The Afghan Treaty

MORE urgent, though not more important, preoccupations have alone prevented us from commenting before now on the new Afghan Treaty, the terms of which appeared in these columns more than a week ago. The first thing that strikes as one goes through this instrument of peace between India and her nearest neighbour is the very great distance that the two countries have travelled in their mutual relations during the last forty-five years. At the beginning of this period, we still find the British Government not only conscious of its great power and great strength, but actually anxious to make a display of both. “The British Government” said the then Viceroy, “could only assist those who valued its assistance. If the Amir did not desire to come to a speedy understanding with us, Russia did, and she desired it at this expense. The British Government was able to pour overwhelming force into Afghanistan. If the Amir remained our friend, this military power could be spread around him as a ring of iron; if he became our enemy it would break him as a reed. The Amir pretended to hold the balance between England and Russia. But the Amir was only an earthen pipkin between two iron pots.” Such was the language used by Lord Lytton in an interview with the British agent at Kabul in 1870. The Amir is no longer an earthen pipkin, but a High Contracting Party whose obvious inferiority in strength and power does not prevent the British Government from treating him as an equal. The only two marks of inferiority, the control of his foreign relations and the receipt of a subsidy by him, have now definitely disappeared. In other words, for the first time in many years, this small Kingdom definitely comes into its own and becomes an Asiatic power. On that fact, we as Asiatics, are fully entitled to congratulate ourselves.