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motives which actuate me, will vote for its abandonment."

Comment on this story is unnecessary.

It is one of the saddest signs of the times that on questions affecting the welfare of Great Britain conscience is often dead!

Kandahar was abandoned. The very rails which the energy of Sir Richard Temple had collected near Sibi to continue the railway from Nari-just beyond Sibi-to Quetta and thence to Kandahar were sold as old iron at a loss, according to the Blue Books, of more than half a million sterling!

But Time is rightly called the avenger. The news of the progress made by Russia along the northern frontier of Persian Khorásán induced even the representatives of the masterly inactivity party to repair some of the evil which had been effected. Quietly and uuostentatiously new rails were sent to Sibi, and large gangs were set to labour at the earth-way. It was resolved in fact to carry out the original plan of continuing the railway to Quetta, and, it is to be hoped, to Kandahar. Efforts were made similarly to induce the Amir, Abdul Rahman, to believe that the British were really his friends. He was assured, in terms far more positive and direct than those which were employed towards Sher Ali in 1873, that should Russia venture to invade his dominions he would receive strong and efficient support that England recognized it as a duty devolving upon her to insist upon Russia adhering to her famous declaration in 1869, that "Afghánistán was completely without the sphere in which that power was called upon to exercise her influence." If England had at the same time put her foot down-if she had responded to the move of Russia upon Sarakhs by declaring that the crossing by that Power of the frontier line from that place by RobatAbdullah Khan and above Andkhoi to Koja Saleh would

mean war, we might have had no such disturbance as that which now exists. But once again was the Cabinet too soft. In reply to the plea of Russia that no proper frontier of the country comprised under the geographical term Afghánistán, existed, she agreed last year to despatch a Commission to mark out with precision, in conjunction. with a Commission sent from Russia, the line which should thenceforward be recognized as the frontier across which Russia was not to advance. The line so marked was to be the dividing line between Trans-Caspian Russia and an Afghanistan subsidised by England.

H

CHAPTER VII.

RUSSIA'S LAST MOVE AND ENGLAND'S REPLY.

IN justice, there should have been no question regarding the frontier of Afghánistán. I have already related that, when in 1869 Prince Gortschakoff informed Lord Granville that his master, the Czar, regarded Afghánistán as entirely without the sphere in which Russia would be called upon to exercise her influence, it was further agreed that all the countries in the effective possession of the Amír Sher Ali, and which had formerly recognized the sovereignty of Dost Muhammad, should be embraced under that name. Finally, after waiting for a report on the subject from General Kaufman which never came, Lord Granville wrote a despatch to Lord Augustus Loftus, in October, 1872, for communication to the Russian Government, in which he stated that not having received any letter on the subject from that Government, the Cabinet had decided to consider the undermentioned provinces as constituting the frontier provinces of Afghánistán (1) Badakhshán, with its dependent district. of Vakhan, from the Sarikul (Wood's Lake) on the east, to the junction of the Kotcha river with the Oxus (or Peiya) forming the northern boundary of this Afghán province through its entire extent. (2) Afghán Turkistán, comprising the districts of Kunduz, Khulm, and Balkh, the northern boundary of which would be the line of the Oxus from the junction of the Kotcha river to the port of Khoja Saleh inclusive, on the high road from Bokhára to Balkh ; nothing

to be claimed by the Amír on the left bank of the Oxus below Khoja Saleh. (3) The internal districts of Aksha, Seripul, Maimené, Shibberjan and Andkhoi, the latter of which would be the extreme Afghán frontier possession to the north-west, the desert beyond belonging to independent tribes of Turkomans. (4) The western Afghán frontier, a straight line from Khoja Saleh on the Oxus to Sarakhs on the Persian frontier. This line passed above Andkhoi and Gulu Bulu to Robat-Abdullah Khán on the Murgháb, thence by Imam Baksh to the Tejend, close to the town, on the other side of that river, of Sarakhs. Russia accepted that frontier in despatches dated respectively in December of that, and in January of the following, year. From that date to 1884, that frontier has never been questioned by that country. It has appeared on all the Russian maps. Even Schuyler speaks of it as well known and not needing further definition.

No questions, I repeat, were raised by Russia regarding this frontier till 1884.. It was only when, in that year, the acquisition of Merv and Sarakhs brought her upon it that, in order to have a pretext for overleaping it, she suggested the proposal referred to in the last chapter. Russia would not have been true to her immemorial policy if, on approaching a new border, she had not at once raised doubts as to its validity. To solve those doubts, both countries engaged to send commissioners to the debated ground.

Though Russia agreed to this arrangement there are many reasons for believing that she did it solely to gain time, and with a determination not to act upon it. If she had any designs upon British India, the delineation of a frontier which she must respect would interfere very much with the use of those insidious means which had ever marked her

stealthy progress. The sending troops across a frontier recognized by herself and guaranteed by England to the

Amír, would mean war with England as well as war with the Amír. She would be effectually prevented from justifying a forward spring by the use of such quibbles as she had employed regarding Sarakhs. At the same time she was not quite ready for war. Her Transcaspian railway, pushed on though it had been with the zeal of a Power which feels that it has a mission to fulfil, had not yet reached the required point. Other preparations were likewise not so forward as they might have been. Still she could not refuse to promise to co-operate in a plan so fair. We may fairly conclude from her subsequent conduct that she made that promise with a secret resolve to break it.

For, whilst Great Britain, true to her word, despatched, in the autumn of 1884, an English Commission, headed by an officer who had filled high positions in India; while that officer and his suite proceeded by way of Persia to the appointed place of rendezvous, Russia sent no one. For once, too, she had no excuses but the poorest to offer. Such as she did make reminded the British public of the taunting apologies suggested by the Prophet Elijah to the prophets of Baal for the absence of any manifestation on the part of their divinity. "Where is General Zelenoy ?" asked the British public. "We do not quite know," answered Russia; "either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awakened." At all events he did not come to time.

Whilst the British Commissioner, Sir Peter Lumsden, and his escort, were waiting for his Russian colleague, General Zelenoy, the Russian commanders at Sarakhs and Merv determined to solve the question of the boundary by despatching small bodies of troops into the territory claimed and occupied by the Afgháns. If the reader will glance at any good map of the country immediately to the north-west of the Paropamisan range he will see marked,

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