land, and to what jurisdiction they are amenable; the number of troops is being diminished, so as to remove them from malarias which have filled the hospitals with fever-stricken patients. Nothing has so far transpired in Cyprus to prove that the Government is qualified to administer or reform Asia Minor, or to inspire confidence either in Christians or in Mohammedans.

The grand stroke by which Lord Beaconsfield electrified Europe, of bringing Indian troops to Malta, has caused a contrecoup by Russia. It was tacitly understood before that time that the European and Asiatic questions should be kept distinct; but, the moment that Indian troops appeared in Europe, Russian statesmen felt themselves relieved from all promises they had made of quiescence on the frontiers of India, and an expedition was at once organized on the Oxus, and a mission sent to the Ameer of Afghanistan. If England was going to attack Russia in Europe with India, she would retaliate by attacking England in Asia with Afghanistan. The present imbroglio on the northwestern frontier may therefore be regarded indirectly as another result of the Berlin Congress, though it need never have occurred had British diplomacy in India been characterized by discretion and foresight. Lord Northbrook, who preceded Lord Lytton under a Liberal administration, pushed the policy of "masterly inactivity" to an unwise extreme; and his successor, by way of repairing the error, has rushed impetuously and inopportunely in the opposite direction. When Yakoob Bey, the ruler of Kashgar, sent a mission proposing a defensive alliance with England, it was coldly declined; partly on the ground that we believed the assurances of Russia that she had no intention of advancing toward the British frontier, and of annexing contiguous countries, and partly because it was felt that we were the best judges when to form defensive alliances with frontier Asiatic states, and that, if there really was any danger from Russia, they must ultimately be driven into the arms of England for protection. Thus in 1873, Shere Ali, the Ameer of Afghanistan, sent an envoy to Lord Northbrook also, to seek a defensive alliance with England; this emissary foretold, step by step, the subsequent Russian advances into Asia, but the Indian Government turned a deaf ear to his entreaties. The calculations of the "masterly inactivity" politicians have been utterly falsified.

Russia is advancing toward Cabool not with bayonets, but with bonbons. The rôle has been reversed: England threatens a hostile invasion if the ameer will not listen to her demand for the establishment of British residents in the principal towns of Afghanistan, and Russia has undertaken the part of guide, philosopher, and friend, to his Highness. It was as injudicious at this crisis for Lord Lytton to attempt to force the ameer into being an open enemy, as it was short-sighted of Lord Northbrook to refuse five years ago to make him our secret friend. The mistakes involved by these two diametrically opposite policies are now past recall, and we have embarked upon a venture which in the opinion of the best military authorities is as unsound strategically as it certainly is unsafe diplomatically.

If England expects ever to be involved in a war with Russia' on her northwestern frontier, her object should be not to annex disaffected states with a view of approaching Russia, thus lengthening her own lines of communication, and increasing her political and military difficulties, but rather to force that dangerous process upon her enemy, while she holds her armies massed behind the almost impregnable frontier positions which she now occupies. The conquest of Afghanistan must be a source of weakness morally and strategically to whichever power, whether it be Russia or England, undertakes it. Politically, it is calculated to alienate the sympathies of all Mussulman populations. If Russia were to attack Afghanistan, England could rouse the Central Asian khanates against her, and her whole frontier would be in a blaze which would render any further advance upon India an impossibility. But if England attacks Afghanistan, as it is now certain that she must, Russia comes forward as the champion of Mohammedanism, the khanates will mistrust the sympathy of England, while Russia will actively intrigue in the Mohammedan states of Hindostan, some of which, as in the case of Hyderabad, are brooding over grievances and breaches of faith, which they are only waiting a favorable opportunity to avenge.

The prospect, from a purely military point of view, is not more encouraging. Former experience of campaigns in Afghanistan has proved that the race is fanatic and warlike, the country mountainous and inhospitable, and the region altogether difficult

to subdue, and materially not worth holding. It will be impossible, either at Quetta or at Thull, the two points from which the advance into the country is to be made, to mass a sufficient body of troops to advance before the end of October or beginning of November, which only leaves a month or six weeks of open weather. In winter the passes are covered with six feet of snow. A march on Cabool would probably be too hazardous to undertake at so late a period of the year; but it is just possible if no hitch occurs, and the independent hill tribes can be bribed into friendly relations, that a British army may occupy Khoorum and Candahar before the setting in of winter, and without any serious resistance. The news which reaches us of a disturbance in Seistan at this juncture is full of significance. This territory has long been claimed by Persia, and the dispute was settled by an English frontier commission a few years ago in a manner which did not afford satisfaction either to Persia or Afghanistan. Russia has no doubt incited Persia to reopen the question, and that country may take advantage of the difficulty in which Shere Ali finds himself, of attacking his western frontier. Russia would play the part in that case of a false friend to the ameer, and lead him to his own destruction, as her relations with Persia are of such a nature that the extrusion of the frontier of that power toward India practically affords a means of access to her own armies. With the Afghan fortresses of Herat and Furrur in the hands of Persia, and Merv in the hands of Russia, with a nominee of her own at Balkh, Russia could afford to see Afghanistan crumble to pieces, which it would assuredly do with a British force at Candahar and Girishk. In other words, England would then find herself face to face with Russia, and Persia in close alliance in the mountains of Afghanistan; but it is more than probable that Russia would support Persia, keeping in the background herself, upon the same principle which she adopted in the case of Servia: although that principality was a part of Turkey, England made no remonstrance when Russian volunteers poured in to assist the Servians in their war against Turkey, and supplied her armies with officers and munitions of war. She might do the same for Persia, while still professing to be animated by the most peaceful sentiments toward England. It is not likely that the British nation would submit to such an infraction of inter

national law, although they did not object to it in the case of Turkey. The morality which approved of Christian volunteers from Russia helping the belligerent Servian will object to those same volunteers helping the belligerent Persian, and will maintain that the international code which applies to the Turk does not apply to the Englishman. In that case England would declare war against Russia, and probably endeavor to excite the Central Asian khanates against her, while she made a demonstration against Persia on the Persian Gulf.

As Afghanistan is a country utterly valueless as a territorial possession, the effort of England should be to reconstitute it as an independent state under a friendly ruler, and offer him whatever he may be able to obtain either from Persia or Russia, affording him the same assistance against Russia that Russia was giving Persia against England, and so throw upon Russia the responsibility of a declaration of war. Still farther east, on the Russo-Chinese frontier, complications are arising which, it is evident, must lead to hostilities between Muscovite and Mongol. The Chinese have made a demand for the cession of the province of Kuldja, which was formerly Chinese territory, and was conquered from the late Yakoob Bey of Kashgar. The Russian St. Petersburg Journal strongly urges the Government to refuse to surrender this province, on the ground that, if Kuldja were to be ceded to China, Russian rule in the eastern part of Central Asia would be undermined. "The western frontier," says the Russian organ, "is already half in the hands of England, and, if Kuldja is given up, the operations of the Russians in that region will be attended with great risks. Eastern Turkistan would in fact no longer exist for us. The surrender of Kuldja to China would be another triumph for England, and the Mantchoos would hold their heads higher than ever. In fine, Russian influence in Central Asia would be shaken."

From all of which it would seem tolerably clear that, whichever way events turn, Central Asia is destined to become a theatre of war, if not this autumn, at any rate in the spring, and that the events transpiring will bring Russia and England into such close juxtaposition that the gravest complications are likely to arise, which may include a European war next year.

In France and Germany this cloud in the East is regarded

with some anxiety; for, though it is a long way from the German to the Chinese frontier, there is a train of gunpowder laid the entire distance, and the spark is being applied even now.

Many indications show of late that the German chancellor does not consider the war-fiend appeased, and that he is preparing new combinations in anticipation of the coming storm. To him, at all events, it would seem that the old triple alliance is at an end. The conversations published by the Times correspondent in Paris of his sentiments toward Prince Gortchakoff, though denied by the German official papers, faithfully indicate the altered relations which now subsist between the two chancellors, whose long friendship depended only upon the use one thought he could make of the other.. So long as Russia was the most powerful military nation next to Germany, and the hopes of France were fixed upon a Muscovite alliance which might one day lead her to her revenge, so long did Prince Bismarck keep Russia chained to his chariot-wheels by flattery and offers of service and coöperation; but the moment that Russia, weakened and exhausted, could no longer be useful to him, he led her to a political defeat which England lacked the firmness and intelligence to inflict, and since then has abandoned her entirely to her own devices, and openly quarreled with her leading statesman. In the same manner we have significant rumors of a coolness between Prince Bismarck and Count Andrassy, and the former has undoubtedly done all in his power to encourage Austria to enter the Slav trap prepared for her in Bosnia. On the other hand, the relations of Germany and France have undergone the most marked change. An obnoxious minister has been recalled from Berlin, and M. St. Vallier, a personal friend of the emperor's, has been sent there, while the tone of the French press in regard to Germany has been sensibly modified. If Germany can be compensated by the annexation of German provinces from Austria, it is not impossible that an alliance might be cemented between France and her old enemy by the cession to the former of some territory, taken during the war, which is not German. If Prince Bismarck has designs upon weakened Russia and disintegrated Austria, it is not difficult to see how he might purchase, if not the coöperation, at all events the neutrality, of France; and it is to be remembered that Russia as well as