"STRATFORD EVENING POST" THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1929. THE TROUBLES OF A KING.

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 19, 17 January 1929, Page 4

"STRATFORD EVENING POST" THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1929. THE TROUBLES OF A KING.

KINK of Afghanistan, made the mistake which millions of other people have, made before him and still more millions 1 will make in the future. He. tried to make others adopt his ideas whether they wanted them or .not. Probahly actuated by a praiseworiry desire to improve the lot of his people, and from all accounts they needed it, he went abroad and) learned what he. could of Western civilisation and culture. He saw many things, some of them were staged for his benefit, but they pleased him, and he decided to adopt them. Therefore Tie abandoned the methods and customs of his, forefathers for those of the West. He sought! to make his subjects do likewise, the result being that they rose in revolt, Amanullah being forced to, abdicate and leave the Throne to his elder brother. Redoubt he is now pondering sadly on the fate of Kings. There may have been much wisdom in the reforms he tried to introduce into his country, but he overlooked the importnnce of the fact that the customs which he sought to replace had been handed down to his people by previous generations, and such things cannot be blotted from memory m a few short weeks or even months. His European tour probably showed that a dictatorship worked most! satisfactory in certain countries, and so lie adopted that method of revitalising an atrophied national spirit. His reforms were attempted in too short p. time. Less than she months ago, he changed hi a country's, flag. Then he made the members of his Government dispense with their beards and don trousers in place of; the flowing robes, they favoured previously. Titles were abolished and the Assembly became an elective instead of an herecTitary affair. These and other reforms were instituted and the answer of his people was to rise and bombard their King in his. own capital. He made a gallant stand, and used every endeavour to quell the rebellion, but the rebels proved too strong, afrd in ai spectacular manner, he departed in an aeroplane from Kabul to Kandahar thus escaping the wrath of the! warlike Shinwari tribesmen, and most likely the violent end orchis assassinated father. His older brother has the task of restoring Afghanistan to a state of peace, and he doubtless will profit from the lesson of his predecessor. Amanullah was a failure, but not an altogether uninteresting one.