The
task was no easy one. There was little promise in any of the Barakzai
pretenders who were in Afghanistan, and in the address which Mr Griffin
addressed in Durbar to a number of sirdars and chiefs in the middle of
April, he preserved a tone at once haughty and enigmatical. One thing he
definitely announced, the Viceroy's decision that Yakoub Khan was not to
return to Afghanistan. The State was to be dismembered. As to the future
of Herat the speaker made no allusion; but the province of Candahar was
to be separated from Cabul and placed under an independent Barakzai
prince. No decision could for the present be given in regard to the
choice of an Ameer to rule over Cabul. The Government desired to nominate
an Ameer strong enough to govern his people and steadfast in his
friendship to the British; if those qualifications could be secured the
Government was willing and anxious to recognise the wish of the Afghan
people, and nominate an Ameer of their choice.
But in effect the choice, so far as the English were concerned, had been
already virtually made. On the 14th of March Lord Lytton had telegraphed
to the Secretary of State advocating the 'early public recognition of
Abdurrahman as legitimate heir of Dost Mahomed, and the despatch of a
deputation of sirdars, with British concurrence, to offer him the throne,
as sole means of saving the country from anarchy'; and the Minister had
promptly replied authorising the nomination of Abdurrahman, should he be
found 'acceptable to the country and would be contented with Northern
Afghanistan.
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