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482 ence. If England did not protect Afghanistan, that country would undoubtedly be brought under the wardship of Russia, which has already taken under strict tutelage Bokhara, just across the Oxus. For the Afghan mountains dominate the Indian plains and command the roads from the Oxus to the Indus; and a country of such natural strength, a weak and barbarous kingdom overhanging the frontiers of two powerful military states, must always fall, by the law of political gravitation, on one side or the other.

It may perhaps be asked why this must be – why England does not adopt the European method of dealing with a country that is too weak to stand by itself – why she does not neutralize Afghanistan, as Belgium and Switzerland are neutralized, by a joint agreement to respect its integrity and independence. The answer is that neutralization has never been a practical method of statecraft in Asia. An ill-governed Oriental kingdom left as neutral ground between two European powers, neither of which could interfere with its internal affairs, would rapidly fall into intolerable disorder, and probably into dilapidation. The native ruler would be distracted by the conflicting demands and admonitions of two formidable and jealous neighbours; he would listen alternately to one or the other, and would be constantly giving cause of offence to both; he would find himself between the upper and nether millstone; and his end would probably be as the end of Poland, which became a focus of intrigue and anarchy, and was finally broken up by partition.