MR GLADSTONE ON THE AFGHAN WAR.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3101, 25 January 1879, Page 4

MR GLADSTONE ON THE AFGHAN WAR.

Mr Gladstone delivered two addresses to his constituents in the Borough of Greenwich on November 30th. In the afternoon he was entertained at a luncheon at the Ship Hotel, and in proposing "Prosperity to the Borough of Greenwich Liberal Association," he defended the Birmingham plan of organisation, and challenged its opponents to produce a better. Referring to the last general •lection and to its results, Mr Gladstone •aid he found he was mistaken when, in a recent article, he wrote that the Liberals, owing to their dissensions in 1874, gave the Toriei twenty votes; the real number was twenty-six; and when they remembered that Governments had been carried on for years with a smaller majority than twenty-sir, the Liberals would see how important the subject of organisation was to them. It was necessary, however, to guard against precipitate or imperfect adoption of the Birmingham plan. If, for instance, in a town where there are 10,000 Liberals an attempt is made to apply the Birmingham plan, and only two or three thousand join the association, leaving out the majority of the Liberals, it is plain that that town is not ripe for the introduction of the new system ; and and if the minority then go on to apply what they call the " Birmingham plan," more harm than good must result from the false application of that principle. In the evening Mr Gladstone, who was accompanied by Mrs Gladstone, attended a public meeting held at the Skating Eink at Plumstead, at which 4000 or 5000 persons were present. The right hon. gentleman, upon whose entrance into the building the whole meeting rose and cheered for several minutes, was presented with an address expressing regret at the severance of his connection with the borough of Greenwich, and the pride which the borough would ever feel at having been associated with his name and fame. Mr Gladstone, in reply, spoke for an hour and fifty minutes. He said he would not draw in detail the contrast between the present time and five years ago. Then there was a good deal said about "harassed interests." He wondered what the " harassed - interests " thought of it now. At present he knew of but one " harassed interest," which was the British nation. At the next general election, he said, the people would have to deal with a question so large as to include aD other questions—the question of the manner in which this country is to be governed. " Personal government" was not a happy phrase, and he protested against its being interpreted to mean that the Sovereign desired to depart from the traditions of the Constitution ; . but he charged the present advisers of the Crown with haying insidiously begun a system intended to narrow the liberties of the people of England, and to reduce Parliament to the condition of the French Parliaments before the Eevolution. -Retorting the accusation that he and his supporters were the friends of Russia, Mr Gladstone asserted that the Government had been the real friends of that Power, having brought her back to the Danube, from which she was driven in 1856, left it in her power to make herself the liberator of Bulgaria, and by the device of creating the province of Eastern Eoumelia, had given her an opportunity for intriguing pretty effectively among that portion of the Bulgarians still left under the rule of the Sultan.

t Mr Gladstone then spoke at great length on the Afghan war, and expressed his fear that it was a wholly unjust war, which bad been waged by the present Government in furtherance of a settled intention on its part to force the Ameer to receive European residents in his cities, contrary to the treaty arrangements entered into with him, and in opposition to his known preference for native agents. He complained that paragraph 9 of Lord Cranbrook's despatch contained three statements each of which was true, but the impression produced by the three together was untrue. It was not true that the late Government refused to give conditional assistance to the Ameir. Lord Northbrook informed the Ameer (under the instructions of the Government) that in the event of foreign aggression, " should the endeavours of the British Government to bring about an amicable settlement prove fruitless, the British Government are prepared to assure the Ameer that they will afford him assistance in the Buape of arms and money, and will also, in case of necessity, aid him with troops." It was also totally untrue that the Viceroy was instructed to postpone the subject—he had no such instructions. Mr Gladstone quoted from the Parliamentary papers a despatch written by Sir E. Pollock at the beginning of 1874, in which he stated his conviction that no unfavourable change whatever had occurred in the disposition of the Ameer, and that His Highness leaned as much as ever on the British Government.

The right hon. gentleman then referred to the policy pursued after Lord Lytton's arrival in India, and laid much stress upon the omission from the Blue Book of four letters sent to the Ameer by order of the Ticeroy by the Commissioner of Peshawur, and the threatening tone of which the Ameer had given as his reason for refusing to receive any English mission at all. Our native agent at Cabul had also stated that the Ameer was pained and alarmed by these letters which have not been produced. Mr Gladstone con. tinued:—But we determined to depart from the policy of twenty years and of five admirable Viceroys. We not only determined to depart from it by pressing the reception of these agents, but we determined lo force that pressure by war, and we determined to introduce the subject in terms so harsh that the Ameer complains in the hearing of our agent—and our own agent seems to agree with him—" It is as if they meant to disgrace me." And now what is the answer to all this? Why, the answer is only this, that Eussia has sent a mission to Cabul. Well, if Eussia sent a mission to Cabul—and I told you my opinion on this subject—why have we not called Eussia to account ? (Loud and prolonged cheering and waving of hats.) If an offence has been committed, I want to know whose is the greatest share of that offence ? The Ameer was under no covenant that he was not to receive a Russian mission ; we were under a covenant with him not to force on him a British mission. He was under no covenant not to receive a Eussion mission ; JKussia was under a covenant with us to exercise no influence in Afghanistan. If thero was an offence, whose was the offence ? The offence, if any, was committed by the great and powerful Emperor of the North, with bis eighty taillious of people, •

with his 1,400,000 or 1,500,000 soldiers, and fresh from his recent victories, and not by the poor, trembling, shuddering Ameer of Afghanistan, with his few troops, over which he exercises a precarious rule. But now, having received from the Czar of Russia the greater offence, we sing small to Eussia and ask her to withdraw her mission ; and when she says it. is only a mission of courtesy, we seemingly rest content, but we march our thousands into Afghanistan. Anything so painful and so grievous has not come under my notice.

The question whether the war was a just one was not, Mr Gladstone said, to be answered by telling us that the war had begun and that we must be dumb. " These (he said) were not the manners of our forefathers. It was not thus that Chatham and Mr Burke understood their, duty when vain and mad attempts;were" made to reduce the American colonies to subjection; it was not thus that Lord Derby understood his duty when in 1857, with the active support of the present Prime Minister, he believed that an unjust war was being waged against China, and when he made his appeal to both Houses of Parliament." The responsibility for the war, which now rested on the Home Government, and not on Lord Lytton, who was merely an agent, would soon probably be divided between the Government and the Houses of Parliament; but if the people, when appealed to, should approve of the policy which had been pursued, the largest share of the responsibility would be theirs. The question which they had to consider was whether this war was just or unjust ? " So far (Mr Gladstone said) as I am able to collect the evidence, it is unjust. It fills me with the greatest alarm lest it should prove grossly and totally unjust. If so, we should come under the stroke of the everlasting law that suffering shall follow sin; and the day will arrive —come it soon or come it late—when the people of England will discover that national injustice is the surest road to national downfall."