Afghanistan.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3486, 26 February 1880, Page 2

Afghanistan.

In face of the recent disquieting news from Afghanistan, it may seem to some persons a little premature to enter on a discussion as to what are to be our final and permanent relations to the country when our present difficulties, have been overcome. Sir Staflbrd Northcote, however, in his speech on Saturday at Leeds, has made a definite statement of the course which the Government has determined to follow. There is, be informs his hearers, no intention of annexing Afghanistan to India, or of placing it in any way, directly or indirectly, under English rule. The policy of the Government is, he declares, and always has ' been, a policy of defence, end not of annexation. If our frontier line has been strengthened and pushed forward, it has been with a sole view of giving better security to India. This object attained, we shall suffer Afghanistan to remain, as it was before, an independent State, and shall take care only that-its independence shall be respected by all other Powers as well as by England. This is the announcement we have been long asking for. We are so well pleased at receiving it that we will raise no question whether it has been opportunely made or not. If we complain at all, it will be only that the policy Sir Stafford Northcote proclaims, was not insisted upon in practice a little sooner, and that the best chance of carrying it into effect has been suffered accordingly in slip'away. Whatever the views of the Government may have b-en, they hare been so shrouded" in official reserve they have been misinterpreted and misunderstood both in this country and in India. The letters which have been sent home from our expeditionary forces in Afghanistan have shown clearly enough what notions were . prevalent among military men there. Some project I or other has been continually, discussed, some plpu has been put forward, for advancing further into the country, for getting a firm hold upon it, and for keeping it when it has been got. Not only was nothing done with a view to any other settlement, but no beginning was made of any kind.—Times.