The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-11-19

From Harper's Weekly.
 The new English ambassador will rep resent at Washington a side of the Brit ish tradition which has never heretofore been brought close to the imagination of the American people, the Indian em- pre, which is, in its way, the greatest work of administration eyer carried out on earth. If we think of teeming pop uation, more than four times as great as that of the United States made up of varied races with wonderful histories, woven of the very material of romance, and consider that this vast and over whelming multitude is ruled and well ruled by some nine hundred men of Brit ish race, We shall have some measure by which to judge an achievement beside which all the triumphs of the Roman empire read like local and provincial eX- ploits. If we further remember that. these alien rulers, there will be pre- served to posrerity one of the most yen erable and beautiful languages in the world, with a splendid literature going back to the very dawn of time, the traces of a marvellous culture which in many things, and those of the deepest import begins where modern nations end, we shall have further view of what Eng land has accomplished in India. And this wonderful empire will now for the first time be represented to the American nation in the person of our new amhas- sadof
 Sir Henry Mortimer Durand is man of tifty-three, the son of a distinguished general, whose name he bears. He en- tered the English diplomatic service, and became junior attaohe in the foreign de- partment in 1871. His destiny soon call ed him to India: and during all the years he spent there he was busted chiefly with one great and overshadowins question, the threatened approach of Russia over the Hindu Rush Mountains or through the passes of Afghanstan. The Indian empire has suddenly entered on a new and seemingly perilous epoch of its his tory. For more than a hundred years a solitary and isolated power cut off by immense distances from every civilized neighbor. India has gradually been con- soidated and uniformatized under it's white rulers. Then. about 1874. the great change came. The forces of Russia, moving southward and eastward from the mouth of the Nolga. began to at tack the northern frontiers ot lufkestan Skobelen, the genius of war in the cam paign against Turkey. and Kuropatkin, the present minister of war at St. Peters burg, won their spurs in that advance. The weight of the Russian armies was overwhelming and by rapid stages the whole of Turkestan. down to the north ern frontiers of Persia and Afghanistan, passed into the power of the Tsars.
 The English in India were full of ap- prehensions well or i'll founded They at once inaugurated a new policy found ed on a new principle which has domin- ated all Indian history from that time. Formerly the frontier of India towards the northwest Was drawn beneath the giant ranges which shut the plains of the Indus off from hilly Afghanistan and Baluchistan. It was decided now to ad- vance the frontier among the hills. so that the battle with the expected foe would be fought away from the Indian plains, out of sight of the Indian people. With the whole of this policy. from it's inception. Sir Henry Mortimer Durand was identified, and among the Afghan hills he first won honor and distinction.