Lord Lawrence, and Minutes against | Momunds; and when a British officer any extension of the Frontier were recorded by himself, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Henry Durand, Sir George Yule, and Sir William Mansfield, then Commander-in-Chief in India, three of them being experienced military men. In addition to these authorities we have recently seen the opinions against any extension of the Frontier entertained by Sir Herbert Edwardes, whose military talent and intimate knowledge of the Frontier no one can doubt; of General Sir John Adye, a Queen's officer of high character, and who himself served on the Frontier in the Umbeylah campaign; and I find, somewhat to my surprise, that Sir Henry Green, one of the foremost advocates of the extension of the Frontier of Scinde, is opposed to the extension of that portion of the Frontier which borders on Afghanistan. With this preponderance of military opinion, so far as we have the means of knowing, against any extension of the NorthWestern Frontier, it seems now, however, that, regardless of the rights of the Ameer, we are prepared to take possession of part of his territory. It appears to me that any annexation of territory in Europe which has been condemned by universal public opinion-that of the Frontier of the Rhine, the taking possession of Sleswick, or any other such proceeding-may be equally justified. But, indeed, the case is worse against us in this proceeding in India; for by the Treaty of 1855, which we acknowledge still to be in force, we are bound to respect the territories of the Ameer. We have repeatedly given the assurance that we wanted nothing from Afghanistan; even in the last proceedings we declared that we should take nothing over which the Ameer had jurisdiction; and if, in spite of all these engagements and assurances, we commit such an act of unjustifiable and unprincipled spoliation, what becomes of our character for good faith, on which our position in India so essentially depends? My noble Friend opposite, indeed, asserts that Ali Musjid is not in Afghan territory. Whose officer commanded, whose troops garrisoned Ali Musjid? Shere Ali's. And when occupied, as my noble Friend said, by the Khyberees, it has been only at times, and then under the authority of the Ameer of Cabul. Who occupy the northern side of the Pass? The was murdered by some of them a few years ago, to whom did we apply for redress?-to Shere Ali. Surely that is recognizing his jurisdiction. Whose troops are we fighting in the Koorum Valley? Those of Shere Ali. The inhabitants (of that valley are undoubtedly subjects of the Ameer. The intermediate tribes- Afreedees and others do not pay much obedience even to their own Chiefs; but their allegiance is due, such as it is, to the Chiefs of Cabul, whose dominions, till the conquest of the Sikhs, extended to the Indus and beyond it. I cannot suppose for a moment that the Afghans, or indeed any persons in India, will consider our annexation of territory beyond our North-West Frontier as anything but an encroachment on Afghanistan. I will now advert to the complaint made of the presence of Russian Agents, and of the reception of a Russian Mission at Cabul. In former years it has been the custom for letters to be exchanged between the Russian officers in Turkestan and the Ameer. It was constantly done in Lord Mayo's time, and Lord Northbrook's. Sometimes the Indian Government was consulted as to what answers should be sent from Cabul, sometimes they were not; but no objection was ever entertained to this Correspondence, and on one occasion, if I remember rightly, Lord Mayo expressed his approbation of it. It would seem, however, as if, latterly, the arrival of persons claiming to be Russian Agents had been more frequent, and their presence at Cabul more constant than heretofore. We must, however, be cautious in placing too much confidence in these reports. Not only the Russian Government, but the officers in Turkestan have denied having sent such Agents; and in such an atmosphere of intrigue and deceit as surrounds an Eastern Court it is impossible to be sure of the truth, which, indeed, we shall probably. never know. The Ameer's Envoy stated at Peshawur that at that time their presence had been a source of embarrassment to the Ameer. In 1878, however, a formal Mission was undoubtedly sent from Turkestan to Cabul; and perhaps we might have had reason to complain that this was a breach of the engagements of Russia, and of her assurance that she considered Afghan "It was now no longer a secret that if war had broken out between England and Russia we should not have remained on the defensive in India." istan as beyond the sphere of her in- | state, in one of his despatches to Lord fluence. But had we not given Russia Lytton, that English newspapers and some justification for her course? I will books on Indian affairs were rapidly only allude to what appeared in an translated and forwarded for the inIndian newspaper, supposed often to formation of the Ameer, and it is well represent the views of the Government known that the Ameer had seen the there, in which it was said that translation of Sir Henry Rawlinson's book. Now, was it not most natural that the Ameer should consider this occupation of Quetta as the practical commencement of the scheme which would deprive him of about one-third of the best part of his dominions? Lord Northbrook had refused to to occupy Quetta. One of the earliest steps, however, of Lord Lytton, coming out fresh from England, and who might, therefore, fairly be supposed to be imbued with the notions of the India Office in England, was to direct the occupation of Quetta; and in November, 1876, an Engineer officer was employed in laying out sites for barracks and public buildings, and it was actually occupied by troops before the meeting with Sir Lewis Pelly at Peshawur. Is it very surprising that after the language held, and the conduct of the Indian Government to him at the close of Sir Lewis Pelly's Conference, and with the threatening of this apparent danger to his territories, which was paraded and magnified by the Indian Press, that the Ameer should not have turned a deaf ear to the Russian Envoy? Is there no excuse for a man whom we had so treated? I do not propose to say a word further as to the justice or fairness of our conduct, or of the war. I am anxious only to deal with considerations affecting India; and I ask, would it not have been more At any rate, it is undeniable that we brought Indian troops to the Mediterranean, with the view of taking part in the struggle with Russia if war, as at one time seemed not improbable, had broken out. Was it unnatural that the Russians should take measures with a view to finding employment for the Indian troops at home? The Mission did not leave Turkestan till there had been ample time for orders to be transmitted by telegram from St. Petersburg for its departure after the arrival of the Indian troops in Egypt. The Indian troops arrived, I think, before the middle of April, and the Mission did not leave Samarcand till the 10th of June. Explanations have been asked for from the Russian Government, which has stated that the Mission was despatched under circumstances which happily no longer exist, and it appears by the Central Asian Papers that Lord Salisbury is satisfied with their explanations. But this cause of complaint, whatever it may be as to the Russians, does not apply to the Ameer. He had not entered into any such engagements. And how did we stand with him at the time when their Mission was received? I have al-politic and wiser on our part to have enready stated that long before this we had withdrawn our promises of support, broken off all intercourse with the Ameer, and withdrawn our Agent from Cabul. There was, besides, another circumstance which we know weighed heavily on his mind-the occupation of Quetta. In 1875, Sir Henry Rawlinson, a Member of the Indian Council, had written a Memorandum on Afghan and Russian affairs, in which he advocated the occupation of Herat and Candahar-leaving him in undivided authority only over Cabul and the Northern and Eastern portions of Afghanistan, and the first step to this occupation was to be the taking possession of Quetta. Lord Salisbury thought it necessary to deavoured, even then, to re-establish friendly relations with the Ameer than to throw him into the arms of Russia? If Russia is so hostile and so formidable to us in Asia; if it is necessary to take such precautions to guard against the danger of her action against us; can there be greater insanity on our part than to alienate the Power which would be our best Ally against her? What could Russia, for her own interest, wish more than that we should engage ourselves in hostilities with the Afghans, and waste our strength and resources in a struggle from which military honour would be the only gain? How truly applicable to such conduct on our part is the line of the Latin poet C heights, and if on the hill sides, the supply of water may be deficient and the communications will be difficult. All this was experienced in the operations at the Umbeylah Pass in 1863; and, indeed, the experience of that operation is a warning against engaging in this mountain warfare. It was at that time desirable to punish a band of plunderers known as the Sitana fanatics, who had established themselves at no great dis Sir Neville Chamberlain's Mission, as to the reception of which at Cabul no answer had been received, was, as might have been expected, stopped at the mouth of the Pass, but without any insult, as was stated by the noble Lord who moved the Address. An Ultimatum in no very courteous terms was sent to the Ameer, and before any answer was received, with what I should term pre-tance from our border. A force was cipitate haste our troops entered Afghanistan. Conciliation has ceased. Coercion has begun. Where will it end? We have had military success, as was sure to be the case. I have never entertained the least doubt of our being able to go where we chose to drive Shere Ali from Cabul, to occupy Candahar and Herat; but, my Lords, when we have obtained the military success, wherever and whenever we may stop, our real difficulty begins. I approach with some hesitation what may be called a military question, and so in part it is; but it is also a political and a financial question. Our present Frontier in the plain being deemed insufficient, we are to go into the hills, and amongst them to occupy some line as a "scientific" Frontier. Now, my Lords, I can understand if we were dealing with a single line of mountains—such as the Pyrenees or the Balkans that by occupying the Passes in such a chain we might obtain what military men would call a scientific Frontier. But there is no such single range beyond our present Frontier. The country is described by a most competent military authority as a vast tract of mountains of the most rugged and desolate character, sometimes attaining the height of 10,000 feet, running down in successive ridges from the great mass of the Hindoo Koosh, intersected by narrow valleys and defiles, with difficult Passes between them, and across which it is impossible to lay down a clear and definite line of Frontier. To whatever line we choose to advance, we must occupy and govern the country behind it. If our posts and the escorts which bring up their supplies-order. You will be compelled to advance all of which must come from the rearare weak, they will be liable to be cut off. If they are strong, the expense will be very considerable. If our posts are in the valleys in order to comm and the water and such roads as are there, they will be overlooked from the surrounding VOL, CCXLIII. [THIRD SERIES.] despatched for this purpose, and in order to reach them it had to pass through some territory belonging to the Bonairs. We had no hostility to them, and they were told so; but, nevertheless, they, and the neighbouring tribes, rose in force as soon as we had entered their district, and held us in check for a considerable time in the Pass. At last, fortunately for us, they assembled in force in the valley, and we attacked and defeated them. So little real hostility was there, that they actually aided us in the object of our expedition; but so inveterate was their feeling against the foot of the foreigner on their soil that, as we retired, they destroyed the traces of the route by which we had advanced. If such was the feeling against us for our temporary presence, what will it be if we advance for the purpose of permanent occupation? The country surrounding the Khyber Pass is inhabited by the Afreedees and other tribes, numbering about 100,000 men, of the fiercest, most intractable, and semi-barbarous of the Afghans. They live in a constant state of feud. Robbery and murder are of daily occurrence. How will you punish such crimes, which you cannot permit in the districts which you govern? The guilty persons will escape into the next valley, will be aided by its inhabitants, and there will be frequent incursions of these people, who are admirably fitted for mountain warfare, and being bigoted Mahomedans will be animated by an intense fanatical hatred of the infidel foreigner who seeks to reduce them to obedience, to law and from valley to valley, much in the same way as I understand is now going on in the hills on your North-East Frontier against tribes much less formidable than the Afghans. Now, my Lords, assuming that, even in spite of our annexation of part of his territory, friendly relations K + to have been established at first with the Ameer, such proceedings as these will render it impossible for him to maintain relations of friendship, or to avoid supporting the tribes whom you attack. The national feeling of his people and their religious fanaticism will force him to do so. You will be brought into collision at Cabul. What may be the result cannot be predicted; but whatever it may be, anarchy, a puppet Ruler supported by us, or actual annexation, will equally involve us in further difficulty, and we shall be again compelled go forward. I do not see that amongst all the advocates of advancing our Frontier anyone has even suggested where we can stop; and depend upon it that if we once commence advancing into Afghanistan, instead of taking the first ridge, we shall never stop till we have taken the last, which looks down upon the plains of Balkh and the Oxus. But this is an occupation of Afghanistan, the folly of which Sir Charles Napier said only equalled that of attempting to conquer it. Against whom do we require a scientific Frontier? Not against the Afghans; against them our present Frontier has sufficed for the last 28 years. Bands of plunderers are the only persons who have crossed in hostile form. It is not against Afghans, but against Russians that a scientific Frontier can be needed. But nobody expects the Russians to advance for the purpose of assailing India by Cabul and the Khyber. Look to Sir Henry Rawlinson's book, who certainly understands the subject. He tells you that it is upon Herat that they must advance, and I believe that all military men agree in this opinion. In order to meet their possible advance, he proposes to erect a great fortress at Herat, a second at Candahar, with a line of forts and fortified posts at Quetta and elsewhere, in order to maintain the communications along a line of 800 miles, from the Indus to Herat. In this view he is corroborated by a great military authority, General Hamley. If on military grounds this be necessary, then here arises the important question of finance. Herat will have to be defended, not against Persian or Afghan attacks, but against the forces and military skill of the Russians. It must, so near the Frontier, be made a second Metz. I do not presume to say what the first cost of constructing such a fortress, of that at Candahar and of those at the other posts, will be, but it cannot be less than £3,000,000 or £4,000,000. As regards the permanent defence of the country, an estimate was made in the time of Sir John Lawrence's Government. The minimum number of men required was put at 30,000, of whom one-third were to be Europeans, and the annual cost was taken at between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000. But it was supposed that the necessary force would in all probability be, not 30,000 but 50,000 men, and no allowance was made for keeping down a hostile population, or for the Civil Government of the country. Whatever the whole force required for all these purposes may be it must be in addition to what there is now in India, where there is not a man too much. It would be a low estimate to put the annual sum required for all this at less than from £4,000,000 to £5,000,000. Now, my Lords, little or nothing is to be obtained in Afghanistan. It is a country which, as Dost Mahomed expressed it, produces only men and stones. The whole expense must be defrayed from other sources. It is impossible to impose such a charge upon the Revenues of India. In spite of the favourable account which my noble Friend opposite gave of the amount of the opium duty this year, the Revenue of India, one year with another, barely covers the expenditure. Some of the Revenue is precarious. The expense of the Civil Administration is steadily and inevitably increasing, and nobody has suggested how much additional taxation can be imposed on India. If such expense is to be incurred it must fall upon the taxpayers of this country; and that is a prospect which may well make the boldest statesman pause. Her Majesty's Government may ask me what I would do. Fortunately, as I think, the winter months render a pause in our military operations inevitable. I would endeavour during this interval to revert to the policy of conciliation. We have done much of which the Ameer has, I think, good reason to complain; but Dost Mahomed had more, when we had deposed and driven him into exile. Nevertheless, Sir Herbert Edwardes and Sir John Lawrence so far conciliated him that he became our fast friend; and during our worst necessity during the Mutiny, in spite of the urgency of his | Her Majesty on the evening of the 5th Chiefs, he allowed no Afghan to cross (the Earl of Ravensworth) took octhe Frontier to our detriment. Call such casion to quote a sentence from one of policy by what name you please-back- my letters, written some years ago when ward policy, or masterly inactivity-it I was Governor General, to the effect has succeeded in preserving peace and a that if the Russians got possession of good understanding with the Afghans. Afghanistan it would be the cause of We ought to abandon all notion of per- much trouble to us in India. I quite manent occupation beyond our present admit that this quotation may be corFrontier; we ought to satisfy the rect, for in a despatch of the 3rd of Afghans that we covet no portion of September, 1867, I expressed the same their territory. We ought, if communi- view. I considered then that we should cations are opened-as I hope they may do all in our power to avert such a conbe endeavour to conciliate them. We dition of things, and I urged on Her should be patient, forgiving, and gene- Majesty's Government that some underrous, and require nothing but what is standing should be at once come to with absolutely necessary for the honour of Russia on this matter. I think, now, the country. We have, in truth, no if Russia will not enter into satisfactory cause of quarrel with the Afghans but arrangements with us about Afghanwhat we have made ourselves. There is istan, or, having made them, allow her no difficulty as to our Frontier. It is officers in Central Asia to violate them, not so on their Northern Frontier, that ulterior measures should be taken where they are almost coterminous with in England to protect India. But, though the Russians, or with States under Rus- I entertain these views, I hold — and sian influence. Bokhara and Balkh are firmly hold-that it would be an unwise in near proximity; and looking to what policy for us to go beyond our present has been the progress of Russian ad- boundary on the North-West Frontier of vance, it is more than probable that ere India, and thus to anticipate the attacks long some cause of difficulty or cause of of Russia. The policy which England quarrel will occur on this Frontier, and for the last few years has adopted toon the occurrence of which the Afghans wards Russia is of a very doubtful will naturally look to us for assistance. character. We distrust her-we are That is the relative position in which we continually questioning her as to her ought to stand with Afghanistan, not intentions and movements and then offending their national feelings; re- profess ourselves satisfied with her exspecting their independence; always planations. For instance, in the Correready to afford them friendly aid. Such spondence recently published regarding a state of things I hope and trust may affairs in Central Asia, we accept all she be established; and with the Afghans says as to the circumstances which have our friends, though we may not have a led her to make the recent diversion in scientific Frontier, nevertheless, with a Afghanistan; and while we do this, and friendly and warlike population holding resume friendly relations with her, we an almost inaccessible country, and the wage war with the Afghans because British power behind them, we shall they received a Russian Mission; and have an unassailable bulwark to our further are about to rectify our Frontiers Indian Empire. The noble Viscount in the hope of strengthening ourselves concluded by moving the Amendment against Russian advances. This is not of which he had given Notice. a very magnanimous policy, and I doubt it adding to either our strength or prestige in India. I will not say very much To leave out from the word ("House") to the about the policy which we have pursued end of the motion for the purpose of inserting ("whilst ready to consent to providing the towards Afghanistan since the war of means necessary for bringing the war in which 1842, except that, after punishing its we are unhappily engaged to a safe and honour-people for their treachery, our endeavour able conclusion, regrets the conduct pursued by the Government which has unnecessarily engaged this country in the contest.")—(The Fucount Halifax.) Amendment moved, LORD LAWRENCE*: My Lords, the noble Earl who moved the Address to has uniformly been to make amends to them for our first invasion of their country. The noble Earl taxed me in severe terms-which, however, I view with indifference-on account of my successive recognitions in 1864 of Shere |