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Finally the official attitude of the Soviet State toward Afghanistan was discreetly set forth by Foreign Minister Georges Tchitcherin in a long editorial which he contributed to Izvestia. Naturally Comrade Tchitcherin omitted to mention the matter of subsidies (bribes) which have been paid to King Amanullah at various times by both Great Britain and Russia. Nor did the Foreign Minister allude to arrangements with His Majesty which have occasionally furthered the infiltration of Soviet agitators through Afghanistan into India. Such matters are not for the press. But Comrade Tchitcherin did stress in able and complimentary fashion the vital importance of Afghanistan in three respects. First, as a militant and independent power, dominating the junction of important Asiatic trade routes. Second, as a nation without railways, which thus interrupts the bands of steel which would otherwise stretch from Europe to India. And third, as an undeveloped virgin field for commercial expansion.
Upon these three points alert folk fixed their attention, deeming them trustworthy guideposts for a swift survey of Afghanistan:
Militance & Independence. So early as 328 B. C. Alexander the Great marched victoriously over the chill Hindu Kush mountain passes of Afghanistan on his way to conquer in India; but it is a rule of modern history that no Occidental people can conquer and then hold the bleak land of the fanatically warlike Afghans. During the last century Great Britain repeatedly occupied the Afghan capital of Kabul and the town of Kahandar (see Map) but her troops were always withdrawn and invariably with heavy losses. True the Afghan casualties were likewise heavy, but Britons have not forgotten that during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-42) a British force numbering 4,500 was obliged to "retreat" until only one survivor, Dr. Brydon, reached the Indian frontier as "a half dead man on a half dead horse." Not less notorious than the fierceness and atrocious cruelty of Afghans in battle, is their characteristic instability which gave rise to the Indian proverb: "Trust a Snake before a Harlot, and a Harlot before an Afghan." Naturally assassinations of Afghan rulers have been frequent, and indeed the present King Amanullah came to the throne in 1919 only after other persons had murdered his father, Habibullah, and he himself had forcibly wrested the succession from an uncle and two elder brothers. His Majesty's principal distinction is to have forced Great Britain in 1921 to acknowledge the complete independence of Afghanistan.
No Railways. Two projects exist for linking India to Europe by rails. The first would begin by completing the famed Berlin-to-Bagdad link (which already functions to a point some miles south of Aleppo) and then extend the line from Bagdad through Persia to India. A development of prime significance in this region, last week, was the signing at Teheran, Persia, of a $100,000,000 contract whereby an international group including Ulen & Co. and J. G. White Engineering Corp. of Manhattan have agreed to build a railroad from Bander Abbas on the Persian gulf to the Persian capital of Teheran and thence on to an undetermined point on the Caspian seashore.