New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1880.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 423, 20 March 1880, Page 14

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1880.

The anxious waiting for tidings from Afghanistan, which at the close of the past year found temporary allayment in the tidings that G-eneral Roberts had succeeded in completely defeating the enemy around Cabul, and had dispersed them with severe loss, is again becoming intensified. The British forces, though capable of clearing away resistance and repelling attack, cannot stay the spread of opposing force or uphold with present means the supremacy of British domination over turbulent tribes. When the news came that the rising at Cabul was a failure, and Mahomed Jan had, in his disappointment, dismissed his soldiers and betaken himself to flight, it was supposed that the pacification of the "country and its security against the plots and machinations of rival chiefs would be speedily secured. Calculations were made that within a given time a line of permanent communication would be established, and railway trains carrying men, munitions, and impedimenta of war would daily traverse the erstwhile hostile country, and that peace would be assured. This has not yet been compassed. On the contrary, the Afghan tribes, deeply imbued with fanaticism and incited by that spirit of independency or obstinacy which, in greater or less degree, pervades all men and nations, will not recognise the inevitable supremacy of British power, and, like a nest of disturbed hornets, gather together again in their mountain territory to harass the intruders. Latest cable items presage another, and a desperate, struggle, for which the British forces are not too well prepared. The inclemency of the winter has pressed severely on our troops, more especially on the Indian contingent, to whom frost and snow present terrors against which discipline and stern command avail nothing. It is on record that in the month of January, 1842, through a treacherous outbreak, 4000 soldiers and 12,000 followers were massacred in and around Cabul, and that much of this dreadful carnage was attributed to the cold having benumbed the faculties of the Sepoys, and rendered them powerless for defence. A repetition of this dread contingency has only just been escaped. Luckily the advance of spring will avert the possibility of more danger from this cause. The peculiarity of the present Afghan campaign is, that the public are only permitted to obtain intelligence through certain circumscribed channels. Press correspondents in the field are no longer permitted to follow the fortunes of war. Intelligence is only permitted to permeate officially, and although the Press of the Home country has been strong in condemnation of the restriction, protestations and revilings have been in vain. The usefulness of the war correspondent is no longer recognised, and the opinion is held_ in suDreme official circles that during perilous operations criticism should cease, and results be waited for in silence. Hence the scant and intermittent tricklings of Afghan war news slowly percolating into the pubHc prints. It is certain, however, that Afghanistan cannot be held in subjugation without the employment of a large standing army of Europeans, that the Sepoys dislike the service, and the native allies, the Goorkhas, are limited in number, and that the counl ry if held will prove at the best a barren territory, with no assurance of immunity from sudden and unprovoked outbreak —a country of which

the Spectator, a high authority on matters of British polity, writes : "We shall have a sterile Ireland to garrison, 8000 miles off. If that is a prospect which pleases the English people, we have nothing more to say, except that the English people is very easily deceived, but if not, then the alternative policy is to remain fortified, but quiet, behind our own borders, to await the next call upon our energies. To proceed with an aimless and endless policy of conquest beyond our own hills, is only to throw away resources in order that soldiers should have new opportunities of distinction, and the country fresh occasions for alarm." Viewed by the light of events arising since this opinion was penned, the fresh occasions for alarm arise from the pertinacity of attack on the part of the mountain tribes, keeping our troops on the defensive, awaiting, with what patience and fortitude they may, the tardy approach of reinforcements and munitions. One consolation to the British taxpayer is that an assurance has been given that the cost of the Afghan war and the expense of the new frontier railways, necessary adjuncts to the upholding of British supremacy, may be met out of suplus Indian revenues. It is estimated that the cost of renewed hostilities in Afghanistan will be at least a million sterling, and of the frontier railways two and a half millions, but the surplus revenues of the Indian dependency are estimated to yield all this, and at least half a million beyond. It is true that Mr. Gladstone has arrayed a mass of figures to prove the very reverse, but in the disputed deductions of rival financiers, as in most other mundane mutations, safety lies in the adoption of a middle course". If there is no surplus from Indian revenues after current expenditure is provided for, the much enduring taxpayer may possess his soul in peace, free from present dread of an extra penny in ,the pound as war tax. if *