(^c^c^^c^c^c^t^t^t*^

EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

were going about. The Army was the apple of the
Amir's eye, and it was regularly paid. The old men of
the villages remembered that in the past the Army went
without pay if the Treasury found itself embarrassed,
and now that they had a soldier in charge it was the
villager who suffered first. The tax-gatherers were more
pressing than ever they had been in the past. Hardly
a month went by but they came with news of a new
valuation. There were new taxes on houses, and new
demands made on weddings and funerals and village
ceremonies. There seemed to be more taxation officers
than tax-payers. Gradually the peasant began to know
the other side of " reform."

There was a new education tax, and an added tax
for building. There was a tax to pay for the war, and
a tax merely labelled " development." Matters had
never been so ill for the peasant, who did not care, in any
case, how its children were educated, and had a hearty
contempt for the new plans for the rebuilding of Kabul.

At the same time the peasant knew that trickery and
roguery flourished as never before. It was said that
fortunes were being made by every official hanging on
to the skirt-tail of the Court. Every new project for
the good of the State, said rumour, made a few men
rich overnight.

The peasant paid, and when he could not, suffered
the annexation of his land in the cruel winter.

The mullahs found their task easy. Without reveal-
ing their hand, they gently swayed the peasants over
to their way of thinking. They brought many an alle-
gory into their impassioned speeches to the village
crowds. They were clever enough never to say a thing
outright if it could be sketched with a story or a parable*
Their power was increasing, even while Amanullah
sought to discredit them in Kabul.

69