AFGHAN TURMOIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20172, 5 February 1929, Page 8

AFGHAN TURMOIL.

Those who have endeavoured to follow the course of recent events in Afghanistan—and considering the proximity of the country to India, the subject is not of such remote interest as it might seem—can bo. pardoned for feeling puzzled as to the exact position at present. There appear several self-proclaimed rulers, and the amount of authority any one of them has seems to bo very doubtful. the confusion of accounts, the varying storieß, can only be explained by emphasising again the dominant feature which made it so difficult for Amanulla's scheme of reform to be effectively imposed, and now causes the turmoil and lack of definition in the situation following his downfall. Afghanistan is a country where tribal organisation still rules, where communications are almost nonexistent over great stretches of its 245,000 square miles. The roads are officially described as generally unsuitable for wheeled traffic; transport of goods is effected, for the most part, by pack animals. Railways and telegraphs, while not entirely absent, are in the earliest stages of development. At the best of times only a slender thread of organisation held together the congeries of tribes making up the Afghan people. The primitive government has worked sufficiently well in the past because the people are in the main industrious cultivators. It is understandable that when an upheaval came, and rival leaders began to dispute supremacy, confusion and disorganisation developed rapidly When, in addition to other circumstances, the snows of winter have made travel impossible, it can be accepted that stabilisation must be a slow process, and in the meantime an exact determination of the position is practically impossible.