IN INDIA

Hokitika Guardian, 25 May 1929, Page 8

IN INDIA

THE NORTII-WJ&T FRONTIER. (By ROLAND G. WILD, the “Daily Mail” special coricspuiident cm me North-Yvest Frontier.) PESHAWAR April 6. Can tho* North-west i-'i muier, that region t/i suuueii ueauii auu needs oi valour, it he lull history of winch Wii. never bo written, he civilised ( This region, stretching in an irregular line along tlio no* tii-aosterii barrier of India-, wedged 111 between vlio twse-inassed barbed wire of tne uritish oilt posts land the lust down-at-heel sentries ol Afghanistan, shelters the scmn of Asia, men whose era very and religion have been di- . cried solciy to crime as a mcuna ootli of existence and expressing their pride. KIIYBER PASS TOURISTS.

Yet the progress made in recent years ims been truly amazing. Passengers up the famous Kliyber Pass, once taking their lives in their hands now have assurances that the hills on either side will be lined, not by men with tlieir fingers on their triggers on the off-chanco of making a lightning raid on a prosperous looking motor car or a laden string of camels but by Indian soldiers on protection duty of tribesmen, with the same glint in their eye, and the same typ, .1 small talk in tlieir carbines, but iritish hush-money iii their pockets uul, more iikcly than not, a .British jLamp on tlieir Leo Eniieius. American tourisls make the KlivOey part of their lighting tour of India. Let there be no mistake about it. however. The strict rules for the conluct , and safety of British officers stationed in the Kliyber lorts have' >cen relaxed very little. Convoys are rushed up in guarde: ioLor lorries or sent up on the slowmoving Kliyber railway with troops guarding every bridge and every dan j,er point. Sentries are doubled from .nightfall and lights flood flic up)roaches to every camp. No officer is dlowed outside the barbed wire ol his •amp after dusk. STKiarmULES FOR WOMEN. The same stringent rules apply to the presence of women in the camps. The wives of officers and men have to leave the camps fo Peshawar am' the protecting ring of barbed wire which encircles the whole of cantonments before four o'clock in the afternoon. The tribesman, however, will take long to forget 'the instinctive ferocity and callousness of his ancestors Still, there must ho something in the British idea. Rifles, for instance, So thinks the tribesman as hr watches his friends go over to the British, trek down into Peshawar City twice a month and spend their monev and swagger down the road in full sight of the white soldiers with their British rifles over tlieir shoulders. He finds that there is some profit in orogross. The game of frontier jumping still goes on, and the commerce of ransom and blond money. NO RELIGIOUS ATTVCKS. Still, tli o telegraph wire, which used to bo thought the lino of the devil .passing through and defilin" tlieir territory, now remains uncut right up the Khybcr .and beyond •lirough the wild district to Kabul. The railway line, too, remains unassaulted, and, save for occasional outbreaks, usually with the financial instinct in the background, there anno religious, -attacks on the English---1 deed which used to be considered a part of the ' tribesmen’s religionduties.

The latest police reports show, it is true an increase in murder- nearly a thousand a year in one district. Jn the district there are over thre» thousand criminals at law, wriggline from the net in the hills < living like animals and ready at any minute once having set their hands to tlm shedding of hlood, to kill and kill again for the means of sustenance. And about four thousand'pounds habeen paid in the year for the easics l and most ’dishonourable—to the trihe---meu—way of earning the. means to live—hush money and blood money. Hie treachery of brother . against brother, father against son.