re, independent position
and our alliance for that plunder, and to put their country at
the mercy of Russia, whom they hate as cordially as they do us?
If we evacuate Candahar, Afghanistan can only have this small
inducement of the plunder of India for Russia to offer her. Some
say that the people of Candahar desire our rule. I cannot think
that any people like being governed by aliens in race or
religion. They prefer their own bad native governments to a
stiff, civilized government, in spite of the increased worldly
prosperity the latter may give.

"We may be sure that at Candahar the spirit which induced
children to kill, or to attempt to kill our soldiers in 1879,
etc., still exists, though it may be cowed. We have trouble
enough with the fanatics of India; why should we go out of our
way to add to their numbers?

"From a military point of view, by the retention we should
increase the line we have to defend by twice the distance of
Candahar to the present frontier, and place an objective point to
be attacked. Naturally we should make good roads to Candahar,
which on the loss of a battle there--and such things must be
always calculated as within possibility--would aid the advance of
the enemy to the Indus. The _debouche_ of the defiles, with good
lateral communications between them, is the proper line of
defence for India, not the entry into those defiles, which cannot
have secure lateral communications. If the entries of the defiles
are held, good roads are made through them; and these aid the
enemy, if you lose the entries or have them turned. This does not
prevent the passage of the defiles being disputed.

"The retention of Candahar would tend to foment rebellion in
India, and not prevent it; for thereby we should obtain an
additional number of fanatical malcontents, who as British
subjects would have the greatest facility of passing to and fro
in India, which they would not have if we did not hold it.

"That our prestige would suffer in India by the evacuation I
doubt; it certainly would suffer if we kept it and forsook our
word--_i.e._ that we made war against Shere Ali, and not against
his people. The native peoples of India would willingly part with
any amount of prestige if they obtained less taxation.

"India should