Under the absolute Amir

by Frank A. Martin

The Afghan officials who manage shops or works of any description very much resemble the travelling M.P. who spends three or four months in India in the cold season, and then goes home prepared to explain the cause of, and a remedy for, all problems connected with its governing.

The Kabul workshops comprise two large machine-shops, with about a hundred machines of sorts; two cartridge-making shops with machinery for turning out solid drawn Martini and Snider cartridges; metal fuze shop, blacksmiths’ shops, steam hammer shop, iron and brass foundries, mint, rolling-mill shop, and the boiler and engine houses. There are besides these, hand shops for making limbers and wheels of guns, gun cartridges, cartridge and shell filling, artillery harness, bandoliers, boots, etc., gun browning, black powder, percussion cap powder, leather tanning and currying, soap and candle, spirit distilling, acid making, electro-plating and polishing, sword and bayonet making and grinding, bullet moulding, tin and copper work, carpentry, pattern making, painting, household furniture making, etc. Between four and five thousand men are employed.

The Afghan workman is intelligent, and can, if he will only give his mind to his work, or domestic or other affairs will allow him to do so, do work requiring considerable skill and intelligence in a manner which is highly creditable. This is the Afghan workman at his best. In the case of work requiring very exact fitting or finish, they generally fail, mostly because they have not thoroughly mastered the art of making gauges and working to them, and it is chiefly on this account that the field and machine guns are unreliable. In some cases a workman appears to have displayed a considerable amount of ingenuity in ascertaining the wrong way to do a thing and then so doing it; but there is, however, no doubt, that with education and training the Afghan would make a fine workman. I have often known a man ruin his work, otherwise well finished, through lack of technical knowledge of some process in one part of it, and I was generally applied to for help after the failure, for they all like to do things off their own bat, if they can, hoping, thereby, to get all the credit from the Amir. Much of the reason for their not applying to any one for help is the fault of the officials, who, when bringing a man with some special work he has done before the Amir, claim that the man was at a standstill in this or that way during its process, and that they assisted him in his difficulty, thus cheapening the work of the man’s hands to their own credit, and in some cases the official claims the entire credit, making out that the man worked to instructions. However, it is one of the results of the system of government that all men try to bring themselves to the Amir’s favourable notice, and the means are of little account for so desirable an end.

In all work there is an ustad (teacher or foreman) and his shagirds (pupils or workmen). When the shagird has learnt all he can learn from his ustad, or thinks he has, he usually casts about for a way of ousting his master and taking his place himself. This he generally sets about doing by privately reporting to the Amir that his ustad indents for much more material than his work requires, and sells the surplus to help defray his living expenses, which, as all his neighbours will testify, are far above his income. This does not always have the effect aimed at, and cause the ustad to lose his position that the shagird may jump into it; but the ustad is perhaps made a prisoner, and wears leg irons as he goes about his work as usual during the day, and at night is taken back to prison, while the mirzas set about the task of checking his accounts, and as this is a work of years, the ustad often dies before the matter is settled.

In any work which is accompanied by risk, such as powder making, etc., the Afghan gets careless of precautions after a time, and the result is an occasional explosion, which kills many and unnerves the rest for a month or two, but eventually the same carelessness prevails, until another accident makes them cautious again for a time. The making of fulminate of mercury was prolific of accidents at one time, but no further accidents happened after I introduced the usual method of preparation, but some accidents occurred through roughly handling the filled percussions caps, and once sixty thousand of them exploded through carelessness on the part of one of the foremen, who took up a few of them to look at, and then threw them back into the box where the rest were; four were killed, and some others were permanently disabled, while one man was blinded, a cap entering each eye, but was otherwise uninjured. In one powder explosion twenty-one men were killed, and many others injured, chiefly through the force of the explosion bringing down a heavy roof on the men who were working underneath. There were several other accidents through carelessness, each time causing death or injury to one or two, and eventually the Amir gave me orders to draw up a list of regulations, and give full particulars of what was necessary, in order to minimize risk in the making and handling of explosives. Having sanctioned this, the necessary work was put in hand, and the regulations came into force, after which the accidents stopped.

The pay of the workman is mostly fixed at starvation rates, though several of the men, who have had their pay increased for doing some small work for the Amir himself, get too much so far as ability is concerned. The workshops were started about eighteen years ago, and the pay of many of the workmen, who were boys when they were first engaged, is still the same, although they have become of greater value to the Government by the experience they have gained, and that which makes it still harder for them is that the price of food has increased tremendously, and bread, which is their chief food, is four times the price now to what it was then. There are men who have been working on special machines from the time the shops started, drawing eight rupees per month (5s. 4d.), and these are men with wives and families, and sometimes other female relatives dependent on them. How they live on it is a problem, but they are men with no surplus adipose substance on their bones, as may be imagined. Others, and they are mostly boys, who are taken on now for any new work, commence at ten rupees (6s. 8d.) per month. Most of the ordinary machine men (turners, etc.), and hand-fitters, get from twenty to thirty rupees per month (13s. 4d. to 20s.). Ustads get from twenty to one hundred rupees per month (13s. 4d. to 66s. 8d.).

Excepting in the Government workshops there are very few trades carried on in the country. The few trades there are, and they are all carried on in a small way only, are coppersmiths, tinsmiths, blacksmiths, gold and silversmiths, carpenters, leather workers, etc. The bulk of the commerce of the country is confined to dried fruits, which are exported to India and Russia. Fresh grapes are also sent to India, wrapped in wool, and enclosed in small round wooden boxes. Kabul and its neighbourhood produce large quantities of very good grapes, which sell in the season at about a penny for eight pounds, and for the best varieties at about a farthing per pound. I made wine from these grapes, blending two or three sorts; and after maturing for three years or so, it was equal to any of the wines commonly sold in India, and being pure grape juice, it was perhaps better than most. Apricots are also grown in large quantities, and grapes and apricots form the bulk of the dried fruits exported. Grain is also exported, though not in large quantities; but, with cheap means of carriage, a large trade in several articles could be brought about. Most fruits and vegetables grow well in Kabul, and large crops are given, the climate being particularly adapted for all fruits not requiring a tropical sun. In Jelalabad and Kandahar districts the heat is such that most tropical fruits are grown, and in the former district sugar-cane is produced in large quantities.

A good deal of silk is also produced, and the country offers great facilities for an extensive cultivation of the silkworm. The silk is at present produced in three districts—Bokhara, Herat, and Kohistan, and there only in comparatively small quantities. Carpets are also made: those similar to Persian carpets in Herat and Turkestan, and felt carpets in Kandahar and Hazara. Cloth of various descriptions is also manufactured by means of hand-looms in different parts of the country, and in Ghazni numbers of posteens (overcoats) are made from sheep skins. Most of the latter articles are not exported, for only enough is produced to meet the demands of the country. Numbers of camels, horses, cattle, and sheep are bred in different districts, but few are exported, and for the past few years horses are not allowed to be taken out of the country for sale, something having been said about them being bought up for the use of the Indian army. Turkestan is the best cattle and horse-raising country in Afghanistan, as it possesses large tracts of fertile country for grazing; and to hear Turkestanis talk of the agricultural and mineral richness of their country, one would imagine it the Eldorado. A small quantity of timber is floated down the river from the Jelalabad district for sale in India, but the quantity is very small, for the hills and mountains in Afghanistan are for the most part quite barren, and there are very few trees except in one or two isolated places, and not many there.

SOLDIERS ON GUARD IN GARDEN OUTSIDE THE KABUL WORKSHOPS EATING FOOD.