white before us. 28th, 1876 :—" If the language and
demeanour of the Ameer First, with regard to the Ameer of Afghanistan ; it is proved be such as to promise no satisfactory result of the negotia- that Lord Northbrook, who held, as many previous Viceroys had tions thus opened, his Highness should be distinctly reminded held, that we could secure the independence of Afghanistan that he is isolating himself, at his own peril, from the much more completely if the Ameer would heartily sanction friendship and protection it is his interest to seek and the residence of British officers on his frontier, and give them deserve." A more open threat was never penned. Well, the every facility for obtaining information and offering advice, was drift of all this correspondence is that Lord Salisbury bad yet strongly opposed to any policy tending to force such envoys resolved, by hook or by crook, by insincere pretexts on Afghanistan, and this for a double reason,—first, on the or by threats, to force a British Envoy on the ground of honour, that Lord Mayo in 1869 had pledged us never Ameer, and that he failed. The Ameer saw what to insist on this step without the full consent of the Ameer him- it all meant, and resisted steadily the first step down- self ; .Lnd next, on the ground of policy, because it could be of no wards towards the position of a dependent State. The use, without the full consent of the Ameer, and without the Conferences at Peshawur—preceded by the occupation of friendliness of the people themselves ;—the experiment having Quetta—ended in the ill-humour of both parties. The British indeed been tried twice, forty and twenty years ago. with this Envoy told the Ameer's agent that the Indian Government result, that the officers who had resided in Afghanistan, would continue "to strengthen the British frontier, without amidst a jealous and unfriendly population, declared that they further reference to the Ameer,"—a threat curiously echoed found far fewer sources of information on the Afghan frontier, two years later by Lord Beaconsfield at the Guildhall than an Agent at Peshawur could easily have obtained, with the in his announcement to the British nation that we ordinary native help at his disposal. Such was Lord North- were going to rectify our Afghan frontier, and to brook's decision, and not Lord Northbrook's only, but that make it a " scientific frontier" for the future. And
of all the advisers upon whom he could best rely in the Ameer's agent evidently understood what was intended, relation to Afghan politics. And it is probable that Lord for he asked at once whether it was meant that the frontier Northbrook's policy was accepted during the first months was to be strengthened at the expense of the territories of the of the Government of Mr. Disraeli. At least, in 1874, Ameer, or otherwise. And now, of course, he knows that it Lord Derby, speaking expressly on behalf of the Indian was at the expense of the Ameer that the frontier was and is Secretary, Lord Salisbury, as well as on his own behalf, to be strengthened. Nay, it seems that when the British repudiated most warmly the notion of guaranteeing his Government found the Ameer so little willing to assume the throne to the Ameer of Afghanistan and his dynasty place of a dependant prince, it preferred his hostility to his against external aggression, on any terms, a policy afterwards reluctant submission ;—that it actually preferred the quarrel, and adopted by the Government. And it seems probable that so the chances of war, to a seeming submission, in which it feared long as Lord Derby used the kind of language which had that the British might be outwitted. The Government of been used by the Duke of Argyll, the India Office had not yet India state expressly in relation to the breach at Peshawur :- conceived the notion of breaking Lord Mayo's compact, by " At the moment when Sir Lewis Pelly was closing the con- forcing on the ruler of Afghanistan, British Residents of ference, his Highness was sending to the Mir Akhor whom be disapproved. But in 1875, a great change instructions to prolong it by every means in his power ; of policy took place. On the 22nd January the Indian Secre- a fresh Envoy was already on the way from Cabul to tary (Lord Salisbury) instructed Lord Northbrook, " with as Peshawur ; and it was reported that this Envoy had authority much expedition as the circumstances of the case permit to to accept eventually all the conditions of the British take means for procuring the assent of the Ameer to the esta- Government. The Viceroy was aware of these facts when blishment of a British Agency at Herat. When this is accom- he instructed our Envoy to close the conference. But it plished, it may be desirable to take a similar step with regard appeared to his Excellency that liabilities which the British to Candahar." Lord Northbrook replied at length on Government might properly have contracted on behalf of the the 7th June, stating that there was every reason to present Ameer of Cabul,-if that Prince had shown any eager- believe that the proposal would be most inopportune ness to deserve and reciprocate its friendship, could not be and unwelcome to the Ameer, to which Lord Salisbury replied advantageously, or even safely, accepted in face of the situa- in November, overruling his objections, and intimating that tion revealed by Sir Lewis Pelly's energetic investigations. the Ameer might be easily hoodwinked in relation to the real Under these circumstances, the prolongation of the Pasha-
purposes of the British Government. " The first step, there- " PEACE WITH HONOUR," IN AFGHANISTAN. fore, in establishing our relations with the Ameer on a more
IF the Government have for a time been able to boast of pro- satisfactory footing, will be to induce him to receive a tem- curing for us " peace, with honour," in relation to Russia, porary Embassy in his capital. It need not be publicly con- they have produced this week unquestionable evidence that they nected with the establishment of a permanent Mission within his have procured war with dishonour in relation to Afghanistan. dominions. There would be many advantages in ostensibly The controversy elicited by Lord Cranbrook's despatch of directing it to some object of smaller political interest, which November 18th, and the publication of the papers pre- it would not be difficult for your Excellency to find, or if need seated to Parliament, prove but too conclusively that the be, to create. I have therefore to instruct you, on behalf of Government of the day has provoked a war with Afghanistan, her Majesty's Government, without any delay that you can without regard to its previous pledges to the Ameer, by a reasonably avoid, to find some occasion for sending a Mission to policy deliberately calculated, either to reduce him to a posi- Cabul, and to press the reception of this Mission very earnestly
tion of complete subjection to the British Government, or to on the Ameer The Envoy whom you may select irritate him into giving us a plea for open hostilities ; that it will be instructed to confer with the Ameer personally upon has disguised the change of policy from Parliament by mis- the recent events in Central Asia; to assure him of the earnest leading explanations, most false in effect and even in words, desire of her Majesty's Government that his territories should during the critical time when Parliament could have inter- remain safe from external attack; and at the same time, to point fered to some purpose ; and that last of all, when the policy out to him the extreme difficulty which will attend any effort of unscrupulous aggression was full-blown, it has tried on your part to ensure this end, unless you are permitted to to cast part of the blame for the necessity on its pre- place your own officers upon the frontier, to watch the course decessors, in a published despatch most carefully worded of events." Lord Salisbury, in other words, recommends so as to contain the verbal truth, while implying to all the deceiving the Ameer as to the real purpose of the Viceroy. world, as all the world understood it to imply, an im- In these communications the Envoy is to be carefully putation utterly without foundation, and indeed the exact friendly and amicable to the Ameer; but, maintaining this reverse of the truth. We state these charges against the tone, " it will be the Envoy's duty earnestly to press on the Government with as much surprise as regret. It has Ameer the risk he would run if he should impede the course accustomed us to underhanded proceedings, but we had of action which the British Government think necessary for tall this week no conception at all of the extent to which securing his independence,"—would it not have been franker such underhanded proceedings had been carried. But to have said at once, his dependence on the British Govern- now the evidence of a deliberate but unsuccessful at- ment I For that was what was really meant, and that tempt to take in the Ameer of Afghanistan ; of a de- was what the Ameer understood, so soon as a Viceroy liberate and successful attempt to take in Parliament ; was found who did not feel Lord Northbrook's scruples, and and of a deliberate attempt, which may prove either sue- who worked out the scheme which Lord Northbrook declined cessful or unsuccessful, according to the temper of the to become a party to. Indeed, this was the language taken shortly Constituencies, to take in the country, lies in black and afterwards in the instructions sent to Lord Lytton on February white before us. 28th, 1876 :—" If the language and demeanour of the Ameer First, with regard to the Ameer of Afghanistan ; it is proved be such as to promise no satisfactory result of the negotia- that Lord Northbrook, who held, as many previous Viceroys had tions thus opened, his Highness should be distinctly reminded held, that we could secure the independence of Afghanistan that he is isolating himself, at his own peril, from the much more completely if the Ameer would heartily sanction friendship and protection it is his interest to seek and the residence of British officers on his frontier, and give them deserve." A more open threat was never penned. Well, the every facility for obtaining information and offering advice, was drift of all this correspondence is that Lord Salisbury bad yet strongly opposed to any policy tending to force such envoys resolved, by hook or by crook, by insincere pretexts on Afghanistan, and this for a double reason,—first, on the or by threats, to force a British Envoy on the ground of honour, that Lord Mayo in 1869 had pledged us never Ameer, and that he failed. The Ameer saw what to insist on this step without the full consent of the Ameer him- it all meant, and resisted steadily the first step down- self ; .Lnd next, on the ground of policy, because it could be of no wards towards the position of a dependent State. The use, without the full consent of the Ameer, and without the Conferences at Peshawur—preceded by the occupation of friendliness of the people themselves ;—the experiment having Quetta—ended in the ill-humour of both parties. The British indeed been tried twice, forty and twenty years ago. with this Envoy told the Ameer's agent that the Indian Government result, that the officers who had resided in Afghanistan, would continue "to strengthen the British frontier, without amidst a jealous and unfriendly population, declared that they further reference to the Ameer,"—a threat curiously echoed found far fewer sources of information on the Afghan frontier, two years later by Lord Beaconsfield at the Guildhall than an Agent at Peshawur could easily have obtained, with the in his announcement to the British nation that we ordinary native help at his disposal. Such was Lord North- were going to rectify our Afghan frontier, and to brook's decision, and not Lord Northbrook's only, but that make it a " scientific frontier" for the future. And
wur Conference could only lead to embarrassments and entanglements, best avoided by the timely termination of it." That means that the British Government, finding the Ameer ex- tremely unwilling to become a dependent State, virtually ruled by a British Resident, preferred an excuse for war,—if the oppor- tunity for war in reference to Russia should arise,—to peace with Afghanistan. And so, in the end, so soon as Russia gained what seemed to be an advantage over England in relation to Afghanistan, the war actually came. Such was the attempt made, though unsuccessfully, to take-in the Ameer of Afghanistan.
In the second place, Parliament was taken in as to the Afghan policy of the Government, by the speech of Lord Salisbury on the 15th June, 1877,—half a year after the breaking off of the Peshawur Conference, —more than a year and a half after Lord Northbrook's refusal to adopt the new Afghan policy, and the arrival of Lord Lytton with direct instructions to carry it out. On the 15th June, 1877, the Duke of Argyll referred to the rumours as to a new Afghan policy, especially as to the intention to force British Residents on the Ameer of Afghan- istan, and this was Lord Salisbury's reply to his interrogation :
—" The noble Duke has derived from the sources open to him the following statement, as I understand him ; that we had tried to force an Envoy upon the Ameer at Cabul ; that we had selected for that purpose Sir Lewis Pelly, whose vigour of mind and action might possibly inspire apprehension in the councils of a Native Prince ; that we had supported the demand by a large assembly of troops on the North-Western Frontier ; and that we were preparing boats upon the Indus. Now, we have not tried to force an Envoy upon the Ameer at Cabul,—we have not suggested Sir Lewis Pelly as an Envoy to Cabul,—the troops were assembled on the North- Western Frontier without the slightest reference to any such demand ; and with regard to the boats upon the Indus, I never heard of them until to-day. Our relations with the Ameer of Cabul have undergone no material change since last year. I do not believe that he is worse disposed towards us than hitherto, or that his feelings are in any way more em- bittered towards the British Government." In the face of the papers now presented to Parliament, this statement is one of the most amazing conceivable. Lord Salisbury had expressly instructed Lord Lytton to try to press an Envoy on the Ameer at Cabul, with a sort of pressure which every diplomatist knows to be really equivalent to what is here meant by force. More than this, though no permanent Envoy was to be pressed. at Cabul, permanent Residents in Cabul,—that is, in Af- ghanistan, at Herat, and at Candahar, were to be in- -slated on, with every sort of diplomatic urgency. And as for the statement that the relations with the Ameer had -" undergone no material change since last year," what decent -epithet can possibly be applied to it ? Why, Lord Cranbrook's -despatch itself dwells on the evidence afforded by the Peshawur Conference of "the alienation" of the Ameer, and dwells on it as in some respects satisfactory, inasmuch as it cleared up what was before a" matter of speculation." What dismay Lord Lawrence, Lord Northbrook, and the Duke of Argyll would have felt and expressed, if Lord Salisbury had in that debate confessed the satisfaction of the Government at having produced, by the Conferences at Peshawur, final evidence of the " alienation" of the Ameer, we can easily imagine. Why, if we are not much mistaken, in June, 1877, diplomatic relations with Afghanistan had been broken off, and the Native Envoy in Cabul defini- tively withdrawn. And this Lord Salisbury disguised under the statement that no material change in our relations had taken place! Finally, we have the attempt of the Government to throw the blame of the bad issue of its Afghan policy on Mr. Glad- stone's Government, for not acceding to Lord Northbrook's wishes in 1873. These are the words of the despatch :—" Lord Northbrook's Government was prepared to assure him [the Ameer] 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 High- ness's apprehensions, 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, though conveyed in the most conciliatory language, was not favourable." Now this passage does not say that the Home Government hampered Lord North- brook ; that Lord Northbrook therefore could not give the assur- ances he himself wished to give, and could not satisfy the Ameer TN legal ana, there is a story of a Judge who gave it as his 1 opinion that the question of fate and free-will would be best cleared up, if it were made a special case, and argued in Banc before three judges. Perhaps that personage might have been satisfied with the tribunal before which the strange action " Whistler v. Ruskin" came last Monday, but nobody else is likely to be so. In one part of Westminster Hall, a jury were engaged in trying, with an accompanying chorus of laughter, the question whether a young gentleman whom his own Counsel described as a bit of a goose had promised to marry a linen-draper's assistant. In another part of the Hall a jury were considering, in equally hilarious circumstances, the views on Art of Mr. Ruskin, Mr. Whistler, Mr. Rossetti, and Mr. Burne Jones. The plaintiff " went to the country " on a question of high aesthetics ; and twelve men of £100 rental were called in to settle the point. Fables and folk-lore are full of instances in which the beasts of the field having fallen out as to who should be greatest among them, a passing crow is invited to settle the difference ; but we do not recall any better attested instances in which a tribunal so odd as this, for its purpose, was chosen. And yet it is impossible to look at the real issue in the action as anything but a question of high art. To be sure, Mr. Serjeant Parry put the case for Mr. Whistler in the tone and way which he employs with so much success in behalf of a starving widow and five young children, made orphans by a wealthy railway company ; but that, we may take it, did not convey precisely his client's view of the matter. Mr. Whistler is not to be knocked over by a few hard words, and it is much less likely that he came to Westminster Hall to obtain a salve for his wounded feelings, than to get some sort of judicial recognition of the value of his " noc- turnes" and " symphonies." It is barely possible to conceive that Mr. Whistler should have occupied a Judge, twelve special jurymen, and a large Bar for two days, merely to settle whether Mr. Ruskin can fairly speak of him as a "coxcomb." In the " Fors Clavigera," Mr. Ruskin has spoken of Professor Goldwin Smith as " a goose." He has playfully referred to "that blasphemous blockheadism of Mr. Greg, and the like of him." Miss Martineau is gallantly designated as not only an infidel, but " a vulgar and a foolish one ;" and what a nice time the political economists—the " carnivorous " political economists—have had of it! On the head of poor Sir Henry Cole have been heaped more abusive epithets than we have as he hiraself,if unhampered,would have been able to satisfy him; space or inclination to quote. But neither Professor Goldwm but all this is implied, and the whole world assumed that this was its meaning ; the truth being that Lord Northbrook was authorised to say all that he himself thought it prudent to say,—much more than all that had ever been said before, —that these assurances, though given in conversation, were carefully protocolled, and a copy of the protocol given to the Ameer's Agent ; and, in a word, that so far from being crippled by the timidity, or the deliberate non- intervention policy, of the Home Government, Lord Northbrook was cordially supported in going as far as he thought it safe to go ; nay, that the postponement of details was due, not in any degree to Lord Northbrook, but to the language of the Ameer's Agent himself. The question here is not in the least as to whether Lord Northbrook's policy were wise or foolish, bold or timid ; but whether his policy, whatever it was, was cordially supported from home. Lord Cranbrook's despatch intimates, though it dares not say, that it was not ; conveying that he was snubbed at home ; the fact being that he received explicit authority to go to the full length of his own wishes in the matter, and that he did so.
Here, then, we have three deliberate attempts to take-in the world,—the attempt on the Ameer, the attempt on the House of Lords, and the attempt on the British people. The first failed, and has been followed by war. The second succeeded. Lord Lawrence and Lord Northbrook and the House of Lords were silenced and deceived. Will the third succeed or fail ? It depends on the people them- selves. Let them give but a modicum of the attention to this great question which they would give to the least important item of their private business, and it must fail. A more unquestionable act of political dishonesty has never been committed by any British Government in the present century, and we doubt if the Imperial Government of France were ever guilty of a worse deception.
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