for its defence[347].

[Footnote 346: See Col. A. Durand's _The Making of a Frontier_ (1899),
pp. 41-43.]

[Footnote 347: Colquhoun, _Russia against India_, p. 170. Lord Curzon in
1894 went over much of the ground between Sarrakhs and Candahar and
found it quite easy for an army (except in food supply).]

It is therefore of the utmost importance to prevent her pushing on her
railways into that country. This is the consideration which inspired Mr.
Balfour's noteworthy declaration of May 11, 1905, in the House of
Commons:--

As transport is the great difficulty of an invading army, we
must not allow anything to be done which would facilitate
transport. It ought in my opinion to be considered as an act
of direct aggression upon this country that any attempt
should be made to build a railway, in connection with the
Russian strategic railways, within the territory of
Afghanistan.

It is fairly certain that the present Ameer, Habibulla, who succeeded
his father in 1901, holds those views. This doubtless was the reason
why, early in 1905, he took the unprecedented step of _inviting_ the
Indian Government to send a Mission to Cabul. In view of the increase of
Russia's railways in Central Asia there was more need than ever of
coming to a secret understanding with a view to defence against
that Power.

Finally, we may note that Great Britain has done very much to make up
for her natural defects of position. The Panjdeh affair having relegated
the policy of "masterly inactivity" to the limbo of benevolent
futilities, the materials for the Quetta railway, which had been in
large part sent back to Bombay in the year 1881, were now brought back
again; and an alternative route was made to Quetta. The urgent need of
checkmating French intrigues in Burmah led to the annexation of that
land (November 1885); and the Kurram Valley, commanding Cabul, which the
Gladstone Government had abandoned, was reoccupied. The Quetta district
was annexed to India in 1887 under the title of British Baluchistan. The
year 1891 saw an important work undertaken in advance of Quetta, the
Khojak tunnel being then driven through a range close by the Afghan
frontier, while an entrenched camp was constructed near by for the
storage of arms and supplies. These positions, and the general hold
which Britain keeps over the Baluchee clans, enable the defenders of
India to threaten on the flank any advance by the otherwise pr