(8) We should admit that the Amir of Afghanistani for religious reasons exercises a paramount influence over our tribes, and we should get him to use that influence for the maintenance of peace on our common border.  It has been the practise of our statesmen to adopt the attitude that because the Amir was by treaty precluded from interfering with our tribes, therefore he must have nothing to do with them.  This is a short-sighted view.  We found during the Great War the late Amir’s influence, particularly over the Mahsuds, of the greatest value, when he agreed to use it on our behalf.

(9) Finally, there is a suggestion afoot that the settled districts of the North-West Frontier Province should be re-amalgamated with the Punjab.  I have shown, I think, clearly, how inseparable are the problems of the districts, the tribal area, and of Afghanistan; and any attempt to place the districts under a separate control could only mean friction, inefficiency, and disaster.  The proposal is, indeed, little short of administrative lunacy.  There is, however, an underlying method in the madness that has formulated it, namely, the self-interest of a clever minority, which I need not now dissect.  I trust that if this proposal should go further it will be stoutly resisted.

AFGHANISTAN

Let me now turn to Afghanistan.  Generally speaking, the story of our dealings with that country has been a record of stupid, arrogant muddle.  From the days of the first Afghan war, when an ill-fated army was despatched on its crazy mission to place a puppet king, Shah Shuja, on the throne of Afghanistan, our statesmen have, with some notable exceptions, mishandled the Afghan problem.  And yet it is simple enough in itself.  For we want very little of Afghanistan, and she does not really want much of us.  All we want from the Amir is good-neighbourliness; that he should not allow his country to become the focus of intrigue or aggression against us by Powers hostile to us, and that he should co-operate with us for the maintenance of peace on our common border.  All he wants of us is some assistance in money and munitions for the internal and external safeguarding of his realm, commercial and other facilities, and honourable recognition, for the Afghan, like the Indian, has a craving for self-respect and the respect of others.

Now, where our statesmen have failed is in regarding Afghanistan as a petty little State to be browbeaten and ordered about at our pleasure, without recognising the very valuable cards that the Amir holds against us.  He sees his hand and appraises it at its value.  He knows, in the first place, that nothing can be more embarrassing to us than the necessity for another Afghan war, and the despatch of a large force to the highlands of Kabul, to sit there possibly for years as an army of occupation, in a desolate country, incapable of affording supplies for the troops, at enormous