time would enable his Highness to realise the dangers accruing to himself by the rejection of the friendly advances of the British Government. That hope, however, has not been realised. The Ameer has persisted in his unfriendly isolation, and ultimately, having two years ago declined to receive a British Envoy, even temporarily, within his territory, on the ground that he could. not guarantee his safety, nor thereafter be left with any excuse for declining to receive a Russian Mission, he has welcomed with every appearance of ostentation an Embassy from the Czar, despatched to his court at a time when there were indications that an interruption of friendly relations between this country and Russia might be imminent. 19. In these circumstances your Excellency represented to Her Majesty's Government that a policy of inaction could no longer be persisted in, and that the Ameer's reception of the Russian Mission at such a time and under such circumstances left him no further excuse for declining to receive at his capital an Envoy from the British Government. Your Excellency proposed, therefore, to demand the reception of a Mission to Cabul, headed by an officer of rank, in the person of Sir Neville Chamberlain, whose name and family R were held in high esteem by the Ameer. 20. This proposal was approved by Her Majesty's Government. It was evident that a potentate who willingly admitted to his capital, at a critical period, Envoys of a Power which at the moment might be regarded as making its advances with objects not friendly to the British Government, could not reasonably refuse to receive a Mission from a Power with which he had continuously been in alliance. Your Excellency in Council did not anticipate any such refusal, and Her Majesty's Government saw no reason to question the soundness of your opinion on this point, based, as it must have been, on the best information at your command. 21. The anticipations both of your Excellency and of Her Majesty's Government were, however, disappointed by the event. In a friendly letter, carried to Cabul by the Nawab Gholam Hussein Khan, you informed the Ameer of the date on which Sir Neville Chamberlain was to leave Peshawur, and you gave his Highness adequate time in which to issue orders to his local officials for the reception of the Mission. You caused it, moreover, to be intimated to his Highness and his officials that a refusal of free passage to the Mission would be regarded by you as an act of hostility. The orders sent to the Afghan officers at Ali Musjid were, nevertheless, the reverse of what you had a right to expect, and Major Cavagnari, who went in advance of your Envoy, was distinctly informed that any attempt to enter Afghan territory would be resisted by force, of which an ostentatious display was at once made. 22. This conduct on the part of the Ameer was wholly without justification. He was aware from various communications addressed to him by your Excellency's predecessors that the Russian Government had given assurances to the Government of Her Majesty to regard his territories as completely beyond its sphere of action; he was equally aware that the whole policy of the British Government since his accession to the throne had been to strengthen his power and authority, and to protect him from foreign aggression, although the methods adopted for doing so may not have at all times accorded with his Highness's own views; he had received from the British Government evidence of goodwill, manifested by large gifts of money and arms, as well as by its successful efforts in obtaining from the Czar's Government its formal recognition of a fixed boundary, agreeable to himself, between his kingdom and the neighbouring khanates; his subjects had been allowed to pass freely throughout India, to the great benefit of the trade and commerce of his country; and in no single instance has the Ameer himself, or any of his people, been treated unjustly or inhospitably within British jurisdiction. By every bond of international courtesy, as well as by the treaty engagement of 1855 existing between the two countries, binding them to be the friend of our friends and the enemy of our enemies, the Ameer was bound to a line of conduct the reverse of that which he adopted. 23. In reporting to Her Majesty's Government the forcible rejection of your friendly mission your Excellency expressed the conviction of the Government of India that this act deprived the Ameer of all further claim, upon the forbearance of the British Government and necessitated instant action. Her Majesty's Government were, however, unwilling to accept the evasive letter brought from Cabul by the Nawab Gholam Hussein Khan as Shere Ali's final answer to your Government, and determined to give him a short time for reconsideration. While, therefore, Her Majesty's Government acknowledged fully as binding on them the pledges given by Sir N. Chamberlain to the friendly chiefs and people who undertook the safe conduct of his Mission, they decided to make an effort to avert the calamities of war, and with this object instructed your Excellency to address to his Highness a demand, in temperate language, requiring a full and suitable apology within a given time for the affront which he has offered to the British Government, the recep tion of a permanent British Mission within his territories, and reparation for any injury inflicted by him on the tribes who attended Sir N. Chamberlain and Major Cavagnari, as well as an undertaking not to molest them hereafter. These instructions were promptly carried into effect by your Excellency's Government, and the Ameer has been informed that unless a clear and satisfactory reply be received from him by the 20th of November, you will be compelled to consider his intentions as hostile and to treat him as a declared enemy. 24. It only remains for me to assure your Excellency of the cordial support of Her Majesty's Government in the onerous circumstances in which you are placed, and to state that I have received the commands of Her Majesty to publish this despatch for the general information of the public, in anticipation of the papers connected with the important question with which it deals. Those papers are in course of prepara tion, but, as they cover a period of not less than fifteen years, they must necessarily be voluminous. I have the honour to be, my Lord, your lordship's most obedient humble servant, CRANBROOK VIII. PUBLIC INCOME AND EXPENDITURE. The following are the receipts into and payments out of the Exchequer between April 1, 1877, and March 31, 1878: Money raised for Localization of the Military Forces, &c. Repayments on account of Advances for the purchase Totals |