The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, DECEEMBER 10, 1878.

Waikato Times, Volume XII, Issue 1009, 10 December 1878, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

TUESDAY, DECEEMBER 10, 1878.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religioud or political. * ♦ ♦ * ♦ Hero shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influonco and anbribed by gain.

The war m Afghanistan is not likely to prove a weapon, m the hands of the Opposition of much danger to the British Uabinet. It has been from the first too successful to be v .popular. In most cases, that Great Britain has entered on a war, even of minor importance, her arms have met with some unexpected though temporary reverse, the result of incapacity m high places, that has loused the indignation of the people. Here it is quite different. The Indian sword has been kept sharp and loose m the scabbard, and the red tape of the Horse Guards has been powerless to bind the arm that wielded it, The march of our troops into Afghanistan has been one series of successes, and the last, that of General Roberts, at the Piewar Pass, appears to be of such importance that we are encouraged to look for a very speedy termination to a war which, from the first, unless allowed to assume large proportions by the involvement of one or more of the great Powers m the contest, never threatened to be a long or serious one. The Ameer of Afghanistan had a large and well appointed army, but, to withstand the arms and resources of England and Biitish India, a single array might soon leave its possessor, even if conqueror of a well fought field, to exclaim with the Carthagenian General " One more such victory, and lam .ruined." The British troops have now effected such a position, and hold such vantage ground for future operations, that negotiations will follow and the object of the Go vernraent be probably attained without further bloodshed. It would seem from the tenor of the telegrams published to-day, that the speedy termination of the war ia a foregone conclusion at home, for already the terms upon which a cessatiou of hostilities shall be based are forming subject of proposed discussion m the British Parliament,

But if, thanks to the friendly power which keeps Russia m check from active interference m Afghan affairs, and to the friendly attitude of the hill tribes, which has made the march of the British columns the triumphal advance that it has proved to be, affairs m India promise fco assume a speedy and peaceful solution, thfi state of matters m Europe is anything bat reassuring. We do not speak of the Eastern question, bat of a reore dangerous element than Russian ambition— the socialism and nihilism of the ultra reformers. There is an ominous rumbling m the lower strata of society m European capitals that forebodes a volcanic political eruption such as that which shook the thrones of Enrope m 1848. The assassination of the Russian Prefect of Police, and the impossibility of procuring the conviction of the guilty — the attacks on the lives of the Emperor of Germany, the Kings of Spain and Italy — and, later than these, the attempt at the wholesale destruction of the Austrian Cabinet by the explosion of a bomb-shell — are evidences that the red republicanism of the masses of the more autocratically governed countries of Enrope have reached that intensity of heat when revolution is the only vent. Nihilism m Russia and Socialism m Germany have undermined the very foundations of law and o»«der, and the social edifice is m danger, for Nihilism and Socialism aim not at constitutional reform but are simply content to destroy all government satisfied that out of the chaos that ensues a better one than that which they destroyed may grow. Nihilism is to liberalism what- license is to liberty. It is the desire for freedom, political and social, which sees no legitimate out'et for action, and, m •sheer desperation, strikes wildly and blindly at society. A people living under the blessings of Constitutional Cxovernment, can scarcely ieili.se SU/sU fk positinr, but to so

dangerous a disease have circumstances developed what is m tluim the electricity that keeps m healthy, circulation tho blood that vivifies the body, social and political. It is this organisation of secret societies m Europe, these throes and heavings of the great volcano of republicanism, which ruing powers have vainly sought to smother with the sheer weight of fores, that now thi eaten Europe. Beside it, the Eastern question and its complications are a mere bagatelle.