and defective, the plan which he deemed the least harmful.

It is possible-I do not know-but it is possible he may have been hampered by the Home Government. Certainly it was in the power of the Home Government either to force a plan upon him or reject and alter any which he might propose. Whether they did so or not I cannot say. At any rate they must bear the responsibility.

Now that the Cabinet which ruled the British empire between 1874 and 1880 had clear minds regarding the "scientific frontier" which its brilliant chief desired to secure it is impossible to assert. It is most painful to me to be obliged to admit that, not only had its members no clear views, but they had no definite ideas whatever on the subject. This was patent up to the last moment of their remaining in power. They adopted a right principle and an intelligent policy only from the moment when they were relegated to the cold shade of opposition.

Regarding "the scientific frontier," the Cabinet of 1879 had ideas, I have said, neither clear nor definite; and they had, moreover, no competent military adviser to inspire them. Not indeed, because there were not military advisers at their elbow. The lecture of Sir Edward Hamley had been delivered to a very distinguished and a very critical audience, had been spoken of on the very evening of its delivery in the House of Commons, had been noticed in the leading articles of our daily newspapers, and had attracted an extraordinary amount of attention. Wisdom had cried aloud in the streets, but the members of the Cabinet had shut their ears!

The fact is, that in all matters relating to the Afghan question the Cabinet of 1874-80 floundered from first to last. Succeeding a Cabinet which had adopted and persistently acted upon the fatal principle expressed by the

words "masterly inactivity," the Cabinet of 1874 resembled, in its Indian policy, a man who knew that if he were to stand still he would die, but who was afraid to move forward lest he should stumble into a bog. And that expresses exactly what this Cabinet did do. Although Sir Edward Hamley held up a lantern to shew them the solid path along which they might tread with security, their fears whispered that the light of his lantern was the light of a will-o'-the-wisp: they took then a step in an opposite direction, and suffered the catastrophe I have mentioned.

For the "scientific frontier" obtained by the Treaty of Gandamak was, in very deed, the work of unscientific men. It was a delusion and a snare. It gave India a frontier a thousand times more unreliable than the frontier which it had abandoned to obtain it. It gave us the Khaibar Pass, when we were far better off in the valley of the Indus ready to receive an enemy emerging from that pass; it gave us the Khurm valley, the occupation of which would have isolated a portion of our army: it's one solitary merit was the acquisition of the valley of Pishin.

It did not last long. We acquired it absolutely, that is, the treaty which gave it to us was ratified, the 30th May; the gallant Cavagnari was murdered on the 4th September. Three months of existence were ample for so grotesque an abortion! It's early death, followed though. it was by a renewal of the war, was a blessing for which the authors of its existence ought to be for ever thankful!

Two days after the murder of Cavagnari, Roberts, the most brilliant, the most daring, the most accomplished of generals, commenced the war. Of such a man, of such men as Hamley, as Charles MacGregor, and as Hills, it is inspiring to write. But that task is now denied me. I have to deal only with the results of the campaign. It is

however, at least satisfactory to know that such men still survive for the service of Great Britain.

The war thus re-commenced continued till the close of 1880. Eastern Afghánistán, or Kabulistán, had been. evacuated the 11th August, and the rule over that portion of the country conferred upon Abdul Rahmán, the relative whom Sher Ali had defeated and driven into exile in January, 1869, and who had since that time been living in Bokhára, a pensioner of Russia. But in what is generally called western Afghánistán, that is, in the country about Kandahar and from Kandahar northwards the war continued some time longer. Holding, as I do, with General Hamley, that there was no necessity whatever to interfere in eastern Afghánistán; that the true interests of England were bound up in the line from Quetta to Kandahar and from Kandahar to Herát; that that is the line which, to bar Russian invasion, we have to occupy and secure, I shall confine my comments to the action of the British Government on that line.

The renewal of the war had given the Conservative Cabinet another chance. After the collapse of the Treaty of Gandamak, some dim light of the truth of Sir Edward Hamley's arguments would seem to have removed a portion of the fog which had obscured their reason. The apprehension stole upon them that the Kandahar line might, after all, be the true line. If we were to judge only from their after conduct when in opposition we might even believe that the apprehension grew into conviction. If that were so, they were more worthy of condemnation than if their vision had remained clouded. For this at least is certain, they never rose to the height of the situation. They showed themselves painfully wanting in accurate knowledge, in decision, in that quality which will cover a multitude of minor sins, in pluck. Having Kandahar in their possession,

convinced as we must suppose they were convinced, of its enormous importance-for, subsequently, they all voted for Lord Lytton's motion for its retention, in the House of Lords, and for Mr. Stanhope's motion in the House of Commons (March, 1881)-they had not the courage to put their foot down and say "possessing this important place, this place so necessary to the safety of India, we will keep it." No-they adopted one of those halfmeasures which are the bane of true statesmanship--such a half-measure as the elder Pitt would have spurned and Palmerston would have derided-they placed there in supreme authority a cousin of the late Amir, a man likewise named Sher Ali, who under the name of "Wali" or more properly, "Vali," was to conduct the civil administration of the districts dependent upon the city. For all the good that this appointment caused, the Government might as well have stuck up a lay figure. The people in the country covered by Kandahar were longing for the British rule they came in crowds to the political officer in charge of the Chatiáli district to implore it. A bold announcement that England had advanced her frontier as far as Kandahar would have had an immense influence for good. The appointment of the "Vali" shewed to the populations that there was still a chance of their being relegated to the hated rule of Kábul. Nor, whilst thus productive of evil, was the measure accompanied by any corresponding advantage. From first to last the "Váli" remained what I have said he might as well have been-a lay figure. On the first important disturbance, 14th July, 1880, his troops deserted and he collapsed, though he did not actually disappear till the following December!

The collapse of the "Vali" was a result second only, in the beneficial chances which it offered to Great Britain, to the disappearance of the treaty of Gandamak. Like

that fortunate collapse, it gave England another chance to retrieve her political errors-to secure a really scientific frontier.

But, before that chance offered, a change had occurred in the guidance of the political destinies of Great Britain. The Ministry which had desired "a scientific frontier" had gone out, and the advocates of "masterly inactivity" had come in. The men who had composed the retiring Cabinet recovered their senses and their courage only with the first inhaling of the opposition breeze. It was, indeed, high

time that they should recover both. If it be true, as was stated in January, 1880, and has been repeated without contradiction over and over again since that date, that in that month they were treating with Persia for the transfer to that power of the important city and district of Herat, they must have been absolutely on the verge of im becility. Why, it was to prevent the consummation of such an event that Lord Palmerston planned the first Afghan war, and that he made war on Persia in 1856! And, in spite of that, a Conservative Ministry actually debated whether, to relieve themselves of responsibility, it were not advisable to do that which the greatest foreign minister—I might almost say, the only foreign minister of this century had waged two wars to prevent! Did they ask themselves for a moment what such a transfer would mean; that the handing over of Herát to Persia would signify the handing over of Herát to Russia? If, in their forgetfulness or neglect of history, they had doubted then, can they doubt now? Does not the fate of old Sarakhs read a lesson? Has the occupation of Pul-iKishti and of the Zulfagar Pass, and the threat to occupy Panjdeh-places far beyond the frontier accepted by Russia in 1872 and never till now repudiated-not opened their eyes? Or, is it a fact, that if Russia were to occupy