AFGHANISTAN AND THE FRONTIER OUTRAGES.

CAUSES OF THE TROUBLE. AMIR AND THE TRIBESMEN. FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. DELHI, FRIDAY.

I have been surprised on returning from a long tour of our advanced posts on the North-west Frontier to find recent issues of newspapers bristling with grave English and French newspaper discussion of British relations with Afghanistan. Considerable misunderstanding regarding the position appears to exist. The current trouble is only an aggravated case of a kind that must constantly arise while we have on our side of the Afghan border a strip of mountainous country occupied by barbarous, virile, and fanatical Pathan tribes, well armed, and enjoying semi-independence. They perennially rob and outrage our people. Their object generally is loot, for they are robbers by tradition, but it is sometimes political, for among them blood feuds and vendettas are a recognised custom, and the rules governing these institutions they apply to their relations with the British officials. Our political agents and frontier constabulary can generally prevent or obtain reparation for such crimes unless the culprits flee to Afghan territory, and this, when hard pressed, they endeavour to do.

The Afghans are kinsmen of these tribes, and share their religious fanaticism. The Amir’s control of the tribes on his aide of the frontier is loose. Thus, when we ask him to deal with fugitives from our side we set him a thorny problem which is not made easier by the necessity for him to solve it if Afghanistan is to maintain her claim to belong to the comity of civilised nations. Again, the Amir pays subventions to our tribesmen, because, he says, as we do not control them he must bribe them to refrain from raiding his territory. We point to the fact that the tribesmen receiving the biggest Afghan “bakh-shish” are those who give us most trouble; hence the retention in Bombay of the imported Afghan arms, for the Afghan treaty provides their free passage through India only while we are sure of the Amir’s friendliness.