AN EMIR’S LOYALTY

Hokitika Guardian, 24 February 1930, Page 7

AN EMIR’S LOYALTY

A TRAGEDY OF THE WAR,

HABIB ULLAH OF AFGHANISTAN

LONDON, January 9. Sir Hamilton Grant, who negotiated tlie Peace Treaty with Afghanistan in 1919, addressed the Royal Empire Society after one of their monthly dinners this week. Me paid a remarkable tribute to the Oriental sense of loyalty.

On the entry of Turkey into the war. Great Britain was naturally concerned about the attitude of Afghanistan. Had the latter country declared against us, its immediate neighbour, India, instead of being ail asset providing thousands of troops and supplies, would have become a liability. The Emir Habibullah of Afghanistan. however, promised neutrality, and maintained it to the end.

The result was, Sir Hamilton pointed out, that the Emir was murdered a short time after the Armistice, ‘‘a

martyr to his own good faith to us.” When war broke out, said Sir Hamilton, the Emir secretly sent in the dead of the night for our Mohammedan agent at Kabul, and asked him to communicate the following message to the Government of India:— • “So long as the independence of my country is not threatened, I mean, if I possibly can, to keep my country neutral, but the Government of .India must not judge me by anything I say or do; my position is very difficult.” LORD HARDINGE’S FAITH. “This message/’ Sir Hamilton continued, “was viewed in the Viceroy’s Council in Various ways. Some thought that the Emir was throwing dust in our eyes, and meant to break with us when it suited him. Others were for accepting the Emir’s statement on its face value.

“I am happy to say that Lord Hardingo accepted the latter view, and even when, some days later, the Emir asked to he sent the arrears of his subsidy amounting to about £250,COO in gold, it was agreed not only to-meet his wishes, but to faicreftse his subsidy in view of the expenses involved. The. story of the lEfnii/s; difficulties is a romantic history by itself.”