The Star. FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1919. THE AFGHAN .DISTURBANCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 23 May 1919, Page 4

The Star.

FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1919. THE AFGHAN .DISTURBANCE.

Jel_ver«d every evening by S o'cloc* In Hawera, Macs'a, Noi_aiiby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Esponga, Awatuna, Opunako, Oiak«>ho, Manutahi, Alton, HurJey. ville, Patea. Waverley.

For a great number of years spasmodic clashes of varying magnitude between the Afghans living near the Indian frontier and the British forces have been regarded as matter^ of company tively small importance, for writers of history tell us that "as a people the Afghans are of dignified and noble bearing, but their predominant trait of character is keen and acutely developed treachery and cunning." The Afghans showed a better spirit towards , British India under their late ruler Habibullah, but since he was murdered in February last, there has been considerable trouble within Afghanistan. If the new Ameer is, as a cable message yesterday suggested, "creating trouble to prevent internal dissension,'' he is adopting a very unwise plan, and one which will cause the Afghans much regret if their frontier tribes continue to annoy the British in the North-west. The Afghans have not been free from enemy propaganda, and during the war period at least one German party penetrated Persia and entered Baluchistan and Afghanistan on an evil mission. Whether because he was a friend ot Britain the murder of the Ameer was effected through German influence is not known, but the Ameer had resisted the enemy's requests to advance upon India if Germany provided the officers and Turkish aid. Habibullah's murder at least raised suspicions against German agents. Nor were the British authorities blind, to the seriousness of the position when the Ameer wa s murdered. Speaking a few days after the murder, Sir Valentine Chirol, whose extensive travels in the East and his several articles on the subject have made Mm an acknowledged authority on India and the countries between the Mediterranean and the frontier, said: "The disappearance of a ruler who has maintained a certain measure of order and tranquillity during' 19 years in the turbulent Central Asian kingdom, cannot but cause sctuq apprehension. Moreover, one is bound to remember that in very difficult eirpum-

stances, the late Ameer of Afghanistan behaved with unswerving loyalty towards the British Empire throughout i the Great War. The wild Afghan1 tribesmen are Mohammedans of the' fanatical type, and German political propaganda and the preachings of mullahs inspired from Constantinople combined to impress them with the opportunity that the Great War offered them cf descending onco more, as of old, from the arid mountain fastnesses to hairy and despoil the rich plains of Hindustan. But the Ameer succeeded, through sheer tenacity of purpose, in curbing his unruly people. The great Pan-Turanian programme, which the pro-Turkish junta at Constantinople had mapped out during the war on the model of Berlin Pan-Germanism, doubtless never appealed to him, for the part for jWhich Afghanistan has been cast in that programme was merely that of a feudatory state in the large TurkishMohammedan confederacy, to be dominated by the Turkish Sultan in the same way as the Kaiser dominated all the smaller German States, and subordinated the members of the Germanic Alliance. . . Nasrullah Khan (the late Ameer's brother), who is suspected of being behind the plot, is certainly no friend of the British Government. On the other hand, if the former Ameer's eldest son succeeds him, there is reason to hope he will carry on his father's tradition and attach the same paramount importance to British friendship. Nor is there very much knowledge as yet with, regard to negotiations which have been reported from time to time as in progress between the Ameer of Afghanistan and the Ameei of Bokhara for the formation of a Central Asian Mohammedan confederacy. Bokhara has apparently regained its independence amidst the complete disintegration of the old Russian Empire, and it would be neither unnatural nor indeed, from the British point of view perhaps, undesirable that the two most powerful Mohammedan rulers of Central Asia should draw together for the defence of their people's territory against the rising tide of Russian Bolshevism. But n»ich more reliable data must be awaited before one can form any reasoned opinion as to the significance of such a move.'l The events in Egypt and India which have occurred during the last few months may or may not b e connected with the effort to establish a great Mohammedan confederacy, but the fact that they should-have happened at a given time and been followed immediately by the Afghan trouble is significant. Each disturbance has in itself been of comparatively minor importance, as it has become clear that the demonstrators against the British have represented only sections of the masses, but if the disturbances have been inter-related, and have been based' on religious grounds, then one would hesitate to say that there will not b e a renewal of greater and more serious disturbances in the near future. Let us hope that they will be as easily quelled as on this occasion.