TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE REMAINING AFGHAN TROUBLES.
THE papers are a little too much in a hurry in shouting "Peace." It is peace, we believe, and the frontier difficulty may be considered over, Russia having given way as to the passes ; but the situation still involves problems of extreme perplexity. To mention only the biggest of them— What is the exact relation of the Ameer of Afghanistan to the British Government ? The Russians say, this time with reason, that as the Russian Empire and the Douranee kingdom are henceforward conterminous, they have a right to ask where the responsibility for the action of that kingdom ultimately rests. Is the Ameer a vassal ? If so, all is simple ; for Russia, if aggrieved—say, by the murder of Armenian traders in Balkh—has only to apply to the British Government, as she would if they were murdered in Hydrabad or Cashmere. If, on the other hand, the Ameer is independent, then also all is simple ; for Russia will send a Mussulman Envoy to his Court, and post a Consul in Balkh, and will, if aggrieved, exact reparation from the Ameer in the best way she can. But if the Ameer is neither a vassal nor independent, but only a "protected ally" of Britain, then it might happen that Russia, if honestly aggrieved, could get no redress at all ; for the British Government would declare itself entirely irresponsible for offences it could not prevent, while the Ameer, relying on the British protection against invasion, might refuse to take any action in the matter, or say the outrage was committed by a clan which he had not the strength to coerce. Russia must then submit to wrong from a little Power, or fight a great one, which is not a position permanently tenable. It is easy to say, as most Tories will say, that the matter is simple, and that England will be answerable ; but it is really extremely complex. There are no precedents whatever for our present position in respect to Afghanistan. We maintain, to begin with, that no Power except ourselves can have a Minister in Cabul. Most especially Russia is not to have one ; the British Government declaring on all occasions, and especially just before the recent holidays, that they regard Afghanistan as "wholly outside the sphere of Russian influence." In other words, they hold Abdurrahman Khan to be, as regards foreign policy, in all but name a vassal, and without the right to make treaties for himself. Moreover, they make treaties in his name, and are at this moment delimiting his frontier,—with his general consent, no doubt, and his particular consent to the cession of Penjdeh, but without his immediate intervention. It is hardly possible for them to take any other course, for if they are not masters so far, they cannot make of a Russian invasion a casus belli, cannot prevent the Ameer from admitting Russian troops, cannot, in fact, do anything they want to do, and had better fall back upon their own frontier. They are, however, most unwilling to assume such a responsibility in all cases. They are not able to compel the Ameer always to do justice. He does not admit that he is a vassal, he has his own reasons occasionally for sparing wrong-doers,—for instance, he could not punish a murder if the cause of murder were a violation of the sanctity of the harem, or an apostasy from the Faith,—and he cannot, when resolute, be compelled to yield except by an invasion, which is the precise enterprise we most desire to avoid. What, then, is the arrangement to be? It would be neither just nor possible to deprive Russia of her right to redress ; and to give redress, yet abstain from a full Protectorate, is most difficult, as we all may see in the recent history of Egypt. We suppose we must promise redress, and if needful give it, deducting the cost from the Ameer's subsidy ; but that arrangement may yet involve grievous responsibilities. Suppose Abdurrahman dies of his gout, and Afghanistan falls, as it would fall, into anarchy, are we to be responsible both to Russia and Persia for anything the excited clans may do ? They have slaughtered out Persians wholesale before now, and are just as likely to kill Armenian traders as to let them alone. The liability is most annoying ; yet if we draw a cordon of "influence" round Afghanistan, and say that within that cordon no foreigner shall penetrate without a British passport,—which is virtually what we do say,—there seems to be from it no escape. We must, in fact, either retire to the Suleiman and give up the traditional policy of half a century, or we must consent that Lord Dufferin shall be the Afghan Foreign Minister. Practically he is that now, but he is not so theoretically, and theory, as we saw in the strictly analogous case of the Bosphore .Egyptien, is sometimes as important as practice. It is for a theory the Russians are now pressing, as a basis, nu doubt, for diplomacy when convenient.
The Tories will say that the difficulty only shows the impossibility of keeping peace with Russia, that there must be a war sooner or later, and that it had better come now ; but that is not sound reasoning. Russia is not in the wrong, to begin with, in asking that somebody should be responsible for Afghanistan. We certainly should hold her responsible if the Khanates declared war on us or passed a law executing any British subjects who crossed their boundaries ; and we cannot refuse, out of mere policy, the international justice we demand. We protect Afghanistan, and speak at St. Petersburg in its name, and must therefore, to some extent, be responsible for its acts. And we deny altogether the proposition that time always fights for Russia. It fights for us too. Every event of the last twenty years, from the rise of Germany to the defeat of the French by China, has tended to limit the power of Russia and to increase the possibility of alliances in restraint of her ambition. Alexander III. has far less of a "free hand" even in Asia than Nicholas had, and in Europe he has not a free hand at all. The Russian internal position does not grow stronger, but rather weaker ; for while financial trouble directly limits her willingness to engage in costly enterprises, the slow rise of the revolutionary spirit threatens her military party as much as the autocracy. Russia cannot die, nor can the Slays be less than a people of the first order ; but the policy of the Monarchy may be changed, till it ceases to threaten the world. We can conceive circumstances in Russia under which a joint guarantee for a railway from the Caspian to Bushire would be within the range of practical diplomacy, and Russia would peacefully acquire free access to the open sea. Apart, however, from such far-reaching ideas, time is immediately in our favour. An immense fuss is made about the Transcaspian Railway, as if its completion would bring Russia to the Suleiman ; but we are building our railways, too, a good deal quicker than Russia. Suppose the "peace" is only a truce, at the end of it Russia will have, or may have, a narrow and weak railway from the Caspian to the Afghan frontier. But we shall have two fortresses on the Indus as strong as Rustchuk, six pettier fortresses blocking the Suleiman Passes, a system of railways connecting the continent of India and our sea bases with Quetta, and in Quetta a frontier fortress stronger than anything as yet existing in Asia. In other words, while Russia will have gained a better road to Afghanistan, we shall have gained an impregnable base from which to influence the kingdom. We shall enjoy the military position as against Russia, which Turkey enjoyed before she lost Roumania, and which it took Russia nearly two centuries to overpass. We can scarcely conceive one much stronger, unless, indeed, some convulsion of nature refilled the sea which once stretched from the Caspian to the Desert of Gobi,—and that, unhappily, is not within the range of statesmen's speculations. Moreover, Herat, now nearly defenceless, will have been converted into a strong fortress, which must be taken before the Russians can advance into Afghanistan. Tories may say that we shall not build the forts or finish the railways ; but they forget that the Indian Government is thoroughly aroused, and that the Radical Party, whose influence they dread, inclines, as Mr. Morley's speeches show, to "the Lawrence policy," which involves the impregnability of our own frontier. If we have but three years, and especially if during those three years Russia pushes forward her communications, we shall complete our defences, and then we may wait tranquilly, confident that Russia will not enter Afghanistan when she knows India to be impenetrable, and that Afghans can rely thoroughly on ultimata protection from the South. What is she to get by conquering that new Caucasus ?
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