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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 7484, 25 February 1885, Page 4

If the announcement which has been made about the advance of a Russian army across the northern frontier of Afghanistan down the valley of the Moorghab, had been made in the year 1877, or later during the Afghan war, that announcement would have set Europe in a flame. The advance of these Russians, however, is a very momentous thing. As far as we know, it takes place with the object of settling by the sword a difference of opinion between the Russian and English representatives about the frontier of that much discussed country Afghanistan; and, in the second place, the advance is timed to suit our inconvenience. Just as we are gathering up our forces to get over a difficulty in Egypt, a Russian army advances to take by force that which we for years have refused by diplomacy. When the Anglo-Rus-sian Commission was originally appointed for the purpose of determining the Northern frontier of Afghanistan, the Russian Press, though it never takes its Government to task, was nevertheless very critical. It was pointed out in Russia that neither the . Ameer nor the English general knew anything at all about the frontier; it was objected that the English object could only be to make the line include as much of

Turkestan as possible with the largest obtainable number of strategic positions. People enquired freely what right the English had to be consulted in the matter at all. One journal went so far as to ask contemptuously if the Government of the Czar always really intended • to resort to English mediation in every little frontie/ difficulty with Afghanistan; and urged that the Russian prestige was suffering unworthy eclipse. The boldness of this language is now intelligible. The Afghan, Commission has failed to agree, a Russian army has inarched down the Moorghab Valley, and the English and Afghan members of the Commission have tasen refuge at Herat. The selection of this particular time for the Russian advance is probably a coincidence; but from the impunity of the Russian newspaper comments, it is not too much to infer that the Russian army was got together to enforce the Russian demands in case of the failure of cTiplomacy. What ground of objection we can have, seeing that, we did precisely the same thing in Lord Beaconsfield's time, viz., marched an army into Afghanistan in order t© secure a "scientific" frontier, it is not easy to see. Still less easy is it to know what, having given up Candahar, we can do if we find a ground of objection. Central Asia has been passed, the Ameers have been conquered, the Afghan frontier is reached. In a few years the question of the Northern Afghanistan frontier will have lost its value ; the Russian uniforms will be at the gates of India.