servative side, with the result that public feeling is being actively aroused for the necessity of letting daylight in upon these negotiations, which are discrediting British statesmanship and juggling away the interests of ourselves and our posterity.
Hitherto attention has been so much taken up with the anxieties and dangers of the diplomatic situation, that the question, Who is to blame for the presence of the Russians inside the Afghan border? has scarcely been raised. Yet this is a question that the English people must immediately put: and the interests which they have at stake are too vital for them to be contented with shuffling and evasive answers. It will not suffice to say that Russian aggressiveness and lust of territory are to blame. The blame must rest with those who, well knowing whither Muscovite intrigues were being pushed, took no precautions to meet and counteract them. It does not require much penetration to forecast the Premier's rejoinder that our difficulty with Russia, and the danger that will in future overshadow our power in the East, were the direct results of Lord Lytton's Afghan war: that our north-western movement from the Indian frontier was a confession of weakness in that direction, and consequent invitation to Russia; that it is another of those pernicious legacies which Lord Beaconsfield's Government left him. So certain are these to be the excuses behind which Mr Gladstone will seek to shelter himself, that we do not hesitate to run the risk of supplying him with them. But the public are getting tired of hearing each fresh disaster into which the Liberal Ministry flounders laid at the door of Lord Beaconsfield's Government. The damnosa hereditas plea has become monotonous. We must judge for ourselves about the exact degree of culpability which attaches to the different administrations under the auspices of whose carelessness Russia has been allowed to take up a position from which she is now able to menace and permanently affect British interests in Asia.
A very brief statement of facts will suffice to show our errors, and indicate by whom and under what colour of policy these errors were committed. It is not for purposes of mere recrimination that we take a retrospect of the proceedings which have led up to the recent crisis and present humiliation of England. We are rather concerned to gather from the mistakes of our past policy some lessons that may be useful in influencing our future conduct in Central Asia.
The conquest of Samarcand in 1868 is one of the great landmarks in Russia's southern advance. The step was important enough to excite the attention of Europe; and Russia waited with considerable anxiety for the verdict of political opinion. A Conservative Government was then in power in England, and the Foreign Office at St Petersburg knew that Tory Ministers were disposed to view their encroachments on the Khanates with grave mistrust. Perhaps it may be asked, Why then did not the Conservative Government challenge Russia's breaking up the Bokhara Khanate, or at least give some definite intimation that her advance must pause here? No doubt they would have done so but for the fact that on coming into office they found their hands tied by what really amounted to an understanding on the subject between Earl Russell and Prince Gortschakoff. From the fall of
