INDIA. 



INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE. 341 



While the military policy of the Indian Govern- 

 ment has undergone no change and military 

 charges continue to increase, while no attempts 

 are made to reform the fiscal system or to in- 

 troduce representative government, Lord Curzon, 

 who has succeeded better than any of his prede- 

 cessors in winning the confidence of both Anglo- 

 Indians and natives, has adopted a safer frontier 

 policy and has instituted inquiries having for 

 their object reforms in the administration and 

 important projects for the economic progress of 

 the people. Commissions have investigated fam- 

 ine relief and prevention, the breeding of horses 

 for farm and draft purposes, railroad building 

 and management, irrigation, improvements in 

 the general system of education and the universi- 

 ties, and the starting of industrial schools and 

 technical colleges, the police, military decentral- 

 ization, and the scheme of agricultural banks. 



Frontier Disturbances. In the new North- 

 west Frontier Province the policy of blockade has 

 been adopted against border tribes that give 

 trouble instead of that of punitive expeditions. 

 Tribal allowances are paid for keeping open the 

 passes, maintaining order, and punishing crime. 

 The tribes are independent, and any form of gov- 

 ernment or whatever ruler any particular tribe 

 chooses to have the Government of India is willing 

 to acknowledge and deal with. Tribal levies re- 

 ceive pay and arms as militia employed to defend 

 the Indian frontier against external attack. 

 Whenever any tribe commits depredations or 

 breaks the peace its allowances are withdrawn 

 and all trade and intercourse with it are cut off 

 until it makes peace. A blockade against the 

 Mahsud Waziris, who failed to pay fines due for 

 various offenses and were held collectively liable, 

 the plan of making the head men responsible for 

 order having been abandoned, was conducted by 

 Col. C. C. Egerton from Dec. 1, 1900, till Nov. 

 1, 1901, without producing the desired results. A 

 series of raids, with 1,000 to 2,000 men, who seized 

 sheep and cattle and destroyed crops and villages, 

 in four months brought the tribe to terms of 

 peace, with a prospect that they would remain 

 peaceful in order to earn the allowances that the 

 Government promised them. The casualties of the 

 blockade were 31 killed and 113 wounded. The 

 garrisons holding Kuram pass and the Samana 

 range on the frontier of Kohat were withdrawn in 

 April and their places taken by subsidized tribal 

 militia, the frontier railroad having been com- 

 pleted through Kohat. The regulars were con- 

 centrated at Nowshera, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Is- 

 mail,-- and other posts connected with the base by 

 railroad. The Kabul Khel Waziris of Yagistan, 

 whose country is on the Afghan border between 

 the Tochi and Kuram valleys and between the 

 British posts of Bannu and Thai, carried on 

 predatory raids and blood feuds until it became 

 necessary to chastise them. The guilty persons, 

 when a demand was made for their punishment 

 or surrender, invariably escaped over the frontier 

 into Khost, and however willing the Afghan of- 

 ficials at Kabul might be to give them up, it was 

 useless to demand of the Ameer's Pathan soldiers 

 on the spot that they should betray their kins- 

 men. The officer who had conducted the campaign 

 against the Mahsuds, now Major-Gen. Egerton, 

 on Nov. 17 led out a force of 3,500 men with 

 mountain guns, divided into four columns. Col. 

 Tonnochy's column met a stubborn and unex- 

 pected resistance in storming one of the strong 

 towers of the Waziris at Gumati, and the com- 

 mander was fatally wounded, another officer 

 killed, and three others were wounded. Reen- 

 forcements were sent and several villages notori- 



ous for harboring outlaws were destroyed. The 

 boundaries between India and Afghanistan in this 

 region have been demarcated. All the territory 

 formally annexed to India in 1902 was an area 

 of 350 miles on the border of Tibet. 

 INDIANA. (See under UNITED STATES.) 

 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF 

 AMERICAN STATES. The first International 

 American Congress was held in Washington in 

 1889 and 1890, for the purpose of " discussing and 

 recommending for adoption to their respective 

 governments some plan of arbitration for the set- 

 tlement of disagreements and disputes that may 

 hereafter arise between them and for considering 

 questions relating to the improvement of business 

 intercourse and means of direct communication 

 between said countries, and to encourage such re- 

 ciprocal commercial relations as will be beneficial 

 to all and secure more extensive markets for the 

 products of each of said countries." The outcome 

 of this conference, though judged a failure by 

 many, was the creation of an association under 

 the title of The International Union of American 

 Republics, to be represented by an Executive 

 Committee at Washington under the supervision 

 of the Secretary of State of the United States, 

 forming a bureau to be known as the Commercial 

 Bureau of the American Republics. This Inter- 

 national Union was to continue in force for ten 

 years from the date of its organization. As the 

 international conference made no express provision 

 for the meeting of subsequent conferences, the pro- 

 vision that the International Union, through the 

 bureau, should be conducted for the period of 

 ten years under the plan then adopted, was re- 

 garded as an implication that at about the ex- 

 piration of that period another conference would 

 be held. Consequently the first official action look- 

 ing to the assembling of a second conference was 

 taken by the late President McKinley, who, in his 

 annual message to Congress of Dec. 5, 1899, after 

 referring to the interest taken by all the states 

 forming the International Union in the work of 

 its organic bureau, and the assurance that the 

 bureau would continue for another ten years, sug- 

 gested that it seemed expedient that the various 

 American republics be invited at an early date 

 to hold another conference, and that it should be 

 held in the capital of one of the countries other 

 than the United States. 



In pursuance of these suggestions, the Secretary 

 of State addressed a circular note to the diplomatic 

 representatives of all the American republics ac- 

 credited in Washington, proposing that the second 

 conference be called to meet as soon as possible. 

 In conversation with the Mexican ambassador, he 

 informed him that it would give the United States 

 Government much pleasure if the City of Mexico 

 should be selected as the place of meeting, and the 

 Mexican Government shortly afterward, through 

 its Minister of Foreign Relations, announced that 

 it would greatly appreciate the honor that would 

 be conferred upon it by the selection of its capital 

 as the place for holding the conference. This led 

 to the selection of that city as the place of meet- 

 ing, and on Aug. 15, 1900, the Mexican Minister 

 of Foreign Relations addressed a note to the gov- 

 ernment of each of the American republics, invit- 

 ing them to send delegates to the proposed confer- 

 ence, the date being fixed for Oct. 22, 1902. This 

 invitation was at once accepted by all the coun- 

 tries with the exception of Chile, the Government 

 of which replied that she could not do less than 

 accept the ideas of the proposed conference as ex- 

 pressed by President McKinley, but, referring to 

 the former conference, said that, regardless of the 

 program naming the subjects proposed for dis- 



