INDIA. 



383 



Is. 4d. Clinton Dawkins, the financial member 

 of the Viceroy's Council, disclaimed any hos- 

 tility to silver, and the Viceroy argued that only 

 with a gold standard could India enter upon a 

 discussion of international bimetallism upon equal 

 terms with foreign powers. The Government ac- 

 cepted no obligation to exchange gold for rupees. 

 The rupee currency should expand in response 

 to trade demands, as the exchange of rupees 

 for gold would render the currency more elastic 

 and could have no tendency to produce a mone- 

 tary stringency, although there might be a strin- 

 gency of loanable capital. The Secretary of State, 

 in accepting generally the committee's recommen- 

 dations and communicating the decision of the 

 British Government in favor of acting on the 

 principles recommended, impressed upon the In- 

 dian Government the advisability of making the 

 gold reserve freely available for foreign remit- 

 tances whenever circumstances render it desirable. 



The people of India of all classes and the 

 English who are engaged in tea planting or other 

 productive industries opposed the closing of the 

 mints in 1893 to silver, the adoption of the rate 

 of Is. 4(Z., and the final adoption of the gold stand- 

 ard. The gold-standard party in India consisted 

 of the foreign merchants, who were exasperated 

 by the fluctuations in exchange, and the Anglo- 

 Indian officials, who receive their salaries or part 

 of them in rupees. When the value of the ru- 

 pee began to deviate considerably from the old 

 rate of 2s. the Government decreed that the sala- 

 ries and pensions of the higher officials should 

 continue to be paid at that rate in gold; those 

 of the intermediate officials half in gold, repre- 

 senting their savings and remittances to their 

 families in England, and half in silver, answering 

 for their expenses in India ; while the lower grades 

 of officials, Anglo-Indian, Eurasian, and native, 

 whose expenditures were confined to the coun- 

 try, received their salaries in silver rupees, which 

 came to be worth half as much in gold as they 

 had formerly been. The Government itself be- 

 came most anxious to arrest the fall of the rupee, 

 because its downward movement disturbed all 

 financial calculations by the constantly growing 

 item of loss by exchange on the remittance of 

 15,000,000 to 18,000,000 sterling to England 

 every year. These home charges represented 

 partly the pensions, civil and military, that had 

 been made payable in pounds sterling instead of 

 in tens of rupees, but to a greater extent the 

 debts contracted in England to cover budget defi- 

 cits, to build railroads, and for other purposes, 

 all of which are payable in gold. The India of 

 the Indians, on the other hand, prospered on. 

 the cheap rupee, and built up a grain-export 

 trade, a cotton industry, and many other thriv- 

 ing branches of commerce and enterprise. The 

 royal commission that was appointed in 1895 to 

 inquire into the expenditure of the Government 

 of India, owing to a hopeless disagreement among 

 its members or to some other cause, adjourned 

 its proceedings in July, 1897, and neither made 

 a report nor gave any other sign of existence. 



New Frontier Policy. The Mad Fakir, whose 

 followers caused serious disturbances in the upper 

 Swat valley, occupied in December, 1898, the 

 crest of the watershed overlooking the valley of 

 the Panjkora. He came in contact there with 

 the forces of the Nawab of Dir, which were bar- 

 ring his advance into the valley. The Azi Khel 

 jirgah, an influential clan inhabiting the extreme 

 eastern portion of the upper Swat valley, gave 

 pledges to support the Government and to exert 

 influence on the other clans in the tipper valley 

 to help in expelling the Fakir from the country 



Fighting occurred in the Sebujni valley, where 

 the Fakir was besieged by the men of the Dir 

 tribe, who attacked his fort, which he aban- 

 doned,, crossing into the upper Swat valley again 

 and returning to his former stronghold at Pitai, 

 where he had between 300 and 400 men who re- 

 mained true to him. Gen. A. Reid's movable 

 column was then encamped at Chakdora. It 

 moved 7 miles up the valley, and made a camp 

 near Landikai. To reassure the inhabitants, a 

 regiment of Bengal lancers patrolled the upper 

 Swat valley. The Fakir also made visits to the 

 different tribes of the valley, and endeavored to 

 get them to join his standard so as to preserve 

 their country from British occupation. The Azi 

 Khels, however, were kept loyal by the exer- 

 tions of the British officers, and they not only 

 refused to allow him to enter their country, but 

 marched out against him and pursued his force 

 into the Jinki Khel territory, where his fortress 

 of Pitai was situated. They even induced a 

 section of the Jinki Khels to withdraw their sup- 

 port from the cause of the Mad Fakir. This 

 reduced his influence to insignificance. The Khani 

 Khels of the Chamkanni tribe made a raid in the 

 Kurram valley in February, 1899. A detachment 

 of troops under the political officer inflicted re- 

 prisals by destroying villages and seizing cattle. 

 The fortification of the Khaibar pass was not 

 proceeded with on the original extensive plan, be- 

 cause Lord Curzon's Government decided to with- 

 draw the garrison of British troops and leave 

 the Khaibar rifles to defend the pass, keeping 

 troops in readiness at Peshawur to march up if 

 these should be faithless or prove insufficient to 

 hold it against outside foes. The usual reliefs 

 were not sent to the forts at Chitral in the spring. 

 The Government decided to reduce the garrison 

 and the defensive works to be held. The incur- 

 sions of the Waziris and of Afghans into the 

 Kuram valley led to a punitive column being sent 

 in May. The new frontier scheme adopted by 

 Lord Curzon relative to the Khaibar involved 

 the abandonment of the projected railroad 

 through the pass. On the Samana and in the 

 Kuram the new frontier policy was adopted also. 

 English garrisons were withdrawn, and the de- 

 fense of the frontier was left to native militia 

 under British officers. The Indian press praised 

 the new policy not only as immediately reducing 

 frontier expenses, but as calculated to conciliate 

 the tribes and avert the dangers that had re- 

 sulted before from irritating the independent hill 

 peoples. When Lord Curzon arrived in India 

 the Government was committed to a policy in- 

 volving the construction of large fortifications 

 and the maintenance of the existing garrison in 

 Chitral; to making a new fort at Landi Kotral 

 and fortifying other positions in the Khaibar, 

 and building a railroad into Afghanistan through 

 this pass; to considerable expenditure on forts 

 and garrisons on the Samana range ; to maintain- 

 ing a large garrison of regular troops in the Tochi 

 valley; to establishing a central station at Miran- 

 shah and placing garrisons in fortified posts at 

 various points in this section of the border; and 

 to maintaining a regular garrison at Wana for 

 the purpose of guarding the Gomal route and 

 Waziristan. The measures adopted after Lord 

 Curzon had examined the situation involved a 

 wide departure from the plans of his predecessor. 

 It was decided to maintain only the escort of the 

 political officer in the fort at Chitral, and, instead 

 of extending the fortifications there, to remove 

 the garrison to Drosh, building a fort there to 

 dominate the Dir country. By securing the co- 

 operation of the Mehtar of Chitral, his levies 



