the present of former and deliberate acts contrary to the best interests of the nation) it is certain that within the last few weeks our adversaries have been allowed to encroach on us so as to give them a most appreciable ascendancy in the disputes which are yet to come – an ascendancy moral and strategical. But our position is becoming every day worse; and the price we shall have to pay for temporary peace, or the severity of the alternative war, increases in geometrical proportion to the lapse of time.
It has always been a boast of the party which follows Mr Gladstone, that it possesses the secret of keeping this country in profound and perfect peace. Wars, it says, are the games of unprincipled Tory administrations, who undertake them, not because they are necessary, but because they favour party views. Single-minded Liberals, who love peace for its own sake, will always steer the country clear of quarrels and warfare. Whether Mr Gladstone has lost his wand; whether the wand, being still with him, has lost its power; or whether the whole story about preserving peace was a wilful delusion, – certain it is that we have been vexed with wars ever since that minister of peace took our affairs in hand – a sufficiently damaging fact for his capacity or his honesty, one of the two. He has on more than one occasion with difficulty escaped the censure of the House of Commons; and he has not escaped the censure of consistent and impartial men. Lord Salisbury has pointedly and effectively described our condition under his rule. In acknowledging an address towards the end of April, his lordship says: "Our prospects darken every day, and our destinies are at the mercy of the irresolute purposes of a divided Cabinet, whose existence is only prolonged by the partisan fidelity of a majority, of which one-half disapproves their policy, and the other half loudly censures their conduct of affairs."
Two things, then, are in the highest degree to be dreaded: 1st, that he will (though not perhaps instantly) flounder into war with Russia; 2d, that by the time war is fairly declared, he will have been tricked and bullied out of more than the whole stake originally contended for. And these two things do not of themselves show our whole danger. We have an ally in this quarrel, the Ameer of Afghanistan. Mr Gladstone has acquired a somewhat evil notoriety by a readiness to desert our allies; and things point very persistently to the conclusion that the Ameer is to be deserted as others have been. Not to speak of the dishonour of this, which requires no exposition, we must suffer very material loss if the military power of the Afghan State be turned against us. This is a most imminent danger, concerning which the country ought to stir itself immediately.
The dread of war itself has naturally caused the dread of preparing for war; for with what face can that overseer make provision who assures us that armaments will never be wanted? He might, it is true, if he were prudent, make assurance doubly sure, by being at any rate secured against an untoward turn of events. But it is by no means Mr Gladstone's practice to take a bond of fate. He hazards all upon one cast, and when that fails him down he goes. It never seems to strike him that the confidence and arrogance which the enemy cannot fail to acquire through his irresolution and refining are formidable hindrances to composition of quarrels. It is always to be desired
