LADY BURDETT-COUTTS AND GENERAL GORDON.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1743, 23 July 1884, Page 2

LADY BURDETT-COUTTS AND GENERAL GORDON.

The following lemarktble letter appeared in the London Times of May 16, and it would be difficult to find \ more withering and crushing rebuke to the British Government for their neglect of General Gordon:-

bIR, —I ask for a little space in order to make known through the Times, the communications, or rather the entreaties, I have received from many personally unknown to me to aid in the ' organizing by public subscript of a volunteer movement to atteßpt the relief of General Gordon. My correspondents are poor, tut they ofter to intrust to me all they can afford of their small means, and to raise their voices in unison with their wealthier fellow-countrymen against a base surrender of a nation's good faith and as _ well as of a gallanted Christian life—a surrender which has united in a common indignation, the , French workman of Lvons, who % offers his 20f, with the English * lady who, it is stated has promised .£5,000 for Gordon's defence. A |' Gordon Rescue Fund" would have existed ere this, had a rallying point been found upon which the country could have concentrated its eftbrts; had the Lord Mayor felt that he could convene ameetingas requested; or had you Sir, felt it competent for you to undertake such a lesponsibility, the popular movement might by this ti&have assumed a substantial form. Tut no such organisation was effected. Now tliafc General Gordon's own statement of his position has been unearthed.it would seem difficult to point out from what direction an independent effort could be best guided to assist him. General Gordon looks to the Equator for his only point of refuge, Providence may shield him along'tmV wonderful and dangerous path. Those in England who know what that journey must be, and those who do not will alike feel with bitterness of heart that it was not to England that he turned for hope in his abandonment. Unlike the garrison of Sinkaty who to tho last would not believe that they were to die, betrayed and deserted, General Gordon recognises his position -that he is left single-handed to fight his own battle, Whether his generous impulses towards those who have trusted him in Khartoum will allow him to adopt the only means of escape or will keep him there till the moment when, to use his own words, " he will not be taken alive," we cannot tell, but at least he makes no mistake now as to the situation in which he has beei&f t. But if the voice of the peojgrat large could penetrate the. deadly silence of Khartoum, Gordon would know that the English nation, unrepresented as it may have been through its ordinary channels, had sprung t« its feet, and, moved by a spirit akin" l to its own, was eager to strike a blow on its own account on behalf of a man sent out in his country's name, I have felt bound to make public the evidences of this feeling which have come under my observation. Doubtless many others have received similar communications, and not only as a personal friend of General Gordon, but for the sake of the national honor, I would venture to express a hope that some record of these should be kept. For although neither for us nor for • him, if he be spared, can any move- A ment for his personal safety now wipe ' out What he justly terms the " incredible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons." We, the people, have never assented to an inscrutable policvof repudiation, and it may be some Desolation to have recorded, by tofse emphatic proofs, the deep and widespread sympathy which has so .stirred the national spirit,—l remain, Sir. \ yours faithfully, ' j> Paris, May 8. Burdett-Coutts. f