acticable
route from Candahar to the Indus.

Certainly there is every need for careful preparations against any such
enterprise. Lord Curzon, writing before Russia's strategic railways were
complete, thought it feasible for Russia speedily to throw 150,000 men
into Afghanistan, feed them there, and send on 90,000 of them against
the Indus[348]. After the optimistic account of the problem of Indian
defence given by Mr. Balfour in the speech above referred to, it is well
to remember that, though Russia cannot invade India until she has
conquered Afghanistan, yet for that preliminary undertaking she has the
advantages of time and position nearly entirely on her side. Further,
the completion of her railways almost up to the Afghan frontier (the
Tashkend railway is about to be pushed on to the north bank of the Oxus,
near Balkh) minimises the difficulties of food supply and transport in
Afghanistan, on which the Prime Minister laid so much stress.

[Footnote 348: _Op. cit._ p. 307. Other authorities differ as to the
practicability of feeding so large a force even in the comparatively
fertile districts of Herat and Candahar.]

It is, however, indisputable that the security of India has been greatly
enhanced by the steady pushing on of that "Forward Policy," which all
friends of peace used to decry. The Ameer, Abdur Rahman, irritated by
the making of the Khojak tunnel, was soothed by Sir Mortimer Durand's
Mission in 1893; and in return for an increase of subsidy and other
advantages, he agreed that the tribes of the debatable borderland--the
Waziris, Afridis, and those of the Swat and Chitral valleys--should be
under the control of the Viceroy. Russia showed her annoyance at this
Mission by seeking to seize an Afghan town, Murghab; but the Ameer's
troops beat them off[349]. Lord Lansdowne claimed that this right of
permanently controlling very troublesome tribes would end the days of
futile "punitive expeditions." In the main he was right. The peace and
security of the frontier depend on the tact with which some few scores
of officers carry on difficult work of which no one ever hears[350].

[Footnote 349: _Life of Abdur Rahman,_ vol. i. p. 287.]

[Footnote 350: For this work see _The Life of Sir R. Sandeman_; Sir R.
Warburton, _Eighteen Years in the Khyber_; Durand, _op. cit._; Bruce,
_The Forward Policy and its Results_; Sir James Willcock's _From Cabul
to Kumassi_; S.S. Thorburn, _The Punjab in Peace and War_.]

In ne