Afghanistan, and of preventing the interference of Russia in its affairs. But we have also seen that, in regard to the ways and means for giving effect to these views, there had been found to be serious divergence of opinion between the Government of India and the Ministry at home. In these circumstances some embarrassment was felt in drawing for the new Viceroy the instructions which were to define our future policy in Afghan affairs, and to authorise his acting upon it. The Prime Minister and Lord Salisbury, in common with the rest of the Cabinet, held more decidedly than ever the view-and it was a view which had the complete concurrence of Lord Lytton-that it was urgently necessary that our relations with Afghanistan should no longer be suffered to remain in a condition which seemed to them full of danger. But it was felt that it would be neither expedient nor courteous to issue orders for taking steps to which the members of Lord Northbrook's Council, who would also be Lord Lytton's Councillors, had already demurred, and, under the constitution of the Indian Government, no action could be taken by the Governor-General on any instructions from home until they had been communicated to his Council in the manner prescribed by law. Instead, therefore, of the instructions of Her Majesty's Government being sent to India in the ordinary way, they were placed by Lord Salisbury in the hands of Lord Lytton when he left England, with permission to choose his own time for laying them before his colleagues.

The most important passages of these instructions relating to Afghanistan will be found in a note at the end of this chapter.

They may be summarised here as follows:

The Government at home considered it of first

class importance to ascertain the true attitude of the Amir towards the Government of India, and as a means to this end suggested that, after communicating with the Amir, a friendly mission, combined, perhaps, with one to the Khan of Khelat, should proceed to Kabul by way of Quettah and Kandahar. In the event of the Amir refusing to receive such a mission the Government of India might find themselves obliged to reconsider their whole policy towards Afghanistan, but there would no longer be any doubt as to the Amir's estrangement. Should he, however, consent to receive it, the Government anticipated that certain questions would probably be raised upon which the Amir would ask for more definite assurances than had yet been made to him.

These questions were divided under three heads:

I. A fixed and augmented subsidy. II. A more decided recognition than has yet been accorded by the Government of India to the order of succession established by the Amir in favour of the younger son Abdullah Jan. III. An explicit pledge by treaty or otherwise of material support in case of foreign aggression.

With regard to the first of these questions the Government were prepared to leave the Viceroy a free hand to deal with it in such a manner as the circumstances and attitude of the Amir might suggest to his judgment.

With regard to the second question the Government laid down that, while they did not desire to renounce their traditional policy of abstention from all unnecessary interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan,' they yet considered that the frank recognition of a de facto order in the succession established by a de facto Government to the throne

of a foreign State' did not imply or necessitate any interference in the internal affairs of that State.'

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With regard to the third question: An explicit pledge by treaty or otherwise of material support in case of foreign aggression,' the Government, while admitting that Lord Northbrook's declaration in 1875 would justify the Amir in expecting support should his kingdom be subjected to unprovoked foreign aggression, yet commented upon the fact that it was nevertheless too ambiguous to satisfy the Amir. They therefore promised to support the Viceroy should he find it necessary to make more definite declarations on this head, only reserving their right of judgment as to the circumstances involving the obligation of material assistance in some clear case of unprovoked aggression.

These instructions are remarkable for two things. First, for the latitude and freedom they leave to the Viceroy; secondly, for the manifest desire revealed in them to secure the friendship and good will of the Amir if by any means such a result were still attainable.

A few days before Lord Lytton left London he paid a visit to Count Shouvalow, in accordance with the wish the ambassador had expressed to him. The conversation that followed was remarkable. It was opened by Count Shouvalow, who informed Lord Lytton that he had made to Her Majesty's Government, through Lord Derby, the proposal that some permanent means of direct and confidential communication should be established between the Russian military forces in Central Asia and the Viceroy of India. He said that the Cabinet of St. Petersburg was seriously alarmed by the critical condition of its relations with England in regard to Central Asian affairs, that the Emperor was most

D

anxious to keep on good terms with us, and to restrain the greed of territory evinced by his military officers, and it was in the hope of avoiding future misunderstandings that the Russian Government had made the present suggestion. Count Shouvalow had already spoken privately to Lord Lytton on this subject, and had suggested to him that such communications might conveniently be commenced through a special agent accredited on a complimentary mission to the new Viceroy by General Kaufmann. Lord Lytton had replied that, so far as the acceptance or refusal of the proposal depended upon himself, he at once declined it on the ground that a mission from Tashkend could not reach Calcutta without passing through Afghanistan or Khelat. Count Shouvalow had sent to Prince Gortchakow a report of this conversation, and he now read to Lord Lytton the reply of the Russian Chancellor, and a confidential letter from General Kaufmann to the Russian Minister of War. The Chancellor's despatch authorised Count Shouvalow to assure Lord Lytton that Russia had no desire to approach Afghanistan from any direction, and, least of all, by way of Merv. Should her military forces, he said, be unavoidably obliged to occupy Merv, their occupation would in any case be only temporary. He added that the Russian occupation of Merv, or of any other post equally close to the frontiers of Afghanistan, really depended less upon the Government of Russia than upon the Government of India. The Tekke tribe, which acknowledged the authority and claimed the protection of the Czar, was continually harassed by Turkomans, whom the army of the Caspian was continually obliged to pursue and punish. These marauders, when captured, always averred that they

had been instigated to acts of hostility against the Tekkes by the Turkoman tribes on the Afghan frontier and presumably under the influence of the Amir of Kabul. Herein, the Chancellor wrote, lay the increasing danger of the situation, and that danger could only be averted by a more active and friendly exercise of the paramount authority which the Government of India must by this time have acquired over the Amir of Kabul, whom it openly pays and protects. It was, in short, for the Government of India to command and compel its acknowledged protégé, the Amir, to keep these troublesome Turkomans quiet, and Merv would then be safe from Russian occupation. The despatch concluded by pointing out how the policy thus commended to the consideration of the Government of India might be facilitated by the establishment of direct communications with General Kaufmann, and Count Shouvalow was instructed to obtain the acquiescence of Her Majesty's Government in arrangements for that purpose. The ambassador then read to Lord Lytton the letter from General Kaufmann in which this proposal appeared to have had its origin. It began with a complaint that while the Russians in Central Asia had never, du moins sciemment, done anything to embarrass or annoy England, the English Government in India had been sending arms and military instructors to Yarkand, with the deliberate purpose of enabling Yakub Beg to be aggressive to Russia. England and Russia, General Kaufmann said, si sua bona nôrint, had in Central Asia a common interest and a common foe. The interest was civilisation, the foe was Islamism. The only real danger which threatened the British power in India was Islamism. Every other was a bugbear, but this would, ere