"I think that this retention would throw Afghanistan, in the hope of regaining Candahar, into alliance with Russia, and that thereby Russia would be given a temptation to offer which she otherwise would not have. Supposing that temptation did not exist, what other inducement could Russia offer for this alliance? The plunder of India. If, then, Russia did advance, she would bring her auxiliary tribes, who, with their natural predatory habits, would soon come to loggerheads with their natural enemies, the Afghans, and that the sooner when these latter were aided by us. Would the Afghans in such a case be likely to be tempted by the small share they would get of the plunder of India to give up their secure, 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 _débouché_ 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.