officers receive no extra salary, their expenses of transference from place to place being subscribed for by the places they visit; thus they cost the State no more than the pay normal to their rank. But the selection is regarded as such a testimony to their character and reputation that the applicants have been far in excess of the number of posts to be filled.

These are a very few out of hundreds of instances of the retrenchments being effected by the Directorate, but they will be sufficient to convince thinking people at home that Spain, amid the welter of bankrupt and impoverished peoples, is fitting herself to do business on an ample scale with any country with which she has favourable commercial treaties, foremost among these being England. English business men should take note that her dealings with England, both as to Morocco and the Peninsula, have long been considerably larger than with any other foreign country. While she exported to Italy last year 35 million pesetas worth of her products and 213 millions to France, she sold 380 millions worth to England, and although I have not at the moment access to statistics of her imports, I know that the balance there was even larger in favour of my own country. It is high time that our people at home informed themselves of the valuable new openings for trade which are presenting themselves under the Directorate.

One aspect of the Spanish case must never be lost sight of. If Spaniards-together with us English who live here and recognise the country's worth-dream of an Anglo-Spanish alliance, it is not with any idea of supporting military or imperialistic visions of domination. Spain will never allow the neutrality which she maintained towards the Allies and at such heavy cost to herself to be set aside for any selfish purpose.

We who lived through those four years in this country saw very plainly that the fixed resolve of the Conservative Government not to allow Spain to be dragged into the conflict, as Germany was incessantly trying to drag her, was always influenced by the hope that when the war ended she would be called on to aid the belligerents in the reconstruction of Europe. How the fervent desires of the monarch who signed with his own hand 400,000 letters relating to the prisoners of war were frustrated when peace was proclaimed is a matter of history.

The desire of Spain is not to forge links with other peoples designed to secure an ascendency in the event of another war, but to build up friendships based on the solid foundation of mutual understanding and respect, and mutual ideals that tend to seek peace and ensue it.

ELENA M. Whishaw.

THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER

We have run off the rails in our policy and strategy on the NorthWest Frontier of India lately, and it is time that someone should replace the train upon the line.

We went wrong when part of the Cabinet sanctioned the partial and apparently permanent military occupation of Waziristan in the late summer of 1922. It is hard to believe that Lord Curzon, who was the best, if not the only, authority on the frontier in the Cabinet at the time, had any part or lot in this decision. His old policy as Viceroy was to keep friends with Afghanistan, to eschew unnecessary intervention and commitments in tribal territory, and to remain on good terms with the trans-border Pathans who live between our administrative border and the Durand line which is our political frontier with Afghanistan. That is the true and correct policy to-day, and we have recently been travelling very far from it. It was the policy of Lawrence, Mayo, Northbrook, and, indeed, of nearly all Viceroys except Auckland and Lytton in the past.

The Wazirs and Mahsuds rose in 1919 at the call of the new Amir Amanulla Khan for jehad, and made themselves very unpleasant, as they have frequently done before. We had been into Waziristan as lately as in 1917, when we had chastised these tribes and had come out again without attempting to occupy a country which is a maze of hills and produces little but cut-throats. But Wana in the south-west corner of Waziristan, which Sandeman had occupied in old days when things were different, and Datta Khel, in the Upper Tochi valley, were left in charge of local Militia, and when trouble began in 1919 they were recalled. Waziristan is not a country from which an isolated garrison can easily be recalled unless a British or Indian Regular column goes out to fetch it, and, as the Afghans were keeping us busy at the Khyber just then, we had no Regular troops to send.

So the Militia, imagining themselves abandoned to their fate, and the Afghans victorious, deserted with their arms, except a few who stuck to their white officers through a disastrous retreat. We blamed them, of course, and Lord Curzon's partiality for Militia sustained a rude shock. But Lord Curzon's Militia were VOL. XCV-No. 564

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neither intended nor fitted to be a first line of military defence, and it was usually assumed that they would be supported by Regulars when fighting became serious. The little garrisons would probably have been scuppered had they not deserted, and though their action was indefensible, it was also human nature. We had put too much upon them, and were as much responsible for the disaster as they were themselves. In the same way the Khyber Rifles were not supported soon enough, and the corps broke down without deserving all the reproaches heaped upon it.

THE OCCUPATION

When we had put the Afghans to flight and brought Amanulla Khan back to a sense of realities, we sent 63,000 combatants and non-combatants into Waziristan to square accounts. A very severe campaign followed, for the Wazirs and Mahsuds together can put 50,000 men into the field, and the frontier tribes nowadays are well armed with modern rifles, and are very stout fighters upon the hillside. We beat them, of course, but instead of playing the usual game of coming out again—a game which is almost considered cricket on the frontier-we sat down and proceeded to occupy the country and make roads through it. This is where we first went wrong politically.

It was an uncommonly serious proceeding. It was, first of all, opposed to the Curzon policy towards the tribes which had been announced at Peshawur in full durbar in 1902, and from which we had never receded. It was certain to be violently resented by the Wazirs and Mahsuds, who were sure to take the first opportunity to assail us again, and it was liable to render all the other tribes suspicious of us and to reproduce the atmosphere of 1897, when the whole frontier from the Tochi to the Malakand rose simultaneously. It was a bitter blow for the Amir, at whose call Waziristan had risen for the faith, and, last of all, it was a policy entailing upon the Army in India the permanent dispersion of a large part of its meagre peace strength in these barren hills just when the usual reaction after a great war had reduced the Army and made money very short. A proceeding more thoughtless and indefensible from a moral, military, or political point of view could not well have been discovered. It combined all the disadvantages, and if the opinion of Sir Hamilton Grant, late Chief Commissioner of the N.W. Frontier Province, as given in a recent lecture to the E. Indian Association in London, can be taken as representative, it was against the best political opinion.

There was a large policy of roads. One was carried from Jandola to Razmak and back to the Tochi at Isha. Another reached out to Sarwekai, and these two represent about ninety miles of motor roadway through one of the most forbidding

countries in the world, where spates are often terrific and wash the strongest bridges away. If we could have left these roads to be kept up by Wazir contractors there would have been something to be said for them, since, so long as they stand, they certainly facilitate subsequent operations. But we determined to keep strong Regular garrisons at Jandola and Razmak, and at all the posts between Razmak and the Tochi. The intermediate posts between Razmak and Jandola and along the branch road to Sarwekai we confided to Scouts and Khassadars. The military policy was to maintain control of the country, and as Razmak was supposed to dominate the Mahsuds, it was chosen as our main camp. Except at the points mentioned, the Regulars were withdrawn in December last, and the Scouts and Khassadars installed in their places. Usually in the summer a couple of air squadrons are kept at Miranshah, Dardoni, or Tank, and aircraft have to-day largely taken the place of the purely punitive column.

I am not suggesting that, from a purely local military point of view, all these arrangements were not excellent in themselves. I think they were up to a certain point, and the work of the Sappers and Miners and Pioneers was very remarkable. But India and India's problems are large, and the Army is very small. It is not legitimate to tie up such important forces in such a country as Waziristan, which is of no use to us even as a thoroughfare, and where our garrisons, if assailed in force, may need other troops to dig them out. The idea is that the flying columns from Razmak and Jandola can succour any other post, or deal with any tribal gathering elsewhere. We hope that they may be able to do so, but the main objections to the policy stand.

The base of the Razmak garrison is the Tochi, from Bannu to Miranshah. Bannu is in the plains. Travelling westwards, it is thirty-seven miles to Dardoni up the left bank of the Tochi. About fourteen miles from Bannu, which has a Regular garrison, we get to very rough country which is a favourite hunting ground for Wazir and Mahsud raiders, and is consequently strongly held by garrisons and by a succession of blockhouses every half-mile. From the hills to Dardoni a whole division of troops is needed to keep order, and there are besides the Tochi Scouts, Constabulary, and Khassadars. A correspondent of The Times wrote a few weeks ago that this base of ours in the Tochi was 'swarming with Mahsud and Wazir raiding gangs, which occasionally expand to dangerous dimensions, thus calling for counter-operations on a fairly large scale,' but officially we hear as little of these occurrences as we do of those on the circular road and the branch to Sarwekai. From Isha, between Miranshah and Idak, it is forty miles to Razmak, which is at an elevation of 7000 feet, and the posts on this road are held by Regulars.

Between Razmak and Jandola, and along the branch road westwards to Sarwekai, all our posts are held by Scouts or Khassadars, and it is necessary to say a few words about these gentry. The Scouts are recruited from our border, and one-third of the Tochi Scouts are formed by local men. In the South Waziristan Scouts there are, I believe, no local men. The Scouts wear our uniforms, carry our rifles, and are commanded by British officers. The Khassadars are local Wazir and Mahsud levies without white officers, and generally serve at or near their homes, and bring their own rifles with them. They lack supervision, and, like all irregular corps which are not commanded and supervised by British officers, they are of small value when they are not positively dangerous. They are better paid than the Scouts, whom they regard as alien enemies, yet these two irregular forces are supposed to act together, and are next-door neighbours to each other in the posts. Few men who know the frontier expect much from either force, yet it is largely upon them that the security of the roads depends since the Regulars were withdrawn.

Before examining the case for the Amir in frontier questions it is necessary to say a few words about the murderous raids which created such excitement on the frontier last year. First come the murders in April last of Majors Orr and Anderson of the Seaforths in the Khyber near Landi Khana. The murderers are known. They are Shinwaris belonging to that part of the tribe which is under the Amir. They were caught, imprisoned at Kabul, and escaped from prison. Since then they have wandered about, apparently harboured by the Sangu Khel, and were last heard of as being in hiding. There is no definite proof that the Amir has not taken all the measures in his power to re-arrest them, but the opinion of most frontier officers is that the Amir could secure them if he wished to do so.

The murder of Major Finnis in the Zhob can certainly be put down to the Zilli Khel Wazirs, and is probably an incident of the Waziristan operations. All the other murders, including that of Colonel Foulkes and his wife in 1920, of Mrs. Ellis at Kohat last year, and probably of Major and Mrs. Watts at Parachmar, together with the abduction of Miss Ellis, are attributed to the gang of Ajab, a Bosti Khel Afridi whose ordinary home used to be five miles from the Kohat cantonment in a valley below and to the north of the Constabulary post at the Kotul on the Kohat Pass road. The Amir had no authority over him whatsoever until he fled into Afghan territory. His complicity in the Foulkes murder was discovered by chance. A quantity of rifles had been stolen from the Kohat police lines, and as suspicions lighted on him his village was raided one night by the Constabulary. They not only recovered the rifles, but found some articles which had