Those who care to form an adequate estimate of the
blunders committed in the Afghan policy of the Government, should read Captain Eastwick's very interesting pamphlet on" Lord Lytton and the Afghan War," just published by R. J. Mitchell and Sons. Captain Eastwick has had large experience of Afghan affairs, having discharged important functions on the frontier during the old Afghan campaign, and having followed very carefully all the recent history of the relations between India and Afghanistan. His pamphlet is full of know- ledge and wise remark, and shows us, amongst other things, that Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Lytton are but carrying into action the precise ideas of General Jacob, who proposed, twenty-five years ago, by way of suggestion for the permanent defence of the North-West frontier of India, that the Queen of England should "formally assume the style and title of Empress of India ;' " that Quettah should be occupied; that Afghanistan should be then subsidised with money and arms ; that Herat should be garrisoned with 20,000 men ; and that, notwithstanding, no addition need be made to our Indian Army, "or at least to its cost." This was the policy which Sir Herbert Edwardes, as quoted by Captain Eastwick, criticised in these words :—" So vast a pile of im- practicable schemes seems more like some dream of conquest, than a sober system of Imperial defence. The meaning of distance, the necessity of support, the physical difficulties of countries, the moral difficulties of races, past experience of them all, the future outlay involved, and present financial position of India, seem all alike defied or ignored, in such astounding speculations." That sentence of Sir Herbert Edwardes is a pithy summary of Captain Eastwick's pamphlet, which is a most damaging attack on the flighty and violent policy of the Indian Government, and also on the illusions which we are now taught to indulge as to the future.
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