of India will not be easily persuaded to keep troops permanently
stationed in the Kyber. I feel little doubt that such a course would
tend rather to cause trouble than to keep order. Small bodies of troops
would be a constant provocation to attack; large bodies would die like
flies....'

'I believe that the Pass tribes themselves, if properly managed, will
prove the best guardians of the Pass, and be able, as well as willing,
to keep it open for us, if we make it worth their while to do so....'
Many of these very men, and those of other tribes on the frontier, have
for years enlisted in our ranks, and have proved to be good soldiers. I
repeat that some strong cause must have influenced them suddenly to
break out into war.

Until the present military operations have been brought to a close, and
until full official information has been given of the circumstances
which have led to them, it is not possible to pronounce a final
judgment; still, it seems to me, that we have strong grounds for
believing that the border policy of late years has in many instances
been too aggressive and regardless of the rights of the tribes; and that
the course finally pursued of the retention of fortified posts through
Swat and Bajour to Chitral, has been the ultimate cause which has
excited the people against us, and produced so great and costly a border
war. It must also not be forgotten, that even now we are merely on the
fringe, as it were, of the question; and that if we persist in forcing
ourselves forward, we shall have many a costly campaign to undertake far
away in distant, little-known regions, more difficult and more
inaccessible even than those in which we now find ourselves.

On the whole it appears to me that we should as far as possible