Kashgar. Owing to the weakness or neglect of our Government, the Agent of the Indian Government apparently occupies no recognised position at all; he has been given no official status by the Indian Government, excepting some ridiculous title connected with the Resident in Kashmir. The Chinese do not recognise him as one who can be allowed to treat with them on anything like an equality.

In the month of March last his business called him to Yarkand. There, a number of petitions were presented to him by British subjects praying him to adjudicate in cases of dispute which had arisen between traders; no redress could be obtained from the Amban, though repeated efforts had been made; but without liberal backsheesh ' to all the hangers-on, they were not allowed even to enter the Yamen. Amongst nearly a hundred petitions which he was asked to read was one in which the defendant was also a British subject; and in this case the Government Agent considered he might fairly arbitrate; and he did so. As soon as he had left Yarkand, the Amban promptly reversed his decision entirely; threatened the petitioners with a hundred lashes each, and forbade them ever to pay any attention to English travellers, either by going out to meet them, as the custom has been hitherto, or by assisting them in changing Indian rupees or cheques into Chinese currency; they were also forbidden to visit them during the time they might stay in Yarkand, or to invite them to any entertainment.

The evil effects of such an action are incalculable. The Indian traders are discouraged to continue their already hard battle to gain a living; they have lost all confidence in the power of their Government or its Agent to support them, and much evil will undoubtedly be done by the reports they will take back to their homes in India; the Russian officials and merchants are laughing in their sleeves ; and the Afghan merchants, of whom there are a good many, will conceive a bad impression of the Indian Government, and will contrast it unfavourably with the Russian Government, which always supports its traders, and the officials, who watch their interests, whenever it is necessary to do so; they also will spread reports in their country by no means calculated to improve our prestige, which it is all-important for us to maintain.

Everyone knows how bazaar rumours fly in Asia; and now from bazaar to bazaar has been handed on the news of the Yarkand Amban's insult to the British Representative, probably exaggerated too a hundred times: yet I should not be surprised if the Indian Government found fault with its Agent in Kashgar for overstepping his powers. This would be rather hard, considering that, so far as can be seen, although that gentleman has been eight years in Chinese Turkestan, the Government has not so far considered it worth its while to inform him for what reason he is stationed in Kashgar, or what his powers really are.

Russian trade has, as I said before, increased by leaps and bounds during the past year. This is not surprising when one considers the attention their officials bestow on the improvement of trade routes, and the interest the Government takes in offering every facility to its merchant subjects. On the other hand, the Indian Government still forces the Kashmir Durbar to spend some thousands of pounds on the Ladakh road, which, if you spent some millions on it, would always remain impracticable to really profitable commerce of large extent.

This road, by which our traders are now forced to convey their goods from and to India, is about one thousand miles in length, from the plains of the Punjaub to Kashgar, including the Karakoram. It traverses six passes averaging 18,000 feet in height; it is only open for four months in the autumn; and for twenty days not a blade of grass can be seen.

In addition to handicapping trade by obliging the merchants to use such a route, the Government has recently dealt a final knockdown blow by imposing a heavy duty on 'Charas' or Bang. This drug is now, owing to the depreciation in the value of gold and silver in India, practically the only article which traders can take back from Turkestan to India with the certainty of making a fair profit, which they richly deserve after braving the awful road of the Karakoram. This year they are reduced to purchasing Russian roubles to sell in Bombay, in order to get their money back at all.

Yet there are two other roads by Gilgit and Chitral, one of which could be easily kept open all the year round-the former in winter and the latter in summer. Both are immeasurably superior in every respect to the road over the Karakoram; the journey is, roughly, shortened by one month; and there is grass everywhere, excepting in a march or two on the Gilgit road.

Merchants therefore, if they make a living now by the Ladakh route, could make twice as good a living by either of these roads; and the opening of these would at once induce a greater number of traders to enter into commercial relations with Chinese Turkestan. The Kunjutis and Chitralis, too, would be glad to earn the money that trade through their countries would inevitably bring with it. One may ask, then, why it is that the Indian Government persist in their pig-headed policy of keeping these roads religiously closed to traders, and even to British travellers. They will tell you that it is for fear of wounding the nice susceptibilities of the Kunjutis and Chitralis. This is absolutely imaginary. I never saw people in my life more delighted to see a traveller, and the sight of silver, than the inhabitants of Hunza-Nagar some six months ago when I passed through that country.

No, the real reason is-why not confess it at once?-that they are afraid of a Russian advance by one or both of these roads. Yet,

I fancy that Lord Roberts, who probably knows more of the Indian frontier and the possibilities that it presents to a Russian attack than any living authority, would say that an attempt on India by either of the passes which cover these roads would most assuredly fail if they were properly held; and when the forces of England and Russia meet in Asia, as some day they undoubtedly will, it will not be in this portion of the frontier, where at the most no more than a feint could be attempted.

R. P. COBBOLD.
(Late 60th Rifles).

LADIES' CLUBS

Of clubs and their origin Addison, writing nearly a hundred years ago, says: When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity.' The motives of human nature time does not alter, and probably what was true of the origin of men's clubs at the end of the eighteenth century, is equally true of women's at the end of the nineteenth. It is the agreement of a number of people on some matter which brings clubs into being.

In this era of the Advancement of Women it is akin to high treason to suggest that the 'trivial particular' may also be the same to-day as it was a century ago, and that the original motive of many of the ladies' clubs of to-day may not be altogether of a high intellectual nature. Again, to quote the 'Spectator,' speaking of many of the most celebrated clubs of his time: Eating and drinking are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and the illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon may all take a part.'

From a practical, if not from an ideal point of view, no better basis than this for a club exists. Creed and thought may perish, theories rise and wane, but food as a human necessity is always likely to remain; and the folk who set about a club without fully recognising and attending to this special trivial particular' would have but a small chance of lasting success. I believe it is because ladies' clubs rest mainly upon this solid, if prosaic, basis of providing food for the hungry, that they are likely to attain a permanent position in our midst.

Not that for one moment I wish to imply that because they rest upon a basis of things material, those things are necessarily the beall and end-all of their existence. Far from it. A great deal less, I should say, is this the case among ladies' clubs than among men's. No doubt there are a large number of ladies' clubs which frankly avow their whole aim and object to be the creature comforts of their members. They are deservedly successful. They belong to that large portion both of humanity and of institutions who do not go very far, but are perfect as far as they go. And this limited perfec

tion and absence of sense of effort is a very great charm. Clubs of this kind do not pretend to have Ideals, Motive, or Mission; they are places to lunch at in peace, places to stay comfortably, for they nearly all provide bedrooms for their members, places to which parcels can be sent; in fact, the nearer they approach to the comfort of a private house and can be used as a sort of annexe of home, the more are they appreciated by the people they are there to serve.

The best of this type is the Alexandra, which, with one exception, has the further honour of being-if I may be forgiven an ambiguous expression-the oldest ladies' club in London. The Empress and the Victoria are also run on the same lines. There are, however, a number of clubs to include which in this category would be to insult mortally. They too are comfortable, they too cater well; but there their function does not cease. It has been suggested by a serious Scoffer that the object of their existence is to fill an obvious gap in the educational system of the country, and to provide Higher Secondary Education for the Adult Rich. Others of a less flippant turn of mind have it that they are there to prove the utter fallacy of the dictum of the German Emperor that women's interests are only three-Kinder, Küche, and Kirche.

A middle course between these two definitions would most truly describe their position. They are clubs that aim at providing food for the mind as well as for the body; clubs which, like the Somerville or the Sesame, have sprung from the united minds of a set of people all interested in one subject; or that have been gathered together, as in the case of the Pioneer, by one guiding spirit peering into the future; or, again, they are as the Grosvenor Crescent Club, whose object is to become a nucleus round which all forms of women's work may gather. The ground that they cover with their discussions, literary evenings, and debates, is practically limitless. Instance the subjects set down for consideration in the spring programmes of the four just mentioned. The Pioneers propose to deal not only with such time-worn subjects as Vaccination, Vegetarianism, and Women's Suffrage, but have found a clergyman to put in a plea for the loafer, and intend to deal in drastic words with the further regulation of Home Industries, in the interest both of the worker and of the community.

The Sesame, on the other hand, while keenly interested in life and all that pertains to men and women, makes a special point of the New Education and the rationale of learning; and the modern teaching of languages and a series of studies in Child Nature form prominent subjects in their spring syllabus. Ibsen and Browning are also set down; the Artistic Motive is dealt with by Mr. Grant Allen, and the Stage by Mr. William Archer. The Grosvenor Crescent Club concerns itself with such various subjects as the improvement of English Public School Education, Dante's 'Com