highest order of statecraft” does not preserve even a “specially gifted” Viceroy from the credulousness of an infant. But his acts show that he entertained no such belief. He felt, as every one must feel who reads the extract I have made, that demands such as these must be preceded by a war. Hence the menacing letters addressed to the Ameer; hence the rude and insulting manner in which Sir Neville Chamberlain was ordered to attempt an entrance into Afghanistan without awaiting the permission of the Ameer; and hence, finally, the monstrous fiction of a deliberate “insult” inflicted upon us, when, in point of fact, we had been the “insulters” all along. The obvious intention throughout was to obtain a pretext for declaring war, because without a war the “Scientific Frontier” was manifestly unattainable. Lastly, when war had been determined upon, the same “official” correspondent came forward in the Times to make known the objects of the impending campaign. “We have,” he wrote, “been driven into what will probably be a costly war entirely against our will, and all our endeavours to avoid it. The occasion, therefore, will now be seized to secure for ourselves the various passes piercing the mountain ranges along the whole frontier from the Khyber to the Bolan; and further strategic measures will be adopted to dominate entirely the Suleiman range and the Hindoo Khosh.”

It is impossible not to admire the hardihood of this remarkable correspondent when he alleges that the war was “entirely against our will, and all our endeavours to avoid it.” But this is not the matter with which I am at present concerned. The official character of these communications will be denied by no one, and they make it clear that the “Scientific Frontier” was intended as a barrier against Russia, and would have made the Hindoo Khosh the external boundary of the Indian Empire. Such a frontier is manifestly the dream of a military specialist, to whose mental vision the Indian Empire, with all its diverse interests, has no existence except as a frontier to be defended against the Russians. And it illustrates the ignorance and precipitate folly which has plunged us in our present difficulties that a project so wild should have been seriously entertained. To have carried it out the subjugation of Afghanistan would have been an indispensable preliminary, and then the civilizing of it, by means of a system of roads and strong garrisons throughout the country; the entire cost of these vast operations being defrayed by a country already taxed to the last point of endurance, heavily burdened with an increasing debt, and ravaged by periodical famines. Such, however, was the “Scientific Frontier” for which a “specially gifted Viceroy,” trained in “the highest order of political statecraft,” declared war against the Ameer. But the frontier which we obtained at the close of the war, and which Ministers and Ministerial journals would have us believe is the genuine article which they wanted from the beginning, is not only not this frontier, but it has not the smallest resemblance to it.

The new frontier does not differ from the old except in three particulars. We hold the Khyber Pass as far as Lundi Kotal, and we have acquired the right to quarter troops in the Kurram Valley and the Valley of Peshin. Of these the Kurram Valley is a mere cul-de-sac, leading nowhere. But I will not ask of my readers to accept of my judgment on this matter. Among the best known advocates for a forward and aggressive policy in Afghanistan is Dr. Bellew. An accomplished linguist and an experienced traveller, he accompanied Colonel Lumsden’s mission to Kandahar in 1857; he was also a member of the mission entrusted with the settlement of the Seistan boundary question, and no man living is better acquainted with the geography and people of Afghanistan. I believe it will not be denied that Lord Lytton, during the recent war, trusted largely in his knowledge and suggestions. He has thus expressed himself on the policy of occupying the Kurram Valley:—

This, I think, is sufficient to dispose of the Kurram Valley. If the old frontier has been rendered “invulnerable,” it is not the acquisition of the Kurram Valley which has made it so. There remains the Peshin Valley. This valley is an open tract of country lying almost midway on the line of march between Quetta and Kandahar, but nearer to the former than the latter. Three easy marches from Quetta suffice to place a traveller in the centre of it. It cannot accurately be described as an extension of our frontier, because it is dissevered from it by more than two hundred miles of difficult country. Between the valley and British territory, the lands of the Khan of Khelat are interposed in one direction, and numerous robber-tribes—Kakers, Murrees, Bhoogtees—in another. Until the valley is securely linked to the Indus by a railway from Sukkur to the Bolan Pass—a costly work, which could not be executed in less than seven years—it will be impossible to quarter more than a few thousand men in it—and these for six months of the year will be as completely detached from their base of supply and reinforcement in India, as if a tract of empty space ran between them. So far from ensuring any increased security to India by our premature occupation of this valley, we have only enhanced the chances of a hostile collision with the rulers and people of Afghanistan. We were already in military occupation of Quetta, and until easy and rapid communication had been established between Quetta and the Indus, nothing was to be gained by a yet further advance from our base. As a barrier against Russia this frontier is without meaning, and no better proof of this fact could be adduced than Sir Henry Rawlinson’s commentary upon its merits in the Article on the “Results of the Afghan War” which recently appeared in the Nineteenth Century:—