THE RUSSIANS IN AFGHANISTAN.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3963, 21 June 1887, Page 3

THE RUSSIANS IN AFGHANISTAN.

The following items taken from the Home papers will be read with interest m connection with the recent cable news from Afghanistan : — The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Daily Ncv:s telegraphs that the papers there seem to be expecting important news from Central Asia. Many evidently hope that a collision will take place. There is, however, no reason for supposing that the Russian Government share that hope. Meanwhile some of the papers use the most violent language against England, and say that the time has come to give her a lesson. Intelligence received at Bombay from a native source Btates that the Russians now have 2000 men at Kilif, and have increased the force stationed at Penjdeh. The Governor of Tashkent has been appointed Governor of Andijan, m the province of Ferghana, with extensive powers to watch affairs m Chitral, Gilgit, and Afghanistan. The Standard say 3 that : — " Although the negotiations relating to the remaining strip of the Afghan frontier are only now beginning at St. Petersburg, it is possible to indicate the course they will take with approximate precision. It is known that the frontier has been agreed upon and delimitated to as far as Dugohi, a place due north of Andkhoi, and forty miles short of the Oxus. Briefly put, the contention of the English Commissioner was that tho frontier line should be continued due north-east to Kham.i-ab, while his Russian colleague declared that it should tako an almost due easterly course to Ziarat Kwaja Salor, reaching tho Oxus only a few miles bolow Kilif. The question haß not advanced an inch beyond this stage, but the evidence of Russia's desire and intention to appropriate, if possible, the whole of the Kwaja-Salor territory, on account of its great fertility, has accumulated. The only practical solution can bo obtained by a compromise based on the fact that one Jside or the other will agree to waive its claims m this district for compensation elsewhere, or of a different character. What this compensation may bo can also bo indicated with perfect accuracy on the assumption that Russia is induced to admit the Ameer's claims to the Kwaja Salor district, down to Kham-i-Ab, and to abide by the Afghan-Bokharan arrangement of 1873. Russia would bo compensated by a cession of pasturages and territory at Moruchak. In the opposite evont of Russia's persistence gaining tho day, the only compensation that could be obtained for the Ameer would be of a pecuniary character, and it is doubtful whether ho would regard this as perfectly satisfactory.