move to Kohat three batteries of artillery, two companies of sappers and miners, a regiment of British and two regiments of native cavalry, and two regiments of British and four regiments of native infantry.1

In the north of Afghanistan, too, Lord Lytton was equally active. He supplied the Maharaja of Kashmir with arms of precision; and he encouraged him to push forward troops into passes leading to Chitral. Kashmir was almost an insolvent State. British India was groaning under over-taxation, and was on the brink of the most terrible famine which had yet occurred within the century. But no considerations of economy, and no humane desire to lighten the taxation, restrained the Viceroy from these vast and expensive preparations against a danger which did not exist, and which his own action helped to create. He did what he had threatened to do; he formed a ring of iron on the south, east and north of the Amir's dominions.

On January 1, 1877, a Darbar was held at Delhi, and Lord Lytton proclaimed to the Princes. and the people of India that the Queen had assumed the title of Empress of India. Mr. Disraeli had feebly imitated the policy of Bismarck; and the sovereign of British India assumed the august title which the sovereign of Prussia had assumed six years before. Thoughtful men in England inquired if this title added in any way to the real power of the Queen, or took away anything from the treaty rights of Indian princes.

Mr. Lowe inquired in the House of Commons if it was prudent to make a marked distinction between England and India, by giving to the Sovereign of England a title which implied obedience to law, and to the Sovereign of India a title which implied the supremacy of force. And Mr. Gladstone led the Opposition at the . second reading of the Bill, and made a speech reflecting the best traditions and principles of British policy.

1 Papers presented to the House of Lords on February 28, 1881.

"If it be true, and it is true, that we govern India without the restraints of law except such law as we make ourselves; if it be true, and it is true, that we have not been able to give India the benefits and blessings of free institutions, I leave it to the Right Hon. Gentleman [the Prime Minister, Mr. Disraeli] to boast that he is about to place the fact solemnly on record by the assumption of the title of Empress. I, for one, will not attempt to turn into glory that which, so far as it is true, I feel to be our weakness and our calamity."

"I am under the belief that to this moment there are Princes and States in India over which we have never assumed dominion, whatever may have been our superiority in strength. We are now going by Act of Parliament to assume that dominion, the possible consequences of which no man can foresee."

"I ask whether the supremacy over certain important Native States in India was ever vested in the Company, or whether it was not. We are bound to ask the Right Hon. Gentleman whether their supremacy was so vested or not, and whether he can assure us upon his responsibility that no political change in the condition of the Native Princes of India will be effected by this Bill."

This was going to the root of the question. The new title, if it meant anything, meant that the Sovereign of India was about to assume powers over Indian Princes and States not secured by the treaties. The Sovereign of Prussia had assumed some powers over the States of Germany, openly and explicitly, when he had assumed the title of Emperor of Germany. The Bill before the Parliament made no specific mention of such powers. Did the new title imply such powers, or did it not?

We owe it to the categorical questions of Mr. Gladstone, and of Sir W. Harcourt, that the Prime Minister declared emphatically that no new powers over the Indian Princes and States were assumed. "The change of title," said Mr. Disraeli in answer to Sir W. Harcourt, "does

not in the least affect the right and dignity or honour of Native Princes in India." The reply is important for all time to come.

It is, however, explained by the daughter and biographer of Lord Lytton that: "Treaties, made perhaps a hundred years before, and still in force, might be quoted to show that the Native Princes, although not so strong, were equal in dignity and rightful position to the Viceroy. The Nizam, the Gaekwar, and the Viceroy, had all the same salutes, than which, to native imaginations, there could be nothing more significant. The twenty-one guns ceased, after the Delhi Assembly, to be a sign of equality with the representative of the Sovereign."1

The fair chronicler of her father's Indian administration here confuses two things which are distinct. The Nizam and the Gaekwar never believed that they were the equals of the Viceroy in power. The assumption of a new title was not needed to convince even "native imaginations" that the Viceroy represented the greatest power in Asia. But the Nizam and the Gaekwar relied on the rights secured to them by treaties, as a poor citizen of a State may rely on his rights secured by law. And we have the Prime Minister's word for it that the assumption of the new title does not in the least affect those rights. Any interference with the autonomy of Native States, secured by treaties, is a violation of good faith to-day, as it was before the assumption of the new title.

While the Darbar of Lord Lytton was held at Delhi, amidst pomp and festivities and needless ostentation, the shadow of a great famine was already darkening over the land. If anything could have recalled the ruler of India in 1877 from a foolish and wasteful frontier policy to retrenchment and a reduction of the burdens on the

1 Lord Lytton's Indian Administration, by Lady Betty Balfour, London, 1899, p. 133.

people, the terrible famine of that year should have produced that effect. It was a calamity unprecedented in its intensity within the memory of living men. Since the Queen's accession, India had suffered from great famines. in 1837 and 1860, in 1866, 1869, and 1874, but no calamity so widespread and so fatal had been known in India within the century. The peasantry of Madras, with their wretched land-system, were not as resourceful as the peasantry of Bengal. Relief operations were not organised as wisely as in the Bengal famine of 1874. Large villages were depopulated. Vast tracts of country were left uncultivated. And five millions of people-the population of a fair-sized country-perished in this Madras famine in one single year.

But neither the Delhi Darbar, nor the distress in the land, diverted the Viceroy from the object he had placed before himself. There was a Conference at Peshawar between the Amir's Envoy, Nur Muhammad, and Sir Lewis Pelly, in February 1877. Sir Lewis Pelly insisted, as a preliminary condition, that British officers should reside on the frontier of Afghanistan. And he gave hopes that the British Government might then enter into an offensive and defensive alliance, recognise the Amir's heir, and support the Amir against disturbances in his dominions. But the aged Nur Muhammad declared the Amir's conviction, that to allow British officers to reside in his country would be to relinquish his own authority. The Conference came to nothing, for there was no basis of negotiation left.

Lord Lytton lost all patience. He wrote to Sir Lewis Pelly: "The British Government does not press its alliance and protection upon those who neither seek nor appreciate them. This being the case, it only remains for the Viceroy to withdraw, at once, the offers made to the Amir in the month of October last." 1 Three weeks after the receipt of this letter, the aged Nur Muhammad died. 1 Letter to Sir Lewis Pelly, dated March 3, 1877.

His surviving colleague had no authority to continue the negotiations. Atta Muhammad, the British Agent at Kabul, was recalled. A war seemed inevitable.

Great events had in the meantime followed each other in rapid succession in Europe. The Russians had vanquished the Turks in a great war, and were near the gates of Constantinople. Mr. Disraeli had ordered the Mediterranean fleet to the Dardanelles, landed Indian troops at Malta, called out the Reserves, and occupied Cyprus with the consent of Turkey. And Russia had replied by mobilising an army in Turkestan, and despatching a Mission to Kabul.

Lord Lytton took note of these events, and acted accordingly. He arranged with the Maharaja of Kashmir for the establishment of a British Agency at Gilgit, upon the slopes of the Hindu Kush; and the insolvent State of Kashmir was made to pay for a telegraph line from this new station to the British territory. And Lord Lytton congratulated himself on his cleverness. "We shall have secured a vicarious but virtual control over the Chiefdoms of Kafristan, which will cost us nothing, by their absorption under the suzerainty of Kashmir, our vassal.” 1

The kingdom of Kabul was indeed an earthen pipkin between two iron pots. The Russian Mission was forcing itself into Kabul. The Amir, in dire alarm, wrote to General Kaufmann, declining to receive the Russian Mission. But the Russians would not turn back, and General Stoletoff reached Kabul on July 22, 1878. The Amir had to receive the Mission; and the draft of a treaty was drawn up.

In the meantime, peace had been secured in Europe by the Congress of Berlin. General Stoletoff was recalled. by the Russian Government, and left Kabul on August 24, 1878. The plea for interference with Afghanistan existed no longer. But Lord Lytton had determined on sending a British Mission, since a Russian Mission had 1 Lord Lytton to the Secretary of State. Letter dated April 9, 1878.