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and cannot even speak the language of the people whom they must conciliate unless they wish to be attacked and besieged. The Samána and Kuram posts are now garrisoned by the 36th Sikhs, a downcountry battalion, absolutely unfitted for the work.

This article has dealt more especially with the management of the independent tribes, and I have only incidentally touched on the question of Chitral, as the policy of that occupation rests on different grounds than that of worrying the tribes on our immediate borders into hostility. If it be asserted that it is necessary to occupy Chitral to close an important road to India from Russian attack, the argument is intelligible, though I personally deny the possibility of any attack in that direction, and believe that the distinguished Generals I have just named agree with me. But this question I have before discussed at length in this Review, and all that is necessary to note now is the charge of breach of faith in constructing a military road to Chitral when it was distinctly proclaimed that the Government of India had no intention of permanently occupying any territory through which Umra Khan's misconduct might force them to pass, or of interfering with the independence of the tribes. An apologist of the Indian Government has endeavoured, in the Times of the 9th of September, to refute this charge, and it is certainly desirable to do so, for to this particular action the irritation and suspicion of the tribes seem to be partly due. But his simple sophistries, which may be acceptable to the House of Commons, do not count for much with the wild mountaineers. If a military road, supported by military posts, and held by tribal levies paid from the British treasury, is made and maintained in independent territory, that will be considered by the tribes to be occupation, whatever any apologist may say, and it is difficult to assert that they are wrong. Nor is he more happy in dealing with the occupation of Chitral, which he declares to be no more annexed than Zanzibar. This may be so; but to the ordinary eye, unclouded by official cobwebs, Zanzibar seems as much British territory as the Isle of Wight, and its Sultan a puppet whom we create or depose at pleasure.

The policy of the future may be discussed in detail in a later article, and I would only note, in conclusion, the lines it may conveniently follow. It is impossible to restore the past system, giving back the Frontier Force to the local Government, and allowing it the effective control of all trans-border affairs. This being so, it will probably be advisable to carry out Lord Lytton's proposal, which was premature when made, and was successfully resisted by the Punjab Government, of removing the frontier districts from the charge of the Lieutenant-Governor and placing them under a Chief Commissioner. The Lieutenant-Governor, without the local troops and shorn of political power, cannot do justice to the frontier, and the ever-growing complexity of the civil administration of a rapidly

progressing province leaves him no sufficient leisure for the mastery of frontier affairs. But it is a sine quâ non that the Chief Commissioner be a civilian, and not, as proposed by Lord Lytton, a military man. By this I do not mean to exclude military civilians, trained from youth in administrative work, and many of whom, Abbott, Becher, James, Edwardes, Lake and Sandeman have performed the most splendid service. But a man trained systematically in civil duties, knowing intimately the people and the language, is essential to prevent the frontier districts falling from the high standard of civilisation which they have already attained. Το nominate a General Officer as Lord Warden of the Marches would be to intensify the evils of the existing system. What is needed is a strong civil administrator whose professional instinct would be in favour of peace and not of war, and who would be content to follow the firm and friendly policy towards the tribes which was pursued with success by Lieutenant-Governors of the Punjab: Lord Lawrence, Sir Robert Montgomery, Sir Donald McLeod, Sir Henry Durand, Sir Henry Davies and Sir Robert Egerton. He would be the full receptacle of local knowledge, on which the Viceroy and the Foreign Office could safely draw, instead of, as at present, remaining the unconscious instruments of a military clique which is most unwisely endeavouring to deal with the country beyond our border as Russia dealt with Circassia. For in the armed independence of the frontier tribes is one of the surest defences of India. We do not require military roads through independent territory to facilitate the march of an invading army, nor a cowed and disarmed population which could do nothing to resist its advance. Even our relations with Afghanistan are facilitated by the existence of the independent region between it and India. I do not believe in buffer States; but between a highly civilised Government like that of British India and one in a far lower stage of social and political development it is of the highest advantage to have a fringe of tribes owning allegiance to neither, but, like all members of the human family, susceptible to kindly influences, and relying, as in past times they undoubtedly relied, on the generosity and fair dealing of the Indian Government.

LEPEL GRIFFIN.

A MOSLEM'S VIEW

OF THE PAN-ISLAMIC REVIVAL

THE last decade of the nineteenth century is an important epoch in the history of Islam and its followers throughout the world. After three centuries of social and political decadence the Moslem world seems, at last, to have awakened to its sense of danger and responsibility. Signs of Islamic revival are observed everywhere, and though, in many cases, these signs only indicate Moslem unrest, it may fairly be inferred that some common feeling is universally shared by the followers of the Prophet at this particular time. What is this feeling? Is it conquest or aggression? Is it a desire to convert all infidels to Islam? If I may venture to guess, it is a perception of reasonable and probable dangers to Islam and the Islamites engendered by the GrecoTurkish war and the attitude of Christendom towards Islam during recent years. It is an assertion of the natural feeling of self-preservation and self-respect. What events have caused this perturbation in the Islamic world? The most important event of the present century concerning the Moslem world is the change in the traditional policies of England and Russia with respect to the treatment of the Eastern question. England, which has been hitherto known in the Islamic world as the ally of Turkey, has denounced her alliance with that country; while Russia, the ancient and mortal enemy of Turkey, and the traditional defender of the Christian races in the East, has become the protector of the Sultan and friend of the Moslems all over the world. The other events are the following.

The Armenian question is responsible for many evils. It started in England as a humanitarian protest against the massacre of Armenian Christians at Sassoon. As such it had the sympathies of the educated Moslems of India, and even of Turkey. By degrees, however, it assumed, in the hands of designing Christian ministers, imbued with a secret hatred of Islam, and Forward Liberals inebriated with party fanaticism, an anti-Islamic character. For months, a section of the British press indulged in vituperation and vehement denunciation of the Turkish race, Moslem law, and the head of the Mohammedan Faith. The Caliph of Islam was styled 'Abdul the

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Damned' by a minor poet, and the Great Assassin' by an expremier. Such intemperate language and excitement in England produced suspicions even in the minds of Moslems most favourably disposed towards this country in regard to her intentions. So loud, indeed, was the voice of St. James's Hall against the government of Moslems over Christians, that Islamic nations inhabiting the Turkish Empire, ignorant of the loquacious ways of great democracies, became seriously apprehensive of the safety of that Empire. The Sultan himself, for one whole year, trembled at the words and deeds of British statesmen, and, throwing aside the traditional pride and reserve of the princes of the Ottoman race, actually sent an autograph letter of repentance to the British Prime Minister. The bones of his mighty forefathers must have groaned in their graves at the pitiable sight of the present occupant of the Ottoman throne. The Sultan was then in such a frame of mind that he would have done anything short of political suicide to appease the wrath of the English nation. But democratic feeling was whipped up to white heat in England, and would be satisfied with nothing less than the deposition of Abdul Hamid and a system of complete control over his successors. Prince Lobanoff, the clever foreign minister of Russia, frightened Abdul Hamid still further by informing him of coercion proposals on behalf of England, with the result that the Sultan threw himself entirely on the mercy of Russia. Lobanoff gave the British Government to understand that the Government of the Czar would not allow any Power to use coercion against Turkey, though it would not object to any amount of paper remonstrance against the Sublime Porte. The echo of the furious denunciations of Islam and its Caliph in England reached all parts of the Mussulman world, and the Faithful began to discuss whether the so-called humanitarian protest in Christendom was not really a crusade against the power and the prestige of their religion. Thus many Moslems educated in Europe, and quite competent to understand the blunders of the Armenian policy of the Sublime Porte, and who, moreover, made no secret of their disapproval of the conduct of the Sultan himself, were frightened at the signs of the storm brewing in England against Islam. Had they not suspected Christian designs, not only against the Mosque of St. Sophia, but also against the Holy Shrines in Arabia, they would have willingly joined the cry against misgovernment in Turkey. As it was, the more Mr. Gladstone and Exeter Hall denounced the Caliph, the closer did the Moslems draw towards him. The result was that Abdul Hamid, who was becoming unpopular with young Moslems both in and out of Turkey, three years ago, on account of his coercive policy, began, when fighting single-handed with the Christian Powers of Europe, to be gradually recognised as a patriotic hero of Islam. It became a question of Islam versus Christendom.

Hardly was the Armenian question settled, or rather put off, when

the Cretan question assumed its acutest form, owing to the filibustering expedition of Greece into that island. Two things in connection with the Cretan question excited the indignation of the Islamic world: the cold-blooded massacres of the Moslems by the Cretan Christians when the latter got the upper hand through the assistance of the Greeks. The incident reminded them of the treatment reserved for their fellow-believers in the Turkish Empire, in the event of the Crescent losing its ascendency over its Christian subjects. Secondly, the fact that Prince George of Greece was allowed to land troops in Crete under the very eyes of the admirals of the Great Powers, while the Sultan, the legitimate owner of the island, was prevented from sending any troops to quell a rebellion in his own territory. The incident clearly showed to them the injustice of Christendom towards Islam. Here, again, it was England who took the lead in defeating the proposals of Turkey.

been the theme of conversapublic and private gatherings The story of Hafiz Pasha, an

When the Mussulman world was in a state of anxiety in regard to the safety of the Caliph's dominions, the folly of Greece brought salvation to the door of the Sultan. Well might the Turk exclaim: 'Our antagonist is our helper.' For generations the Moslem arms have not been brilliantly successful over the infidels at the conclusion of war; though, indeed, the Moslem sword was never altogether sheathed even for a decade. The victory, the patriotism, the endurance of the Turkish troops and the defeat, the cowardice, and the stampede of the Greeks have tion in mosque, in market, in all of Moslems in the Islamic world. octogenarian Turkish general, receiving two wounds in his arms and losing their use, but refusing to dismount, and encouraging the soldiers by such exclamations as Onward, children, onward!' until a third bullet in his mouth put an end to his heroic career, was versified and sung by the village boys of Islam. Very few Moslems know, or, indeed, cared to know, the extent or the strength of the State of Greece. All they knew and repeated everywhere was that the Caliph's army defeated and destroyed Christian forces in Europe itself. At the end of the war great towns and mighty personages of Islam vied with each other in sending congratulatory messages and epistles to the Commander of the Faithful in Stamboul. The followers of the Prophet illuminated their houses, their mosques, and their huts in celebration of the event, and every Islamic sect, be it Shia or Sunnee, felt as much pleasure at the victory as if it had been won by them and for them.

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The war was brought to a successful termination by a most friendly and courteous message from the Czar to his friend and neighbour' the Sultan. But when it came to the fruits of victory the Christian Powers propounded a doctrine as curious as it was unjust that the Turk should not be allowed to retain any portion of

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