sensibility to a most menacing danger, and that he was incapable of understanding the relative positions of the two Powers in Central Asia, what a demonstration does it give us of his sagacity as a statesman, and of his fitness to be intrusted with the interests and resources of this great country!
But Mr Gladstone does not, as is well known, always mean what he says. He may have had many reasons other than disbelief in the danger for making light of Russia's advance and her threatening line of movements. Certain it is that, moved by some perverseness or other, he did neglect, and has neglected, to make provision for our safety and supremacy on the north-western frontier of our Indian empire; and that the quarrel which has so nearly plunged us in a horrid war, which has so severely taxed our resources, and which has defaced our honour, is entirely due to his unfitness for his position. It must be as plain now to the understanding as any part of the future can be, that our peace and our possessions are not safe from day to day while he remains Prime Minister. Though the quarrel with Russia has been the most alarming of his quarrels, it has been by no means the only one; and assuredly, if he should remain in office, it will not be the last. He has shown a genius for getting into hot water with foreign States, which has distinguished him throughout his administration; and this in face of his oft-vaunted doctrine about "the concert of Europe," which sounds much like a sarcasm now. The "crisis" has shown that we have not a single ally to stand by us. And this is the case to which Britain has been brought by Mr Gladstone – Britain who used to lead in the councils of Europe, and
whose alliance was sought by all the nations! Yet so it is. We are avoided; and through most erring guidance we are continually embroiled in some dispute or other. Our late acceptance of insult and wrong will encourage our neighbours to peck at us. We shall have disputing enough; and prob- ably serious losses and humiliations are in store for us unless we put our affairs into more trustworthy hands. Mr Gladstone shouted "hands off" to Austria, who has never given any evidence of why she was so rudely called to order; while to Russia he gave no word of caution, and yet it was in the enforcement of palpable robberies that Russia has just been holding him "in chancery."
The third article requires no proof; only a statement of facts that are notorious and are not denied on either side – namely, that our commissioner waited many months in vain for the Russian commissioner, who was, according to arrangement agreed to by the Russian Government, to meet him; that an agreement concerning the line of frontier was broken, or, as Mr Gladstone put it, "was allowed to lapse"; that a second agreement was not only not observed, but in place of observing it, the Russian troops advanced, attacked and defeated our allies, obliged our commissioner to decamp precipitately, and seized upon a boundary in advance of any that had previously been in question – which boundary, so audaciously and unfairly arrived at, they have been allowed to retain. These facts fully sustain the accusation that our Minister has been tricked out of, or driven from, positions which it was his duty to have maintained.
We come now to the fourth charge concerning Mr Gladstone's
