It remains to note the manner in which offences committed by independent tribes across the border are punished. The most simple way of dealing with a refractory tribe, and in many cases the most effectual, is to inflict a fine and demand compensation for plundered property or for lives lost. When the tribe is dependent upon trade with British territory, or when a portion resides within British limits, or is easily accessible from the plains to an attack by a military force, the demand for payment of fine or compensation is generally acceded to, and, being paid, the tribe is again received into favour. Should the demand be refused, hostages are demanded, or members of the tribe and their property found within British territory are seized, until such time as the compensation and fine are paid. Against some tribes, as in the case of the Afridis of the Kohat Pass in 1876–77, a blockade is an effective measure of punishment. It can, however, only be employed against such tribes as trade with British territory, and, while it lasts, any member of the offending tribe found within our border is at once seized and detained. This means of punishment has often been found effectual, and if effectual, it is preferable to a military expedition, which often leaves behind it bitter memories in the destruction of property and loss of life. Last as a measure of punishment comes the military expedition, which is only resorted to in exceptional circumstances, and when every other means of coercing a hostile tribe has failed. [Sidenote: Coercive Measures] The necessity, in certain circumstances, for military expeditions has been admitted by the civil authorities of the Punjab in the following statement made in 1864 by Mr. Davies, Secretary to the Punjab Government: “The despatch of an expedition into the hills is always in the nature of a judicial act. It is the delivery of a sentence, and the infliction of a punishment for international offences. It is, as a rule, not in assertion of any disputed right, or in ultimate arbitration of any contested claim of its own, that the British Government resolves on such measures, but simply as the only means by which retribution can be obtained for acknowledged crimes by its neighbours, and by which justice can be satisfied or future outrages prevented. In the extreme cases in which expeditions are unavoidable, they are analogous to legal penalties for civil crime—evils in themselves inevitable from deficiencies of preventive police, but redeemed by their deterrent effects. Considerations of expense, of military risk, of possible losses, of incurring antagonism and combination against us on the part of the tribes, all weigh heavily against expeditions; and to set them aside, there must be irresistible obligation to protect and to vindicate the outraged rights of subjects whom we debar from the revenge and retaliation they formerly practised.”