FASCINATION OF THE INDIAN FRONTIER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 10 April 1908, Page 6

FASCINATION OF THE INDIAN FRONTIER.

NOVELIST'S YTVID STORY OF HEROISM AND SACRIFICE.

BRITISH PLUCK AND PERSEVERr ANCE.

If you would understand aright the haunting attraction of the Indian; frontier, that strange lure that draws Englialxrnan, onward to brave heat and cold and thirsts and storms of bullets *.n a brown wilderness of barren mountains, you should turn to "Tho Broken* Road," tftw brilliant naw novel by Mr. A. E. W. Mason, M.P. The road typifies, by its very vaguer ness, that mysterious spirit which leads men to the Indian frontier, oftem for the best year of their lives. Even .when it~is unseen it siill entangles in its windings tEe destines of people far away. You find yourself asking the que&tkia: "Why should tha road be madei Why was it so imperative to struggle on, with it through blcod and tears, to pour out treasure upon, iti" (The: answer is that which must be given to every vain question, about th& presence ci the British in India. We have taken up this work. We cannot diop it now; and what is more, we would not drop it if wo could. •Nations, &s well as men, cannot shrink from their destiny. Why should we send forth troops into these wild uplands'? Why should our men toil we-arily into the country "at the Beck of Beyond." aa they are 'doing to-day, and fight grim, battles with decperajte bearded caterans? Why not sit down comfortably and grow fat and svaijt of breath on the hither side of the Indus I If you do not know already, Mr. Mason's pages will tell you. It is because tha price we pay for holding india is that wei must bo supremui-and unchallenged right up to the last'moamtain peak that marks the borders of our Empire. The road must go on, aawl it must bo kept clear, none must say us nayTHE FRONPIKR AND ITS OWN. Men move to and fro aa the froaap tier, gaaiiig with puckered eyes at the hills that lie bare in the fitircd sunlight, end think of these things until their thoughts are burned into every fibre of their being. There ia no more striking, character in Mr. Mason's book, none more true to life, than Charles Luffe, the "political," wlro had spent a life-tun© at his task. ''The frontier," ho says, "has been my wife, my children, my home, tny (d© long and lasting passion." Deiwea, too, the stolid colonel, who "did not find life in London so \&ry interesting," and therefore came back is a y&ry typical picture. Th& mem whom tho frontier has claimed for its own never forget it, and always come back if they can. It draws) them as the desert draws the meaa, who have served ini.EJgypt. Hav&lock-Allan. killed by a bullet in the Khybear when, he > might have been sitting by his own fireside:; Gatacro, who went tack to the Soudan, to die, are only two among many. The very commander of the Zakka Khel Field Force has confessedly cften dreamed of thei joys of a peaceful life in England. All the frontier tyres) are found living and moving in "The Broken Road. ' There is Balston, the Connnis&ioaxw 1 of Peshwar, who nde& without an esjort ia the midst of a qtowH o* nostiL PatliaDS, not from bravado, but because "to assume that no one questiciied his authority was in, Ralston's view the best way establish if' There is Phillips, the Resident at Kohara, riding with head erect, "unhurt and almost unthreatened," amid a great and frenziud thi'ong of the hostile, hosts of Christian. Wo get a glimpse of the frontier military doctor, who "not only doctored and operated on the sack and wounded, but kept the stares, and whon any fighting was to be done took a rifla and filled any pU.ce which might be vacant in the firing line." Abovo aJI, ifoi&r& are the Linf ortbs, who, from , gent -ration to generation, from father to sojty have given, themselves to the task cf building thoi Road that meant : so much to Bntitsh rulo. There are ' many such 'fanatics in India, Vho are carrying on the work begun by their anct store. How many lives have-not thej gallant Battyes ghen for the fron-tiea-1 THE PERPLEXING RACIAL QUESTION. . I have* not even indica-tecl so far tit©

theme that bulks m<et largely in Mr. Mason's engrossing 'tele. It is the etor/ of a young prince, thy heir of a frontiea ruler, who is sent to England and educated at Eton and Oxford, and seeks to become a. "Salub," only to find thai impotable birrior of 'race ,«c<nfront£n£; him when he falls* in love Vfith ft T?hite woman. It is a tragedy too often seem. 'Ihe perplexing; racial queatior. which ro terribly complicates tliei problems cf ihe British in India has rarely been presented with such pathetic iT.tons?ty. In tiii* respect Mr. Mason's novel is an insistent protest against tJio growing 1 fashion of educating Indian princes and nobles in England '. But at the back of ■ Shera" Ali's tragic career, Bind behind "all t-ho characters in tho» book, there rcmtuin thxa frontier and the Rood ' Tb/a problem and the interest are alwaysf the same It Jocm noi matter that the frontier scenes are cast far tha ir«ost part amid the gre«D(,.valleyfi and; rich orchards of ChUtistem,/ The broad .issues &r© unchanged; they arer those 'which, have led m,eoi forth one© more into tihtf wftds 1 beyond tho Khy bar. The frontier fa,jth cm.di.rcsi, and Britons •!>'© gladly for it« sake. .The- incommunicable spirit tUiafr inspired Audrey Linforth,

and lhat all the wardens of tiio frontier feel, burns to-dar as clearly as ever. Here is Andrw Linforth.'s propheqy of the Road : Many men will die im tine making of it from cold ond- dywetry, and even hungeir — Englishman, and

coolies from Baltistan. Many men will diei fighting over it, Englishmen and Chiltis, and Ghurkas end Sikhs. It will cost millions of money and from policy or economy successive Governments will try to stop it;

bub the Power of the Road will be

greater than tiha Poiwara of any Government. It will wind through valleys so deep that the- day's sunshine i» gone within the hour. It will t»e carried in galleries along the faces of mountains, and for eight months of the year sections of it will be bunted deep in sn<w. Yet

Ib will be finished.

But the dangers aro great. Yet tha Read goes on, and the indonritaible will that drove it forward does not weaken or quail.