“If we compare the success of British policy in India since 1873 with the results of our progress in Central Asia, we have reason to congratulate ourselves. We are at present better and more peacefully established than they are. There would not be any advantage in changing our present position for a worse one, which we would certainly do if we annexed part of Afghanistan. Since the non-Afghan peoples of Northern Afghanistan wish to be taken over by us, it would seem natural that we should annex Afghan Turkestan and the Herat province. Such annexation would bring us over 2,000,000 new subjects, of whom the majority are industrious and skilled tillers of the soil; would advance our frontier to the Hindu Kush, which has long been the dream of many Russians; and would give us possession of the far-famed Herat, a place most undoubtedly of great strategical importance. At first sight the gain seems indisputable; but from a closer study of the subject, it is clear that the result of the realization of these schemes would be to create for ourselves immense difficulties in the present and possible danger in the future. In the first place, the geographical boundaries would not coincide with the ethnographical. For, in moving our frontier up to the edge of the Hindu Kush, we should be forced to take over tribes of Afghan descent, and yet at the same time exclude some non-Afghan races kindred to those we had already taken over. This in itself bristles with difficulties. Where the inhabitants of the valleys are peasants, Uzbegs, and Tajiks, they would probably submit to us without opposition, but the hillmen, even those of non-Afghan descent, would fight fiercely for their liberty. Even after conquering them, we, like the British in India to-day, would have no peace. Continual risings would take place along our new frontier, the hillmen from Afghanistan proper would begin to raid just as the tribes do on the Indian border, and continual expeditions would be necessary. We should be compelled in the end, just as the British have been, to move the frontier forward repeatedly, and to absorb more territory. So it would go on until our frontier eventually coincided with that of British India. Immense sums of money would be required for the organization and administration of the country taken over, for the construction of roads and fortified positions for large numbers of troops, and to meet the cost of expeditions, etc. Finally, it must be remembered that the people of Afghan Turkestan and Herat, who now look on us as their liberators from Afghan oppression, might, when taken over, change their feeling towards us. The consequence would be that, instead of keeping neighbours well disposed towards us, and ready to assist us when called upon, we should be acquiring fresh responsibilities in the shape of discontented subjects, who would