Year: 1878




future is stormy. Several issues of the
greatest consequence are at q stage that
would involve an instant resort to force II
we were just entering season at which
military operations are practicable instead
of the season that enforces the truce Of i'm
passable roads, frozen rivers, rain, snow,
ice and starvation. But as this truce is en-
forced the chance is opened and the time Is
given to exhaust the efforts of diplomacy
for the preservation of peace; to pre-
vent invasion by CONCESSIONS; to recon-
cile conflicting claims by compromises;
to soothe offended pride on one
side or another by solutions satis-
factory to the dignity of princes, or by
the pageantry of triumphs as illusory and
deceptive as they are apparently splendid.
Shall the labors of the diplomatists in this
busy winter prepare an idle summer for the
soldiers next year? Or shall their failures
are impending?


On the Afghan frontier the military forces
of the Ameer OF Cabul and part of the
British Indian army are face to face. 1t is
proposed to operate against the Ameer with
three columns-two to move on the line from
Peshawur to Cabul, and the third from
Deraghaze Khan toward Candahar; but
the Indian expeditions are not ready and
the Ameer is. He stands on the defensive,
as he has no military object beyond his own
frontier. As it is the intention of England to
take material guarantees for the protection
of this part of the Indian frontier, and the
Ameer knows it, it is to be, once begun.
clear war for conquest on one side and de-
fence on the other, and there are no delu-
sions. England intends to make the
Ameer harmless" like any Of its subject
Indian princes, and the Ameer intends to
preserve his independence. Consequently
it will not do to move into the territory of
a warlike people on an errand Of this sort
until every proper military precaution is
taken, because such expeditions degene-
rate readily into painful calamities. An adj
vance into Afghanistan with the force now
assembled for the purpose cannot possibly
be made, and it will invite an unfortunate
conclusion to advance even with any force
that can be concentrated this year. Perhaps,
therefore no movement will be made this
season, and that fact will indicate the Pc
culiar characteristics of either side; for
England has intended this operation for
years and at the critical moment cannot
proceed, and in the winter the news will
spread in the strange way in which news
does spread in India that an Asiatic peo-
pie, their neighbors, are about to fight the
English for independence and to keep their
lands and lives from the spoliation of the
dominant stranger By the spring time all
will know it--all will watch for the story
of the result-and defeat may develop very
effectively whether the Hindoo is really in
love with his subjection to England. Can
diplomacy prevent this conflict 1t cannot
change the intention of the Ameer; but
England can defer her purpose, and may.
| That would be her retreat, there
fore; but the present English govern
ment has the theatrical talent to
announce its own submissions as glorious
victories over its opponents and to impose
that sort of craftsmanship on the people.
Perhaps the Afghan difficulty may be gotten
| over by resort to those tactics.


If it is not then England will have On
| Indian war on her hands and labor troubles
| and commercial distresses at home at the
precise moment when the Eastern question
will be opened for that ultimate settlement
which was arrested by that delusive COM
pact of truces known as the Berlin Treaty.
If England gets out of her scrape with the
Ameer without fighting the trouble immi-
nent in the Balkan Peninsula may not
reach radical issue. 1t will be patched
up by local arrangements. Otherwise the
estate in Europe of the bankrupt Ottoman
Empire will be finally administered with
little regard to England's wishes, for the
trouble between Austria and Turkey is at
point from which it might be readily pre-
cipitated into war by o word from Power
SO deeply interested in the issue as Russia.
Austria has up to this point escaped with
| great skill from the com piications incident
to the dangerous gift made her ut Berlin.
She is not in satisfactory possession Of Bos-
MIA, but she has done enough TO save the
government from the Hungarian clamor,
while the new attitude of the old Czech
party has given tho Hungarians themselves
q subject for reflection. But though the
Andrassy government has escaped the main
point Of the trouble inside the lines it has
to reckon with the unpacified population
Of a conquered province and with the Otto
man forces quite sufficient to give it
trouble. If the Bosnians aud their savage
helpers from over the border were such for
midable obstacles what would be the diff
culties Of a conflict in which these were the
mere accessories acting in conjunction with
an army under Osman Pacha? Grecian ex-
altation would reach the fighting point in
the event OF war between Turkey and Aus
tria. With England busy in India and
Ansfria at war with Turkey. the Treaty Of