admission of British functionaries; and without this, he was told, hecould not move a step in the negotiations. Not only so, but that the promises given by Lord Mayo and by Lord Northbrook, unless he complied with the demand, would be withdrawn.

It is not often that diplomatic conferences have a pathetic aspect.. But of the very few that have read these Papers, hardly any, I should think, can withhold an emotion of pity from the clever, but overmatched, representative of the Ameer.

6

Nowhere is more conspicuously exhibited the unquestioned possession of the giant's strength, and the cynical determination to use it like a giant. Again, and again, and again, the Asiatic Envoy entreats Sir Lewis Pelly to withdraw the stipulation, which he declares to be fraught with fatal peril to his country. All that the Ameer desires is to be let alone, and to rest upon the Treaties, together with the promises of Lord Mayo and Lord Northbrook. The agreement at Umballa, says the Minister (p. 205), is sufficient so long as the Queen will let it remain intact and stable. Till the time of the departure of Lord Northbrook, that previous course continued to be pursued' (p. 206). Lord Northbrook left the friendship without change, in conformity with the conduct of his predecessors '-(p. 208).. The Ameer desired only that the usual friendship should remain. firm upon the former footing' (p. 211). His former fears of Russia had disappeared; Lord Northbrook had thoroughly reassured him' (p. 211). The sham or petty grievances have been put out of view: his desire only is that the Viceroy will, with great frankness and sincerity of purpose, act in conformity with the course of past Viceroys' (p. 213). But that is exactly what Lord Lytton will not do. While Parliament was assured at home that there was no changein Indian policy, the trumpery complaints put forward from time to time by the Ameer, so long as he, thought his standing ground was safe, were now made to rise in judgment against him. Under the pretext of drawing the bonds of friendship closer, he was required first and foremost to concede the admission of British Residents whosepresence the Minister stated, eleven times over, would be dangerousor even fatal to his independence. On his refusal, he was told that he must stand alone, and that he was no longer to invoke the assurances. of the former Viceroys. But English support was to him as the air he breathed, and the threat of its withdrawal was used as an instrument of torture. In this singular negotiation, the ruler of a thin and poor mountain population in vain struggles through his Minister to cope with the agent of an empire of three hundred millions. Before this agent he cowers and crouches, like a spaniel ready bound and awaiting the knife of the vivisector. It is no wonder if the Minister died of it. At any rate he died within a few days after the repulse.. The Ameer, hopeless and helpless, stood utterly aghast. He sent off Papers, p. 219.

6

a new Agent (p. 171), to continue the conferences, and, as was believed, to face all the future perils of the required concessions rather than incur the present desolation of the withdrawal of the English alliance. But the Viceroy advisedly put an end to the whole business, because the Ameer (ibid.) had not shown an eagerness' to concede the terms which he conceived to be pregnant with the ruin of his house and his country.

Such was the mode in which the present Ministers pursued what they constantly announced as their policy; to have, namely, on their frontier a strong and friendly Affghanistan as a barrier against Russia. Wishing him to be strong and friendly, they did, and they still are doing, everything which could make him weak and hostile. He stood between the two great Empires, like a pipkin (to use Lord Lytton's simile) between two iron pots. He had not substantive strength sufficient for self-support, in his kingdom at once turbulent and weak. He required to lean on some one; and we acquainted him that he should not be allowed to lean on us. Thus it was that, while we were in disturbed relations with Russia as to European politics, we laid open for her, as far as policy could lay it open, the way, through Affghanistan, to our Eastern possessions.

Accordingly, Russia did not trust to her military measures only, but determined to commit the unfortunate Ameer, whom we had thrown, so to speak, into her hands. Her advances in Central Asia have been put forward as the excuse for our pressure upon the Ameer. But she has made, so far as we are informed, no advances at all since the annexation of Khokand in 1875: and that advance has been far more than compensated by the establishment of the Persian authority at Merv, which has stopped her only practicable road. However, we kindly opened for her a diplomatic path; and she began to press upon the Ameer the reception of a Russian Mission. To such a Mission the Ameer showed a great repugnance. But in June 7 he was duly informed by General Kauffmann that the mission must be received. And we have the effrontery (for it is no less) to make this complaint against him, that, when he was deprived of all promises of support from us, and cast into utter isolation, he did not bid defiance to Russia also by refusing to her Envoy an entrance into his dominions.

But the Russians, while they deprived the Ameer of choice in the matter, proceeded like men in their senses, and did not disgrace him in the sight of his own subjects. Time was allowed for his decision. Leaving Tashkend in the end of May, General Stoletoff waited for a month' at the ferry over the Oxus until the Affghan Bek arrived who was to be his escort. He crossed it apparently in the beginning of July; and only reached Cabul (the exact day is uncertain) in the end Central Asian Papers, No. 1, p. 140. Comp. pp. 12, 14, 18.

s Ibid. No. 2, p. 14.

of the month. Now compare with this deferential caution our method of proceeding. On the 14th of August the Viceroy writes an imperious letter to the Ameer, virtually commanding him to receive an English Mission. Its delivery is delayed, by the death of the Ameer's favourite son, until the 12th of September (p. 237). Sir Neville Chamberlain arrived at Peshawur (p. 238) on the same day; and, with a gross indecency, of which the whole blame belongs to his superiors, he proceeded, before there could be any reply from the Ameer, to communicate directly with his servants. He was authorised at once to acquaint the Mustafi (ibid.) that the refusal of the free passage would bring matters to an issue;' and on the 15th of September (p. 240) Sir Neville Chamberlain demanded from the Commandant of the Fort of Ali Musjed a clear reply' whether he was prepared to guarantee the safety of the British Mission' or not, as 'I cannot delay my departure from Peshawur.' In case of refusal or delay, he would act independently. The Ameer, thus disgraced in the sight of his own servants and people, would not (apparently) have sent instructions if he could, but certainly could not if he would. These are his words, reported by our own native Agent (p. 241): 'It is as if they were come by force. I do not agree to the Mission, coming in this manner: and, until my officers have received orders from me, how can the Mission come? It is as if they wish to disgrace me.' On the 21st the Mission was refused a passage by the Affghan officers, for the insulted Ameer had sent them no instructions to grant it. Thus was got up by us the 'affront' which is put forward in justification of a war as foolish as it is iniquitous, and as iniquitous as it is foolish. The case is completed when we find that the Ameer had actually intimated (p. 242) that he would receive the Mission in a short time (p. 242): that our Agent recommended that the Mission should be held in abeyance' (p. 241), as the Russian Mission, we have seen, with a studious respect for appearances, waited a whole month on the Oxus; and, finally, that our Prime Minister declared the object of our proceeding was to obtain a scientific frontier.

Thus far we have been contemplating a pitiless display of Might against Right. We shall now see how the genuine bully can crouch before his equal. Five days after the Viceroy addressed his highhanded letter to the Ameer, the Foreign Secretary despatched to St. Petersburg the expression of a categorical 'hope' of the British Government, equivalent to a demand, that the Russian Mission, as inconsistent with the understanding between the two countries, would be at once withdrawn from Cabul.10 Until the 8th of September, the

Russian Foreign Office managed to shift off its reply; and then answered that, as a mission of simple courtesy, it was within the understanding. In this reply the present Ministers appear at once 10 Central Asian Papers, No. 1, p. 150.

to have acquiesced. No notice is taken of it, except in a letter to the Indian Office from the Foreign Office, where it is complacently treated as showing that the understanding with Russia has recovered its validity.' The Mission, of which the immediate withdrawal had been desired, was justified by a shallow and transparent pretext. This pretext was accepted. The Mission was not withdrawn, but the demand was. I do not know where to find, in our modern history, such an example of undue and humiliating submission to a foreign Government.

But when the facts became known by the publication of the papers on the 30th of November, it was at once declared, on the part of the late Government, that a Russian Mission at Cabul was a departure from the agreement at which the two States had arrived, and that, however it might be justified when their relations were disturbed, it could not otherwise be justified at all. Under the compulsion created by this declaration, the Ministry has changed its course. On the 13th of December it at length announced that, when they learned the Russian envoy had left Cabul, they supposed the Mission had gone too. And yet they knew well enough that the two things are perfectly distinct: that, for example, at the close of the Conferences of Constantinople, every Foreign Minister left the Porte, and every Mission remained. Having accepted the hollow excuse of the Russian Government, they presented one as hollow for themselves to Parliament and their country. But, under compulsion, they now state they do not acquiesce in the continuance of a Russian Mission at Cabul. It remains to be seen whether Russia will relieve them from their embarrassment by bringing her compliments to a close, and allowing the Mission to pack up and depart. Not improbably she may, if she thinks its presence there might render it more difficult for her to act upon her plan of leaving the Ameer to shift for himself under the difficulties in which she has helped, for her own purposes, to place him. But how are we to escape from the facts, that she has declared a mission of courtesy to be within the Clarendon understanding; that her declaration has been received without protest for three months; and from the apparent consequence, that she has obtained, by the act of the present Ministers, a presumptive title to send a 'mission of courtesy' to Cabul when and as often as she pleases?

We have, then, sufficiently established the following propositions:

1. The British Tories are the traditional and natural allies of Russia, in the policy of absolutism which she commonly has followed in Continental affairs.

2. They only depart from her when, in the case of Turkish. oppression, she departs from herself, and is found fighting on the side of freedom and humanity.

3. In thus departing, they have so managed their resistance, that they have played her game, fortified her position, and humbled their country before her.

When our roystering politicians begin their preparations for the coming Election, these propositions may afford them some instruction; and may render a degree of aid to the people in answering the great question they must then answer, whether the present mode is the mode in which they wish the country to be governed.

They will not, indeed, lack instruction from other sources. In vain does the Minister of Finance escape for the hour the payment of his just debts by postponing them as private spendthrifts use to do; by 'spreading' them over future years; and by borrowing the money of impoverished India, in which but a year ago we were told that 1,400,000 persons died of famine, until the Government can make up its mind whether the war, which they hope is nearly concluded, be one which should be paid for by England, or by its Eastern dependency, or by both. So stands the child before its dose of physic, and struggles for a few moments to put off swallowing the draught; which will be all the bitterer the longer it is delayed. Under the pressure of a vast expenditure, and in the thickened and unwholesome atmosphere of a blustering, turbulent, and vacillating foreign policy, trade and industry obstinately refuse to revive, and suffering stalks through the land in forms and measures unknown to our modern experience. In the soreness of this pressure it is, and it was, almost forgotten that through the various departments of public action reform and improvement stagnate. But there is one subject which not even now can be dropped from view. I mean the war that has been not proclaimed, indeed, but established in this country: the silent but active war against Parliamentary Government.

The majority of the present House of Commons has, on more than one occasion, indicated its readiness to offer up, at the shrine of the Government which it sustains, the most essential rights and privileges which it holds in trust for the people. The occupation and administration of new territories, intended and admitted to involve large military charge; the assumption of joint governing rights, under circumstances of almost hopeless difficulty, over a range of territory which found room for several of the greatest empires of antiquity; the establishment of new policies, and the development of them into wars abhorrent to their countrymen; all these things have been effected under the cloak of deliberate and careful secrecy, which has been maintained with evident intention, and even with elaborate contrivance, to exclude the Parliament and the nation from all influence upon the results. The greatest encouragement has been afforded to a renewal of these experiments; for when at length they have become known, they have been accepted in Parliament with greedy approval, with that eagerness to be immolated which even an Ameer of Affghanistan failed to show.