The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-03-10
AMER ABDURRAHMAN
THE RULER Of AFGHANIsTAy
STATESMAN WITH MODERN IDEAS.
He Proposes to Introduce ms Much OF
Civilization ms Possible Into. Ills
Country-ProJecfed Railways.

correspondence London Times.
Born over fifty years ago. he was the eld-
est son of Mohamned Afzul Khan. who was
the eldest son of Dost Mohammed He is,
therefore, by birth and inheritance. the d.
rect and legal heir of his celebrated grand
father 1t may be consolation to reluc-
tant students and to naughty boys at large
to know, as the Ameer himself told me,
that up till the age of twenty he declined
to learn either to read or to write, and that
at an age when most European lads have
their knees under desk he was engaged
in manufacturing ri1ed gun barrels and in
casting guns.
1t was in the year 1864, the year following
upon the death of the Dost that he first
appeared in public life. being appointed by
his father, who was Governor of Afghan
Turkestan. to the government of Takht-i-pul
in that province, and since that date there
are few elements of romance adventure
that his career has not contained. Here
victorious in battle (for he was born sol
dier, there defeated, now a king maker at
his own country, anon a fugitive from its
borders. for time the powerful Governor of
the Cis-oxian provinces, and presently an
exile in the courts of Meshed, Khiva and
Bokhara, later on pensioner of the Rus
slams at Samarcand, and finally the British
nominee upon the throne of a recovered
Afghanistan, he has during those thirty
years, whether in the forefront or the back
ground, presented the single strong figure
whose masculine individuality energies with
distinctness from the obscure and interne-
cine and often miserable drama of Afghan
politics.
The guiding principle of his early life was
an implacable hostility to his uncle, Ameer
Shere Ali Khan, whom he never forgave for
having, first. supplanted his father, Moham-
med Afzul (of whom Shere Ali was young
er brother), in the succession; and, secondly,
for having betrayed his oath upon the Ko-
ran in order to entrap the same Afzul and
cast him into prison. To avenge this indg-
nifty Abdurrahman fought against Shere Ali
with an impetuosity that knew no slack
ening; he defeated that strange shuttlecock
the veritable Warwick, who placed first his
father Afzu1 and afterward his uncle Aim
necessarily fighting, and when at the begin
ming of that year, his father Afzul having
died in 1867 and HIS uncle Aim having sue
cumbed to the victorious arms of Shere
All, he felt that for awhile the game was
up, and fed from his country into ten
which he never abandoned, that his services
would again be called for and that he would
assuredly return.
the Russian pension (the greater part of
which was. he told me-. Systematically
sided at Samarcand, in order that he might
be near the Afghan frontier whenever the
emergency should arise
Never before have the Afghan tribes been
reduced to such complete subsection as since
he recovered the throne; never have crimes
and deeds of violence dwindled to so low a
figure; never have the highways been so
safe. From one end to the other of
Afghanistan the Amer is unquestioned
For any ruler to invest so heterogeneous
and parceled dominion with the outward
semblance of unity and nationality is no
mean achievement.
TRUE PATRIOT.
Quite apart from what he has done, no
man who knows him would, / believe, deny
to Abdurrahman the credit of being true
lover of his country. In other and earlier
times he might have carried the name of
that country far and have imprinted his
own, perhaps in letters of blood, upon the
page of Asian history. Unable by reason
of his physical position between two power
full and jealous neighbors to draw his sword
with impunity and precluded thereby from
any dreams OF personal or national ag-
grandisement, he has sought to make his
country compact by wedding out from it
the elements of disloyalty or sedition and
to bequeath to his successor what no
Afghan sovereign has done for one hundred
years, an undivided inheritance. 1t is for
the same reason-and neither from any par
too glad to place him upon the throne, nor
from any a priori attachment to the Brit
ish race-that he has in recent years. more
especially, manifested so unconcealed re-
gard for the British alliance. 1t may be
said that England subsidies him literally.
slams be only too delighted to do IF # they
had the chance 1t may be said that we
have demarcated and guaranteed his do
minions. Might not the Russians, how
ever, be able to brandsh in his eyes the
even superior bride, or Peshawur? Thirdly,
estrangement has marked the la'e relations be
tween the Ameer and the Indian govern
ment
To any one, however. who can appreciate
the difficulty of the double position occupied
by him, the one hand accepting large
posmg a am beor
his own people. 1t will not be surprising
that such troubles should sometimes have
occurred. The notable thing is that at no
time since 1880 is there any reason to be-
lieve that the Ameer has wavered from his
the interests of his country lie; that at all
times of emergency he had proclaimed them
with unfaltering accents: and that it is to
the membership of one body between AZ
'ghanistan and Great Britain. that he SO
sees clearly What Dost Mohammed also saw.
but was prevented by the faulty of an In
dian Viceroy from realizing at an earlier
date, namely, that the sole hope for the con-
tinued Independence and integrity of At
ghanistan lies in the British alliance.
RELIES ON HIMSELF.
Nor should it be forgotten that in carry
ing out the policy of consolidation which +
have described, Abdurrahman has stood and
has acted alone. His is not, perhaps, the
sort of nature that relies much upon ex-
terror counsel, or that commits its plans to
powerful ministers confidential agents.
However this may be- at no court that
have ever seen is there less of the clientele
of government or of an administrative or
executive hierarchy than at Kabul. The
Ameer is the sole government. He has no
Ministers. He is his own Prime Minister,
his own Foreign Minister. his own Finance
Minister Many of the civil and judicial
functions of government he delegates, with
a wise forethought to his eldest son, Sirdar
Habibullah Khan. who will succeed him.
But in all the essentials of rule he, and he
alone exists. There is hardly anything
from the command of an army or the gov
eminent Of a province to the cut of uni
form or the fabrication of furniture, that
is not personally controlled by him. He is
the brain and eyes, and ears of all Afghan
istan The danger of so supreme concen-
tration Is not felt while it lasts. 1t only
energies when. in the course of nature, it is
withdrawn. Then the faculties in others
whose development has been thus tacitly
a,,+ 70 he fof1n raro Ir-za5 n.