CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918 — Page 248

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

244

AFFAIRS OF CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[217867]

Sir,

C

O

[November 15.]

7055

SECTION 1.

REC

1

No. 1 REG 8 FEB 18)

India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received November 15.)

India Office, November 14, 1917. IN reply to your letter of the 26th October, 1917, transmitting copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking regarding the status of Afghans in China, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India to enclose, for the confidential information of the Peking Legation, in compliance with Mr. Alston's request, a memorandum, duted the 29th October, 1917, on the subject of British relations with Afghanistan.

I am, &c.

J. E. SHUCKBURGH,

Enclosure in No. 1.

(Conádential.)

Memorandum respecting British Relations with Afghanistan.

OUR claim to exercise exclusive control over the foreign relations of Afghanistan is based on the arrangements made with the late Ameer, Abdur Rahman Khan, in 1880. These arrangements took the form not of a regular treaty, but of an interchange of letters between the Ameer and Mr. (afterwards Sir Lepel) Griffin, then Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. The Ameer wrote on the 22nd June, 1880:-

FL

About my friendly relations and communication with foreign Powers, you have written that I should not have any without advice and consultation with you (the British). You should consider well that if I have the friendship of a great Government like yours, how can I communicate with another Power without advice from, and consultation with, you? I agree to this also."

Mr. Griffin replied (undated, but generally referred to as the letter of the 20th July, 1880):—

"Your Highness has requested that the views and intentions of the British Government with regard to the position of the ruler at Cabul in relation to foreign Powers should be placed on record for your Highness's information. The Viceroy and Governor-General in Council authorises me to declare to you that, since the British Government almits no right of interference by foreign Powers within Afghanistan, and since both Russia and Persia are pledged to abstain from all interference with the affairs of Afghanistan, it is plain that your Highness can have no political relations with any foreign Power except with the British Government. If any foreign Power should attempt to interfere in Afghanistan, and if such interference should lead to unprovoked aggression on the dominions of your Highness, in that event the British Government would be prepared to aid you, to such extent and in such manner as may appear to the British Government necessary, in repelling it; provided that your Highness follows unreservedly the advice of the British Government in regard to your external relations."

2. The agreement concluded between Mr. Griffin and the late Ameer may be regarded as formally ratified by the Cabul Treaty of the 21st March, 1905, under which the present Ameer accepted all his father's obligations towards the British Government. The relevant clause of the treaty was as follows:-

LL

His said Majesty does hereby agree to this, that in the principles and in the matters of subsidiary importance of the treaty regarding internal and external affairs

• Not pristel.

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