Let me deal first with the North-West Frontier.  As very few schoolboys know, we have here a dual boundary—­an inner and an outer line.  The inner line is the boundary of the settled districts of the North-West Frontier Province, the boundary, in fact, of British India proper, and is known as the Administrative border.  The outer line is the boundary between the Indian Empire and Afghanistan, and is commonly known as the Durand line, because it was settled by Sir Mortimer Durand and his mission in 1895 with the old Amir Abdur Rahman.  These two lines give us three tracts to be dealt with—­first, the tract inside the inner line, the settled districts of the North-West Frontier Province, inhabited for the most part by sturdy and somewhat turbulent Pathans; second, the tract between the two lines, that welter of mountains where dwell the hardy brigand hillmen:  the tribes of the Black Mountain, of Swat and Bajur, the Mohmands, the Afridis, the Orakzais, the Wazirs, the Mahsuds, and a host of others, whose names from time to time become familiar according as the outrageousness of their misconduct necessitates military operations; third, the country beyond the outer line, “the God-granted kingdom of Afghanistan and its dependencies.”

Now each of these tracts presents its own peculiar problems, though all are intimately inter-connected and react one on the other.  In the settled districts we are confronted with the task of maintaining law and order among a backward but very virile people, prone to violence and impregnated with strange but binding ideas of honour, for the most part at variance with the dictates of the Indian Penal Code.  For this reason there exists a special law called the Frontier Crimes Regulation, a most valuable enactment enabling us to deal with cases through local Councils of Elders, with the task of providing them with education, medical relief etc., in accordance with their peculiar needs, and above all with the task of affording them protection from the raids and forays of their neighbours from the tribal hills.  In the tribal area we are faced with the task of controlling the wild tribesmen.  This control varies from practically direct administration as in the Lower Swat and Kurram valleys to the most shadowy political influence, as in the remote highlands of Upper Swat and the Dir Kohistan, where the foot of white man has seldom trod.  Our general policy, however, with the tribes is to leave them independent in their internal affairs, so long as they respect British territory and certain sacrosanct tracts beyond the border, such as the Khyber road, the Kurram, and the Tochi.  The problem is difficult, because when hardy and well-armed hereditary robbers live in inaccessible mountains which cannot support the inhabitants, overlooking fat plains, the temptation to raid is obviously considerable:  and when this inclination to raid is reinforced by fanatical religion, there must be an ever-present likelihood of trouble.