Affairs in Afghanistan.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2062, 2 May 1887, Page 2

Affairs in Afghanistan.

The state of affairs in Afghanistan does not promise peace. The Governor of Hussian Turkestan is making a tour of the provinces under his rule, and is decreasing taxes and heaping rewards on the chiefs, and persuading the Khans to ally themselves closely to Russia by promising them high offices in the event of a campaign against India. Great dissatisfaction prevails among the Ameer’s troops and the garrison of Herat owing to their being paid in provisions instead of in cash. Russian spies, it is asserted, are openly moving about Afghanistan, though the Ameer is taking measures to check them. In his circular, a copy of which has reached Bombay, calling upon his subjects to raise a holy war, the Ameer Abdurrahman denounces the Czar as a great tyrant, whose troops are daily advancing. The situation is greatly complicated by the fact that tho Ameer is in very bad health. Tho strategic line of railway to Quetta has been completed. The Ghilzai revolt is rapidly spreading, and it is reported that the Russian troops at Pemdeh have been recently reinforced. It is rumoured that in the eveutof the Ameer of Afghanistan being overthrown by the rebels, it is probable that an understanding between the British and Russian Governments will be arrived at with a view to tho tribal war being suppressed, and the country placed under a ruler having the protection of both England and Russia.