Sitting of 26 February 1885

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading Post Office Sites* [72]; Hyde Park Corner (New Streets)* [73]; Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on Sunday (No. 2)* [74].
Second Reading—Private Bill Legislation [25], debate farther adjourned.

NOTICES.
  EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN—VOTE OF CENSURE.
    NOTICE (MR. HENEAGE).
    MR. HENEAGE: As an Amendment to Lord George Hamilton's proposed Amendment, to move to leave out the word "Government," and insert the word "Opposition."

    NOTICE (MR. C. B. M'LAREN).
    MR. C. B. M'LAREN: As an Amendment to Sir Stafford Northcote's Motion on Egypt and the Soudan, to move to leave out all the words after the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to insert the words—
    "This House continues to support Her Majesty's Government, in the confident belief that in the affairs of Egypt they will act in accordance with the principles of foreign policy upheld by the First Lord of the Treasury at the period of the General Election of 1880."

PARLIAMENT—NEW RULES OF PROCEDURE—RULE I (PUTTING THE QUESTION).
  NOTICE (MR. SEXTON).
  MR. SEXTONgave Notice that, in the event of the regular Motion for going into Committee of Supply being made to-morrow, he would move an Amendment expressing regret at the action taken by the Speaker during the Sitting of the House on Tuesday—first, in directing Mr. William Redmond to discontinue his speech under the Standing Order on continued irrelevance and tedious repetition; secondly, in informing the House that the Motion of the Prime Minister had been adequately discussed, and that it was the evident sense of the House that the Question should then be put; and, thirdly, in Naming Mr. O'Brien on the ground of disorderly interruption; and setting forth that these acts of the Speaker constituted an excessive application of the several powers vested in him by the three respective Standing Orders.
QUESTIONS.

  VACCINATION ACTS (LEICESTER AND OTHER TOWNS).
  MR. PICTONasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether he has had his attention drawn to the fact that, in the town of Leicester, there are now upwards of four thousand parents threatened with prosecution, on account of their conscientious refusal to allow their infant children to be vaccinated; whether a similar difficulty in enforcing the Law is experienced in Keighley, Dewsbury, Derby, Eastbourne, and other places; whether these places have remained practically free from smallpox, while London, Birmingham, and several other districts, reported as well vaccinated, have repeatedly suffered from epidemic visitations of the disease; whether resistance to compulsory vaccination shows, on the whole, a marked increase since the last inquiry into the subject by a Committee of this House; and, whether, under these circumstances, the Government will institute a fresh inquiry by commission, or by a Committee of this House, into the working of the Vaccination Acts?
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELL: We are aware that in Leicester, Keighley, Dews-
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  bury, and the other towns specified there are a large number of persons who are in default under the Vaccination Acts on account of the non-vaccination of their children. In these towns, and in some three or four others, where there has been no recent experience of small-pox epidemics, there is, no doubt, on the part of some of the inhabitants, a strong anti-vaccination feeling. But although these places have for some years past been practically free from small-pox, the same may be said of many other towns. London, it is true, has suffered from severe epidemics, and small-pox has been prevalent in Birmingham; but in London especially epidemics are dependent on a number of conditions besides the universality of infantile vaccination. More to the purpose than a proposal to compare small-pox incidence in particular towns is a comparison between the incidence of small-pox upon the vaccinated and upon the unvaccinated when smallpox becomes epidemic in a town. We have no evidence of any general increase in resistance to the Vaccination Acts. The last Returns show no falling-off as regards the proportion of children vaccinated, less than 5 per cent of the children born being reported as unaccounted for. The whole subject was fully considered by a Select Committee of this House in 1871; and we do not think that there would be any advantage, at the present time, in a further inquiry being instituted by a Commission or Committee of the House.

  EXPLOSIVES ACT—DYNAMITE EXPLOSION NEAR LARNE.
  MR. GREERasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether he is aware that the disabled schooner Essequibo, now lying in Larne Harbour, contains a quantity of dynamite; whether two fatal accidents have already been caused by a portion of this dynamite; and, whether he intends taking any, and what, steps to have the dangerous cargo removed?
  MR. J. HOLMS: My hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty has asked me to answer this Question. I am informed that this vessel, formerly used as a dynamite magazine, is lying in Lorne Lough, and has long been abandoned. The tide flows into and out of the hulk, which does not in any way interfere with the navigation or fairway of the harbour. Her cargo seems to

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  have been removed in 1875; but it would appear that some nitro-glycerine had previously exuded from the dynamite, and may to some extent have saturated, what is left on board. I understand that two men lately removed an old pump from her without any authority and took it on shore. When striking it with a hammer to break it up the men were killed through an explosion of nitro-glycerine which was in it. I am in communication with the Home Office on the subject.

  THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS—PERSONAL EXPLANATION (MR. G. RUSSELL).
  MR. LEWIShad given Notice of the following Question:—
  "To ask the First Lord of the Treasury, If his attention has been drawn to a Letter, dated 13th February, purporting to have been addressed from the Local Government Board by the honourable Member for Aylesbury, the Secretary of that Board, to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, requesting them to make a grant of land to the inhabitants of Fulham (for which district that honourable Member had announced his candidature), and to the fact that this Letter was published in all the evening papers as an official Letter, without waiting for an answer from the Commissioners; and, whether he gave any sanction to this proceeding?"
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELL: At the request of the Prime Minister, I will, by leave of the House, make a brief personal explanation with reference to the Question which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Londonderry. The Prime Minister knew nothing about the circumstances of this Question till his attention was called to them by the Question. On the morning on which Earl Stanhope's letter from the Ecclesiastical Commission appeared in the daily papers, I received a visit from a gentleman resident in West Kensington, who had taken a prominent part last year in regard to this piece of ground. This gentleman knew that during Office hours I was sure to be found at my desk; and, therefore, he called upon me at the Local Government Board. He drew my attention to Earl Stanhope's letter, and asked whether I could do anything to extend the boon to West Kensington. I immediately wrote the letter to which the hon. Member's Question refers. I admit that it would have been better if I had struck out the
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  words "Local Government Board" at the head of the letter, and written instead my private address, 18, Wilton Street; but I omitted to do so through inadvertence. I can assure the hon. Member that, in all further Correspondence on this subject, I will take care that what he wishes to be done shall be done.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING—RED SEA LIGHTS.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade, Whether his attention has been called to the importance of placing a lighthouse on Abu Ail Island, which is off the northeast end of Jebel Tukar Island in the Red Sea; and, whether he will take steps to promote the construction of such a lighthouse?
  MR. J. HOLMS: My attention has for some time been directed to the necessity for a light in the Channel between the two Islands named in the hon. Member's Question; and I have been, and am still, in communication with the Foreign Office on the subject. The present aspect of affairs on the coast of the Red Sea is not altogether favourable to progress in a matter of this description; but I shall lose no opportunity of continuing my endeavours to promote the proper lighting of the vicinity of Abu Ail.

  NORTHERN LIGHTS COMMISSIONERS—THE ORKNEY AND SHETLAND ISLANDS.
  MR. J. W. BARCLAYasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade, Whether the Trinity House authorities have as yet reported on the scheme of the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners for lighting the Orkney and Shetland Islands; and, whether, considering the desirability of relieving the navigation in the English channel by lighting up a passage round the North of Scotland, the Trinity House authorities will, in the coming summer, visit the localities, with the view of coming to an early decision on the subject?
  MR. J. HOLMS: The Elder Brethren of the Trinity House inform me that they intend to visit the Orkney and Shetland Islands in the course of the ensuing summer, before reporting on the very extensive proposals now before them for additional lights there.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION WITH LIGHT VESSELS.
  MR. LEAasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade, If telegraphic communication has been established between the Sunk Lightship and the shore; and, if the experience of its working is so satisfactory as to induce its extension to other lightships or to lighthouses?
  MR. J. HOLMS: The experiment of connecting the Sunk Lightship with the shore by electric cable commenced last December, and is to continue for 12 months. If at the end of that period it has worked, and is working, satisfactorily, the Trinity House are to take over the cable from the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, who are not to be paid before the cable is taken over. It will be well to await the result of the first 12 months' working before considering the question of extending the experiment to other stations.

  PURCHASE OF LAND (IRELAND) BILL—LEGISLATION.
  MR. T. A. DICKSONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutentant of Ireland, If the Government intend reintroducing "The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill;" and, if so, when?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Prime Minister has already stated that the Government cannot make any announcement as to their legislative proposals until progress has been made with the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill; and though they fully recognize the great importance of the subject referred to in this Question, it must be comprehended, with others of an equally pressing and important nature, in that general statement.

  PUBLIC MEETINGS (IRELAND)—MURRINTOWN MEETING (PROCLAMATIONS).
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he will explain to the House the reasons which the Government had for the suppression of the meeting that was to have been held at Murrintown, county Wexford, on the 8th of this month; whether Lord Maurice Fitzgerald, of Johnstone Castle, was one of the persons who gave infor-
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  mation to the Castle that the Murrintown meeting would cause disturbance; and, whether he will state the names of all the persons who were instrumental in procuring the proclamation of the proposed peaceable meeting?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not prepared to state the names of any persons who were in communication with the Lord Lieutenant with reference to the Murrintown meeting. That meeting was prohibited by His Excellency on grounds which satisfied him that the holding of it would be likely to endanger the public peace and safety. Among these grounds, and one of the most important, was the character of the placard convening the meeting, which was in these terms—
  "A monster meeting will be held in Murrintown, on Sunday, February 8, for the perfection of all the local organisations, and to prove to the enemies of the popular movement that the people are still as united and as determined to strike down oppression, to abolish landlordism, and to win for all the toiling classes their just rights, as in the palmiest days of the Land League. Up farmers! Up labourers! Up tradesmen! Union is strength. Your cause is the same—The abolition of rent. What is rent? A tax upon the industries of the people! A tax by which the labourers' pockets are picked! A tax by which those who toil not, nor do anything to increase the material prosperity of the country, swill, guzzle, eat, and fatten upon the wealth produced by the honest and tortured toilers. Now's the day, and now's the hour! We have the men to lead; we have the men to follow. Come forward ye hesitating and timid, and show yourselves. Knaves and traitors stand aside. Home Rule we are going to have, and the land for the people, too. Then every farmer and every labourer can look round his farm or plot, and say—'This land is mine, and no man dares turn me out!' The land is the people's! Away with landlordism. Away with rent. God save Ireland! Hurrah for Parnell!"
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Inconsequence of what I conceive to be the highly unsatisfactory answer of the right hon. Gentleman, I give Notice that I will take the earliest opportunity of urging upon the right hon. Gentleman, and the Government in Ireland generally, the extreme desirability of putting down the practice of land-grabbing in that country.
  MR. BARRY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, instead of one meeting, three meetings were held a short distance from Murrintown; and if he is aware whether any breach of the peace resulted from them?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not imagine that there was any prospect of an immediate breach of the public peace; but it was believed that the holding of such a meeting, especially as it was convened in such terms as I have read to the House, was certainly likely to disturb the peace and quiet of the neighbourhood.
  MR. BARRY: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider the supposition in the minds of half-a-dozen people should override the opinion of an entire county?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I did not say so.
  MR. HEALT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the paragraphs of the placards which he has read were copied almost textually from the speeches of a Cabinet Minister named Chamberlain?
  [No reply.]

  INDIA—EAST INDIAN RAILWAY COMMUNICATIONS—THE SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. JACKSONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he can state what steps, if any, have been taken to give effect to the recommendation of the Select Committee on East Indian Railway Communications; and, whether any contracts have been entered into for the making of new lines of Railway?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: An agreement has been entered into with a Company for the construction of the Bhopal, Gwalior, and Cawnpore line and certain branches, in all about 605 miles. Communications have also been opened with another Company for the construction of the Calcutta-Nagpore line; but the state of the Money Market has hitherto prevented a definite arrangement being made.

  HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION—BREAKWATERS AND HARBOURS IN IRELAND.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether his attention has been directed to the Report of the Select Committee on Harbour Accommodation last year, in which, referring to the new method of constructing piers and breakwaters in solid monolithic walls of concrete, they say—
  "They are unanimous in declaring that the new system is far preferable to the older system of rubble or pierre perdue foundation;"
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  whether it has been reported to the Treasury by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland that the foundations of the breakwater now being constructed at Arklow have given way, and the superstructure cracked through in several places; whether the breakwater is being built on the new or the old system; whether the ship and boat owners addressed an unavailing protest to the Board of Works against the plans of the engineer before the contract was entered into; whether it is the case that the Wicklow Breakwater has been constructed on the new system, and is a decided success; what is the sum already expended at Arklow; would it be possible now to finish the work on the new system; and, how is the extra cost caused by the defective plan and construction to be provided for?
  MR. HIBBERT: The Board of Works now use the monolithic system of construction wherever possible; and this was the case at Wicklow. The nature of the foundation at Arklow, and other circumstances, rendered this system inappropriate there; and a different method of construction was adopted, not, however, that condemned by the Select Committee. The objection of the boat owners was to the general arrangement of the pier and breakwater, and has been fully considered. The two recent severe storms have caused a slight subsidence of some of the concrete blocks, which is of no structural importance, and has been remedied at a trifling cost. The expenditure on the pier, to date, has been £17,534, and no excess is expected on the total amount sanctioned. To change now the method of construction would be costly, and otherwise undesirable.
  MR. KENNYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If he will give the House a Return showing the total number of piers and harbours constructed or extended in Ireland for the past ten years, under plans and specifications supplied by the Irish Board of Works; the number which have fallen into disuse owing to the defective manner of construction; piers which have given way in structure, and upon which it has been or is necessary to expend additional sums of money for purposes of repair, and the sources from which such additional sums have been derived?
  MR. HIBBERT: If the hon. Member will refer to the terms of a Return to be moved for by the hon. Member for Donegal, to which I have assented, he will see that the information he desires will be supplied by it, so far as it can be given.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—ELECTION OF GUARDIANS—THE CLERK OF THE ROSCREA UNION.
  MR. MAYNEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he is aware that the clerk of the Roscrea Union, acting as returning officer, refuses to permit the National candidates to be present at the examination of the voting papers at elections for Poor Law Guardians in his Union, giving no reason to them for his so doing, but merely a point blank refusal; whether Article 20 of the Local Government Board's Circular, dated 16th January 1863. directs that clerks of Unions, before excluding either candidates or their proposers from the examination of voting papers, should be prepared to show some urgent reason for taking a step which "would seem to be unnecessary and unreasonable;" whether this gentleman has furnished the Local Government Board with any urgent or sufficient reason for his so excluding the National candidates; and, whether, in the absence of any such urgent reason for their exclusion, the Local Government Board will direct this returning officer to admit such of the candidates and their proposers as desire it to be present at the examination of the voting papers at the present and future elections?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No complaints on this subject have recently reached the Local Government Board, who, in March of last year, pointed out to the Returning Officer what his duty is in such cases? The Board have no reason to suppose that the Returning Officer acts in opposition to their views as there given; but if it is shown that he does so, they will be prepared to give the case further consideration.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—DISTRICT MEDICAL OFFICERS ACTING AS LAND AGENTS.
  MR. KENNYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
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  If it is usual or legal that the dispensary doctor of a district should be a land agent in the same district; and, whether, in the event of any instances being supplied him of such a state of facts, he will, as President of the Irish Local Government Board, cause steps to be taken to remedy it?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: As a medical officer of a district is not bound to give his whole time to the duties of his office, it would not be illegal, though it is not usual, for him to act as a land agent. If, however, it were shown that a medical officer undertook work of any kind that interfered with his official duties, the Local Government Board would take such steps as appeared necessary to secure due attention to the sick poor.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—INQUIRY AT EDENDERRY, KING'S COUNTY—MR. GEORGE DUNNE.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, at the Poor Law inquiry recently held by Dr. Burke at Edenderry, King's County, Mr. George Dunne, Commissioner for taking affidavits, was examined as a witness; whether, on that occasion, ho swore that one Behan was a monthly tenant of his at a pound a month, and that at the last payment Behan paid six pounds together for six months' rent; whether the counsel for the other side handed to the inspector four half-yearly receipts for rent given by Dunne to Behan, dated May and November in each year; whether the evidence and receipts are still in the hands of the Local Government Board; and, whether the matter has been brought under the notice of the Lord Chancellor or other Government official with a view to a prosecution?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The facts are substantially as stated in the Question, and Mr. Dunne added in his evidence that he accepted the rent from Behan in sums to suit his convenience. There was no conflict of evidence as to the fact of Mr. Dunne accepting half a-year's rent at a time from Behan, who was rated as the occupier of the house, and was allowed to vote; and the only difference of opinion appears to be as to whether Behan should be regarded as a yearly or a monthly tenant. There is, therefore, nothing in the case

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  rendering it necessary to bring it under the notice of the Lord Chancellor, or any other Government official, with a view to a prosecution.

  ARMY (NUMBERS)—THE 3RD BATTALION RIFLE BRIGADE.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONasked the Secretary of State for War, If it is not a fact within the cognizance of the War Office, that out of 735 rank and file of the 3rd Battalion Rifle Brigade, on their way to garrison Gibraltar, 254 men have never been through a course of musketry; and how many of the 735 rank and file have not completed one and two years' service respectively?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I regret to have to repeat that I cannot give details as to the constitution of individual corps. I may, however, remark that the battalion in question is not going to the Soudan, but to Gibraltar, where musketry drill and practice can be carried on for recruits or other soldiers quite as well as at home.

  EGYPT—WAR IN THE SOUDAN—THE ARMY AT KORTI.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked the Secretary of State for War, What preparations, if any, are being made by boats or otherwise to maintain the communications and supplies of the Army at Korti during spring and summer?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: The maintenance of communications on the Nile during summer is a matter for Lord Wolseley to arrange in conjunction with Sir Frederick Stephenson. Any requisitions which the Generals may make connected with the subject are receiving, and will continue to receive, immediate attention.

  FRANCE—ALLEGED MEETING OF DYNAMITERS IN PARIS.
  MR. GREGORYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been directed to a statement in The Times and Standard newspapers of the 24th instant, of a meeting of conspirators in Paris, with the avowed object of destroying buildings and sacrificing human life in this Country; and, whether he has any reason to believe such statement to be correct; and, if so, whether he can give the
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  House an assurance of the friendly offices of the French Government in the detection and arrest of the gang?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: No, Sir; the information I have is that these sensational paragraphs are not well founded.

  NAVY ESTIMATES—SERVICE IN EGYPT—PAY AND ALLOWANCES.
  MR. W. H. SMITHasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, When the Estimates for the pay and allowances of 1,000 men, Officers, Seamen, and Marines for Service in Egypt, referred to in page 11 of the Navy Estimates, will be presented to the House, and why the sum required is not included in the Navy Estimates for the coming year; and, whether this additional Estimate will make provision for any other charges falling upon Navy funds for services in Egypt?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: The pay and allowances for 1,000 men for Service in Egypt will be provided for in a special Vote which will be laid on the Table in a few days, at the same time as the similar Vote for the Army. It was thought desirable to confine these charges in Estimates to ordinary Naval Services, with the addition only of expenses connected with the Army of Occupation and the transport of the Force in Bechuanaland.

  NAVY—TIME-EXPIRED MEN.
  MR. W. H. SMITHasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, If the Government have the power to retain time-expired men in the Navy, whether Seamen or Marines, and whether it is their intention to exercise that power; if it is, will some addition be made to the pay of the men during the period of their additional service, and a subsequent increase of pension be accorded to them proportionate to that prolongation of service, recommendations to that effect having been made by competent officers who, at the request of successive Boards of Admiralty, have considered and reported on the subject?
  MR. CAINE(who replied) said: The Commanders-in-Chief on Foreign Stations have power to retain the services of time-expired seamen in the Navy in any emergency until such emergency shall have ceased. There is no intention to exercise such power at present; but,

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  should it be exercised, extra pay of 2d. a-day would be given, and the additional time served would count for pension, in accordance with the Regulations. At home there is no power to retain the services of time-expired seamen, except by a Royal Proclamation. By law, time-expired men of the Marines can be retained on Foreign Stations for such further time, not exceeding two years, as shall be directed by the Commanding Officer. Should such power be exercised, the additional time served would count for pension, in accordance with the Regulations. The right hon. Gentleman is probably aware that it is open to certain classes in the Navy—petty officers of the seamen class, certain artificers, leading stokers, and stokers—-to re-engage voluntarily for a third term of service. The Regulations provide for an increase of pay and pension in such circumstances; 157 men have re-engaged since 1880 under the Regulations.

  EDUCATION (IRELAND)—THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, When the Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Standard of Education in the Queen's Colleges will be in the hands of Members?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,in reply, said, the Report on the subject was only finally signed on the 23rd instant, and was presented on the following day. Its distribution is now merely a question of printing.

  EDUCATION (IRELAND)—PARSONSTOWN MODEL SCHOOL—SUICIDE OF THE MASTER, MR. JOHN BUTLER.
  MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that Mr. John Butler, late head-master of the Parsonstown Model School, committed suicide by shooting himself with a rifle on Sunday, 7th December, 1884, a few days before the time fixed for the results examination of his school; whether any investigation has been held by the Commissioners of National Education regarding the statement in the newspapers that "apprehension as to this examination
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  had preyed on his mind;" whether any threats of dismissal, reprimand, or other form of punishment had been held out to him by the Commissioners or their officers in reference to this or any previous examination; whether it is the fact that all Mr. Butler's predecessors in the head-masterships were Catholics; and, whether, in departing from the usual line of appointment, events have justified the wisdom and foresight of the Commissioners?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Mr. Butler committed suicide on the 7th of December, 12 days before the date appointed for his results' examination. The Report on the school for the previous year had been unfavourable; and he had been warned that if the next Report were not generally satisfactory the Commissioners would have to consider the propriety of removing him. The Commissioners have received a full Report of the case from their Inspector. It contains no reference to such a cause of the suicide as that stated in the Question; but it points to the fact, of which the Commissioners were not previously aware, that Mr. Butler had been in a lunatic asylum. Mr. Butler's predecessors had been Catholics; but the great preponderance of the pupils in the school were Protestants, and a teacher of this persuasion was selected in accordance with a Regulation made in 1878, that the teacher, as a rule, shall be of the religion of the majority of his pupils. The Commissioners have no reason to be dissatisfied with the operation of this Rule.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—ELECTION OF GUARDIANS—MAGHERACLOGHER DIVISION, DUNFANAGHY UNION.
  MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the election of a Poor Law Guardian, in March 1884, for the Magheraclogher Division of the Dunfanaghy Union having been set aside, the relieving officer held a new election in July 1884, and allowed a vote to John Williams, petty sessions clerk, Bunbeg, though warned that John Williams had not been in occupation of the qualifying-premises for eleven years, and this July election having been also set aside, a second new election was held last month, at which John Williams, petty sessions

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  clerk, again tendered a fraudulent vote, which was again, in the face of a protest on the spot, received and counted by the returning officer; what explanation of these proceedings is given by the Local Government Board; what notice the Government will take of the conduct of the petty sessions clerk; and, whether the returning officer in question will be permitted to act in that capacity in the forthcoming annual election of Poor Law Guardians for the Dunfanaghy Union?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It appears that Mr. Williams did vote on both the occasions specified; and the Returning Officer, on being referred to, states that Mr. Williams was allowed to do so as he appeared to be, on each occasion, the rated occupier of premises entitling him to vote. The Local Government Board have no evidence before them to the contrary, and have no reason to believe that the action of the Returning Officer in connection with this vote was such as to render him undeserving of confidence.

  THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ARMY EXPENDITURE.
  MR. BUCHANANasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it will be within the scope of the proposed Select Committee on Army Expenditure to consider the financial relations of the Home and Indian Armies, and the amount and details of the Home charges, in connection with the Indian Army, which are thrown on the Indian Exchequer?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUEE (Mr. CHILDERS): It will be in the province of the Select Committee to decide what items of Army Expenditure it will take up and discuss. I should question whether the details of the Home charges falling on the Indian Exchequer were within the proposed Reference; but this will be a matter for the Committee.

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS—CONSERVATIVE "RELIEF" TICKETS.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSasked Mr. Attorney General, If his attention has been called to the fact that tickets, of which the following is a copy, are being largely distributed by the Conservative Association in Birmingham:—
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  "Small Heath Conservative Association.
  Relief for the Unemployed.
  The hearer is entitled to goods to the value of sixpence upon presenting this ticket to
  Mr.—Grocer."
  and that these tickets are stamped with the name of the Ward Conservative Association which issues them, and with the name and address of the Secretary of the Association; and, whether this proceeding is a violation of the Corrupt Practices Act?
  THE ATTOTRNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES),in reply, said, the only information that he had on the subject was a copy of the ticket that had been sent to him, and which appeared to have been issued. He was very unwilling to express any opinion in anticipation of matters that might come up for legal decision; but he thought everyone would agree with him that any connection between political organizations and free gifts of money or food was to be regretted, and ought to be avoided if possible. If any Association, Liberal or Conservative, had asked his advice on such a subject, he would have certainly suggested that there were grave doubts as to the legality of the practice. If any candidate were to accept the services of an organization concerned in such proceedings he would run considerable risk.

  ARMY—HOME BATTALIONS (NUMBERS).
  SIR HARRY VERNEYasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will consider the propriety of increasing the efficiency of the Army by filling up the Home Battalions of Regiments, in India or elsewhere Abroad, to the strength of say 800 men, which would supply the drafts made from the Battalion, without too much weakening it?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: The subject of increasing the low-strength battalions has of late engaged considerable attention. When the Army Estimates are distributed, the hon. Baronet will see that all the low-strength battalions have been raised to an establishment of 600 rank and file, which, with a depot of 50, is regarded as a sufficient strength to supply the draft, without unduly weakening the Home Battalion.

  THE LUNACY LAWS—LEGISLATION.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he has noticed the following statement in the last Report of the Lunacy Commissioners:—
  "The large annual addition to the number of insane persons under care has produced in some quarters an impression that insanity itself is much on the increase. On examination, however, of the figures now under consideration, it will be found that the increase is almost entirely due' to accumulation of chronic cases, so that the community at large would not appear more liable than formerly to be attacked with insanity;"
  whether this accumulation of chronic cases has been used by the Commissioners for a series of years to account for the continuous increase of numbers; whether the registered insane in the United Kingdom, including Ireland and Scotland, have nearly doubled within a comparatively brief period, being in 1862 55,525 as against 103,660 at the date of the last Returns; and, whether, in view of the great increase of numbers, as shown by these figures, and of the emphasis laid by the Commissioners on—
  "The imperative necessity of making the accommodation for such accumulated cases keep pace with the requirements,"
  and considering the unsatisfactory state of the Lunacy Laws generally, he will consent to the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the whole subject of lunacy and lunatic asylums before further legislation is carried out?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER,in reply, said, the Secretary of State bad not had his attention specially drawn to the point raised by the hon. Member, and had not yet been able to ascertain whether the increase of chronic eases had been used in the manner suggested. The Lord Chancellor was about to introduce into the House of Lords a Bill to amend the Lunacy Laws. The matter had been so fully gone into by a previous Committee that it was not necessary now to appoint another one.
  MR. W. J. CORBET: Will the Bill extend to Ireland?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I am not in a position to answer that Question.

  THE GENERAL ARMY RETURN.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked the Secretary of State for War, When
  1412
  the General Annual Return for the Army for 1884 will be issued?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: The number of regiments on field service increases the difficulty of preparing this Return; but every effort is being made to complete the "Preliminary General Annual Return," to which, I presume, the hon. Member refers, by the 1st of April, the date fixed for its yearly appearance. There is no probability of the final Return being ready earlier than in past years.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked, whether the noble Marquess would furnish a statement showing the effective strength on the 1st of January?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he would see whether that could be done.

  TRAMWAYS (IRELAND)—CO. DONEGAL.
  MR. LEAasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If only four out of the one hundred and two miles of tramway and light railways projected and brought before the Grand Jury of the county of Donegal have been passed by the Privy Council; if the result is similar in the other districts of the West of Ireland, to benefit which the Tramways and Light Railways Act was chiefly passed; and, if the Act, being thus practically useless, will the Government undertake its early amendment?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not aware of the exact mileage of the tramways and light railways that have been projected in County Donegal under the Tramways Act of 1883; but it appears that three schemes, covering in all 33 miles, came before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council from that county, and that only one of these, a line of four miles in length, passed the Committee. Of the other two, one was rejected because the estimate was considered unsatisfactory; and the other because it was proposed to tax an area that could not benefit by the line. I find that in the four counties of Galway, Sligo, Clare, and Kerry, schemes for 239 miles came before the Privy Council, and 99 miles were passed. It cannot be said, when over 100 miles have been approved in the counties I have named, that the Act has proved "practically useless." Some of the schemes that have been rejected will again be

  1413
  brought forward, and perhaps, with experience, the difficulties will be overcome. The matter is one of great importance; and the Government will carefully watch the operation of the Act, both in the working of schemes already passed, and with reference to new proposals.

  MEDICAL ACT AMENDMENT BILL—LEGISLATION.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council, If he will state what his intentions are with regard to the Medical Act Amendment Bill?
  MR. MUNDELLA: This matter is at present under consideration; but I am not yet in a position to make any definite statement upon it.

  THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION—JUDICIAL RENTS.
  MR. BARRYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that grave and widespread dissatisfaction exists in Ireland at the judicial rents fixed by the Land Commissioners; and, whether, in view of the continued depreciation in the value of land in Ireland, and the increasing severity of foreign competition, he will take any steps to amend that section of "The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881," which fixes the judicial rent for a term of fifteen years?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not aware that such dissatisfaction as that implied in the Question of the hon. Member exists in Ireland at the judicial rents fixed by the Land Commissioners; and there is no intention on the part of the Government to take any steps to amend the section of the Land Act referred to?
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether he has not heard of several deputations of tenants applying to landlords for reductions in the judicial?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: There is all the world over dissatisfaction with rent. I do not suppose there is anywhere in which that dissatisfaction does not exist; but the hon. Member's Question referred to widespread dissatisfaction existing all over Ireland with the judicial rents.
  MR. BARRY: In consequence of the extraordinary reply of the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to give Notice that I will call attention to this matter at the earliest opportunity.

  ENDOWED SCHOOLS COMMISSIONERS—THE KELSICK SCHOOL, AMBLESIDE.
  MR. W. LOWTHERasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council, Whether the stipulations of the Act of Parliament, which requires that an Education Scheme should remain upon the Table of the House sixty days, have been complied with as regards the Kelsick School, at Ambleside, the Scheme having been laid upon the Table of the House on the 23rd October, notice of objection having been given for the 17th November and 9th December; and, whether, though Parliament was adjourned on the 6th December, there is not still a period during which the Scheme may be considered as lying upon the Table of the House?
  MR. MUNDELLA: The scheme relating to this school was laid upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament on the 23rd of October last; and I am advised that, having lain not less than two months during the same Session of Parliament, the conditions of the statute have been fulfilled, and that I have no further discretion in the matter.

  AFRICA (WEST COAST)—REPORTED REVOLT ON THE GOLD COAST.
  SIR HENRY HOLLANDasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether there is any truth in the report that the natives have revolted at Quittah, on the Gold Coast, and that the Governor was severely wounded; and, whether he can state to the House what has occurred there?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: The report to which my hon. Friend refers has only appeared in German newspapers, and conveys a very exaggerated view of the matter. There has been nothing more than a very serious police affray. On the 17th of January a party of Houssa police, under the command of District Commissioner Campbell, were attacked some little distance from Quittah by a body of the Awoonah tribe. One of their Chiefs was being taken away by the police on account of his action on the previous day in heading a

  1415
  body of these same Natives who had stopped a smaller body of police who were escorting a prisoner to Accra. The Houssas had to use their arms in self-defence, and the District Commissioner was badly wounded.

  ARMY—CHELSEA HOSPITAL—TRANSFERENCE OF THE PENSION WORK TO THE WAR OFFICE.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is still in contemplation to remove the pension work from Chelsea Hospital to the War Office; and, if any change is to be made in the present arrangements connected with Chelsea Hospital?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: There is no immediate intention of making the change referred to. It is dependent on the question of accommodation, which is unlikely to be settled until the new War Office is built.

  NAVY—NEW DESIGNS FOR SHIPS.
  SIR EDWARD J. REEDasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, If he will be good enough to state what facilities will be offered to those Members of Parliament who may desire to see the drawings of Her Majesty's Ships of the Admiral class, which are now under construction, and for which Votes are asked in the Navy Estimates of the present year?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: Arrangements will be made to enable Members of Parliament to see the drawings of the Admiral class at the Admiralty. An officer will be in attendance ready to offer the necessary explanations at any time which hon. Members may appoint by letter to the Controller of the Navy.
  SIR EDWARD J. REEDasked, Whether the experiments upon models of ships, which were conducted for the Admiralty by the late Mr. W. Froude, are being continued by his son, Mr. R. E. Froude; and, if so, in what place, at what annual expense, and under what conditions, also under what Vote and Sub-Vote of the Navy Estimates their expense is to be found; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House an annual Report upon the results obtained, together with such of Mr. Froude's Reports as may be useful! to naval architects and men of science generally?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: The experiments are being continued by Mr. R. E. Froude at Torquay, at an annual cost of about £2,000. The expense is chargeable to the experimental item of Vote 10, Section 2.

  AFRICA (EAST COAST)—OCCUPATION OF MASSOWAH BY ITALY.
  MR. M'COANasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the occupation of Massowah and the other operations by Italian troops on the west coast of the Red Sea have the assent or approval of Her Majesty's Government; and, whether any Correspondence has passed between the Foreign Office and the Italian Government on the subject of such operations; and, if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table of the House?
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked, Whether the Italian occupation of Massowah is adverse to the claim of Abyssinia to an independent outlet to the sea at that place?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: The Prime Minister will reply to a Question on this subject; but I propose, in the course of debate to-morrow, to make a statement on this subject, as requested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen). This will be a more convenient course than to reply within the narrow limits usually assigned to the answer to a Question; but I may at once inform my hon. Friend that Papers will be laid without delay. The Italian Government have stated their intention to respect the Treaty between England, Egypt, and Abyssinia, and to do all in their power to facilitate Abyssinian trade.

  SPAIN—COMMERCIAL NEGOTIATIONS.
  MR. TOMLINSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What questions of policy prevent Her Majesty's Government from negotiating with the Government of Spain with the view of relieving the importation of British goods into the Spanish Antilles from the adverse differential treatment in respect to duties to which it is now subjected?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: I am afraid that my hon. Friend has I misunderstood the reply which I gave on Monday. I then stated that whether

  1417
  Her Majesty's Government entered into negotiations with Spain respecting the admission of British goods into the Spanish Antilles was a question of policy; and it was not my intention to convey that Her Majesty's Government were prevented by questions of policy from entering on these negotiations.

  PARLIAMENT—THE STANDING COMMITTEES ON LAW AND TRADE.
  MR. RAIKESasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is his intention, during the present Session, to propose the revival of the Standing Committees on Law and Trade?
  MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, that this would depend on the measures the Government decided to proceed with, and they could not make up their minds on that point until some progress had been made with the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill. Ample Notice should be given of any proposal to revive the Committees.

  EGYPT—THE MILITARY EXPEDITION—LORD WOLSELEY'S INSTRUCTIONS.
  MR. ONSLOWasked the First Lord of the Treasury, How it is that the instructions sent to Lord Wolseley defining the relative position of himself and General Gordon, and which were promised to be laid upon the Table as soon as it was felt that it could be done without practical inconvenience (November 10th, 1884), have not as yet been circulated to Members?
  MR. GLADSTONE: There is no objection to lay the Papers on the Table.

  AFRICA (EAST COAST)—OCCUPATION OF MASSOWAH BY ITALY.
  MR. GOURLEYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he is aware that the Italian Government has despatched to the Red Sea littoral, on the Soudan side, three Expeditions, consisting of about five thousand men, besides torpedo boats for Coast attack; and, whether those Expeditions are intended to co-operate with the British Troops now on their way to Suakin in rescuing some of the Egyptian garrisons; if not, can he inform the House, without prejudice to public interests, whether the Expedition has received the sanction of
  1418
  the British Government, as well as that of the so-called European Concert?
  MR. GLADSTONE: With regard to the latter part of this Question, which asks whether the Italian Government has acted with the sanction of the British Government, I have to say that the Italian Government is an independent Power, and does not require the sanction of the British Government to any measures which it may feel it to be its duty to undertake. With respect to communications with other Powers—what the hon. Gentleman terms "the so-called European Concert"—I am not in a position to say what communications may have been made to other Powers. I need not enter into the particulars of these Expeditions, whether they are accurately given by the hon. Member or not; the point of the Question is, whether the Expeditions are intended to co-operate with the British troops now on their way to Suakin in rescuing some of the Egyptian garrisons? My answer to that is that Italy is in the best relations, the most cordial relations, with this country; but that there is no alliance or plan of military co-operation between the two countries.
  MR. J. LOWTHER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these Expeditions have received the assent of the Turkish Government?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I have already said that I am not cognizant of the communications that may have taken place between the Italian Government and the other Powers.
  MR. J. LOWTHER: Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's reply that no communication has been received by Her Majesty's Government from the Government of Turkey?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I would rather have Notice of that Question; but what I have stated is strictly correct.

  FRANCE AND CHINA—THE HOSTILITIES.
  MR. MAGNIACasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is true that the French Government have intimated to the German Government its intention during the pending hostilities with China to treat rice as contraband of war, and vessels carrying rice as a carrying of contraband; whether any similar intimation has been

  1419
  addressed to Her Majesty's Government; and, if so, whether they will lay it on the Table of the House; whether Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that this intimation is in accordance with International Law; and, whether they intend to recognize its being enforced on British vessels laden, or partly laden, with rice?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Her Majesty's Government do not know whether such a notification has been made to Germany. The French Government have officially notified to Her Majesty's Government their intention of treating rice as contraband of war during the existing hostilities between France and China. Her Majesty's Government, after consultation with the Law Advisers of the Crown, consider that they cannot assent to the right claimed by the French Government to declare rice generally contraband of war, and they will inform the French Government accordingly.

  EGYPT—MR. WILFRID BLUNT.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFgave Notice that to-morrow he would ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether on the 23rd of April 1884, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt addressed to him a letter, in which there occurred the following passage:—
  "Since then I have most opportunely received information which leads me to feel certain that, if properly approached, not only could there be obtained terms from the besiegers of Khartoum, which should include General Gordon's safe return from Khartoum, with such of his companions as might choose to accompany him, but that a general pacification of the Upper Nile might at the same time, and by the same means, be effected;"
  whether, this letter having been submitted to the Cabinet, an answer was returned to Mr. Blunt on the 30th of April, in the following terms:—
  "Mr. Gladstone desires me to thank you for your offer to act as mediator in the Soudan, of which, however, Her Majesty's Government are not able to make use, inasmuch as it must already be known throughout that region that they, in common with the Government of Egypt, have no other desire than to promote the evacuation of the country, and the restoration of its liberties;"
  whether, on Christmas Eve, 1884, Mr. Blunt, together with the President of the International Peace and Arbitration Association, and an Egyptian gentleman in full possession of the Mahdi's views, called on him, but were refused admit-
  1420
  tance; and, further, if he can state the reasons for which Her Majesty's Government, knowing Mr. Blunt's intimate experience of the Arab tribes, peremptorily dismissed his proposals, without first examining the proofs and details of the allegations he had made that it was possible, by peaceable means, to deliver General Gordon and his companions from the hands of the Mahdi and his adherents?
  MR. GLADSTONE: As my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Earl Granville) is engaged in an important discussion in "another place," I would rather not call upon him to-morrow to go through all these details.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: It is desirable that the House should have a distinct answer before the division.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I will give as full an answer as I can from my own knowledge; but it may not be a complete answer.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—PROCEDURE ON THE VOTE OF CENSURE.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I wish to put a Question to the Prime Minister—I do not know whether he will have any objection to answer it; but it would be a great convenience to the House if it can be answered—whether he has any opinion as to the course to be taken with respect to the voting on the Motion which stands in my name? I will explain in one moment whore the difficulty lies. I have given Notice of a Motion which I have brought forward, and the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) has moved to omit my words in order to add other words. The Prime Minister announced that he intended to oppose both the Motion and the Amendment. The Question I have to ask is, whether it is the intention of the Government, in the first instance, to vote for the retention of my words, in order that the House may afterwards pronounce an opinion upon them for or against; or whether they intend to vote in the first instance against the retention of my words, in which case the Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle would become the substantive Motion, and might lead to a considerable number of Amendments?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I think there will be no difficulty in dealing with the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman if the usual course is pursued. The usual course is for a Party giving Notice of a Vote of Censure to abide by it. But I found this morning that there was a second Vote of Censure proceeding from the same Party and the same Bench. I quite understood the course we should take in voting; but as the right hon. Gentleman raises a new point, I will consider it before to-morrow's debate.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: There can be very little doubt as to what my noble Friend's (Lord George Hamilton's) Amendment means. It is to meet the case of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle becoming the substantive Motion without the House having another course before it.
  MR. GLADSTONE: My intention certainly was to vote against the Motion "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question;" but I will further consider it.

  PARLIAMENT—THE NEW RULES OF PROCEDURE—SUSPENSION OF MR. O'BRIEN.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to know whether the Government will allow the Motion for going into Committee of Supply to be made in the ordinary way on Friday night, so that the Motion of which I have given Notice in respect to Mr. Speaker's action in Naming Mr. O'Brien on Tuesday may be brought to an issue?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The Government are not prepared to interfere with the ordinary course of procedure.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that it is not intended to give precedence to the Motion of the hon. Member?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I do not think we have any option in the matter. My duty to the right hon. Gentleman, and to the House, is to persevere in going on from day to day with a Motion which is in the nature of a Vote of Censure.
  MR. HEALY: I wish to ask you, Sir, a Question upon a matter of Order in relation to an entry on the Votes, affecting the Journals of the House, which
  1422
  appears in the Votes at page 134, in the following words:—
  "Mr. O'Brien, Member for Mallow, having been Named by Mr. Speaker for abusing the Rules of the House, by disorderly interruption,"
  and so on. Can you inform me, Sir, which of the Rules of the House the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) abused, and what was the nature of the disorderly interruption? Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you will further inform me whether the new Standing Order, No. 12, is not in these terms—
  "That, whenever any Member shall have been Named by the Speaker, or by the Chair-man of a Committee of the Whole House, immediately after the commission of the offence of disregarding the authority of the Chair;"
  and also if the Rule does not go on to say—
  "or of abusing the Rules of The House by persistently and wilfully obstructing the Business of the House, or otherwise,"
  That appears to be the Motion which ought to have been made; but the entry in the Journals is—
  "Mr. O'Brien, Member for Mallow, having been Named by Mr. Speaker for abusing the Rules of the House, by disorderly interruption."
  The words in the Standing Order "or otherwise," simply refer to a breach of the Rules of the House, and do not give the Chair any distinct authority to Name a Member for disorderly interruption. I wish to ask which is correct—whether the entry in the Journals is correct, or the statement which you made in the House, that you suspended the hon. Member for Mallow for disregarding the authority of the Chair? At any rate, the latter is the statement which appeared in the newspapers on Wednesday; and the offence, in every report which I have seen, was for "disregarding the authority of the Chair," and not for "abusing the Rules of the House by disorderly interruption."
  MR. SPEAKER: I have no difficulty in answering the Question of the hon. Member. I consider that the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) both disregarded the authority of the Chair, and also abused the Rules of the House by disorderly interruption—which is clearly covered by the words of the Standing Order "or otherwise."
  MR. HEALY: May I call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the words "or otherwise" in no way

  1423
  justify your ruling? The words are these—
  "That, whenever any Member shall have been Named by Mr. Speaker, or by the Chairman of a Committee of the Whole House, immediately after the commission of the offence of disregarding the authority of the Chair, or of abusing the Rules of The House by persistently and wilfully obstructing the Business of The House, or otherwise."
  That is to say, that there must be an abuse of the Rules of the House in one way or another. And, therefore, if your ruling is correct, there must be some other Rule in existence which is altogether different from that which I have read. There is a Rule against wilful and persistent Obstruction, and against any disregard of the authority of the Chair. Before a Member can be suspended he must abuse that Rule or some other. It is evident, therefore, Sir, that if your ruling is good there must be some other Standing Order; and I beg to ask what other Rule exists upon the matter?
  MR. SPEAKER: I have given my ruling. I have explained the construction which I put upon the Standing Order, and the House is in possession of my reasons.
  MR. HEALY: But I wish to ask you by what means you arrived at your decision that Mr. O'Brien ought to be suspended for "disorderly interruption?" I want to know whether the ruling comes within the Rule of Privilege, as I understand it does? When a Member challenges a Minute which appears in the Journals of the House for inaccuracy—because, Mr. Speaker, I am supported in that assertion, not only by the recollection of my hon. Friends, but by all the reports of your remarks which appear in the newspapers, that you suspended Mr. O'Brien for "disregarding the authority of the Chair." There is, no doubt, a distinct authority for that in the Standing Order; but I ask you when, and where, and how—[Cries of "Oh!"] That is "disorderly interruption," for which the hon. Members who resort to it are liable to be suspended. I wish to know how I am to challenge the entry made by the clerks in the Journals of the House, and whether I am not entitled to do so at once?
  MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member objects to an entry in the Journals with reference to the proceedings of a previous day, he has only to give
  1424
  a Notice of Motion in the ordinary way.
  MR. HEALY: Again I ask you, Sir, whether you are correctly reported in the use of those words? ["Order!"] I must remind hon. Members that this is a matter of taking away the rights of the elected Representatives of the people; and any power which Mr. Speaker has in this House is delegated from me and the likes of me, as well as from you (the Liberal Benches) and the likes of you. I beg to ask you, Mr. Speaker—and I do so with great respect—whether you are correctly reported in the Journals of the House to have used these words—
  "Mr. O'Brien, Member for Mallow, having been Named by Mr. Speaker for abusing the Rules of the House by disorderly interruption;"
  or whether you are correctly reported in The Times, that you Named Mr. O'Brien for "disregarding the authority of the Chair?"
  MR. SPEAKER: I do not accept the distinction drawn by the hon. Member. I Named Mr. O'Brien for disorderly interruption, which I think brought him within the Standing Order, by which power is given to me to enforce the authority of this House.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: May I ask the Prime Minister whether, as regards the Resolution of which Notice has been given by my hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), seeing that it relates to the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair, he will afford the earliest opportunity for bringing it before the House?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I see no reason whatever why I should deviate, in any respect, from the usual course of Public Business in order to afford an opportunity for the renewal of a scene such as that which we have recently witnessed?
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: May I ask whether there has ever been a single instance where the conduct of Mr. Speaker has been impugned in which an opportunity was not immediately given for vindicating it?
  MR. SPEAKER: The course now proposed—namely, to proceed by Notice—has been repeatedly followed when the conduct of the Speaker in the Chair has been challenged. In fact, that is the ordinary and proper course.

ORDER OF THE DAY.
  EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN—VOTE OF CENSURE—RESOLUTION.

    [ADJOURNED DEBATE.] [THIRD NIGHT.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [23rd February],
    "That an humble Address he presented to the Queen, humbly representing to Her Majesty that the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government in respect to the affairs of Egypt and the Soudan, has involved a great sacrifice of valuable lives and a heavy expenditure without any beneficial result, and has rendered it imperatively necessary in the interests of the British Empire and of the Egyptian people that Her Majesty's Government should distinctly recognise, and take decided measures to fulfil, the special responsibility now incumbent on them to assure a good and stable Government to Egypt and to those portions of the Soudan which are necessary to its security."—(Sir Stafford Northcote.)
    And which Amendment was,
    To leave out from the first word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House, while refraining from expressing an opinion on the policy pursued by Her Majesty's Government in respect to the affairs of Egypt and the Soudan, regrets the decision of Her Majesty's Government to employ the forces of the Crown for the overthrow of the power of the Mahdi,"—(Mr. John Morley,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    Debate resumed.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, the debate in which the House was now engaged closed on Tuesday night with a speech, as powerful as it was searching and remarkable, from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen). Both sides of the House—and he believed he might say the country as well—were much indebted to that right hon. Gentleman for his efforts to elicit further information from the Government. They were still, however, completely in the dark as to the ultimate objects of this war. They remained at present entirely ignorant of the ultimate aims which the Government were proposing to themselves. He could not say that he absolutely agreed with every one of the opinions expressed by th9; right hon. Member for Ripon upon the great
    1426
    variety of topics which he raised; but he could say that, for the most part, he entirely endorsed the views which fell from the right hon. Gentleman; and it would be his endeavour also upon this occasion to induce the Government even yet to throw some fresh light upon the situation. Perhaps, however, the House would allow him, in the first place, to say a word or two upon the Motion of his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, which was more immediately before them. That Motion consisted of two parts—it censured the con-duet of the Government in the past, and it indicated, in no indefinite degree, what, in the view of the Opposition, should be the policy to be pursued in Egypt and in the Soudan in the future. It complained, in the first place, of a vast expenditure of money and of life without any adequate or beneficial result. Well, they had spent out there already, as far as he could gather, sums which might be estimated at anything between £10,000,000 and £20,000,000; and the lives which had been sacrificed already must be numbered at something between 40,000 and 50,000, at the least, during the period within which the right hon. Gentleman had held sway and authority in Egypt. They included, unhappily, the lives of many gallant countrymen of our own, and among them that of England's greatest hero, whose prowess and whose name, whose noble and heroic life, had months ago become a beacon and a household word in every home and by every fireside wherever the English tongue was spoken and where civilization ruled, and for whom a nation and an Empire were mourning as one man to-day. And what were the results? The Prime Minister told them the other night that the kourbash and the corvée were abolished. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No.] He begged pardon of the right hon. Gentleman; but he certainly believed he did say so.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I hope the hon. Gentleman will be more careful in speaking upon these things. What I said was that an important step had been taken towards abolishing the kourbash and the corvée.
    MR. CHAPLIN,continuing, said, then they were evidently to understand that even that result had not been achieved.
    MR. GLADSTONE: No; I did not say so.
    MR. CHAPLIN: As a matter of fact they were not abolished. Their use might be diminished—he believed they were—but they were not abolished, as a study of the latest Blue Books laid upon the Table would disclose. But he was quite willing, with the utmost generosity, to make the right hon. Gentleman a present of his statement, whether they were abolished or were only diminished, if he thought that that was at all an adequate return for the expenditure of £20,000,000 and 50,000 lives. He was afraid that the condition of Egypt now for many months had been something which was little removed from bankruptcy, ruin, and general, if not complete, disorganization; while in the Soudan what they saw was chaos and anarchy and rebellion, with a whole desert up in arms against us, and in the midst of this was planted a gallant, a small, and scattered band of British heroes, who—although he did not like to take a pessimist view—were impotent, he greatly feared, to do more than to maintain themselves until fresh succour should reach them from these shores. That he believed to be a not inaccurate or exaggerated description of the position of the present, directly resulting from the policy of Ministers in the past; and they were there to-day, speaking, as they believed, the sentiment and feeling of the country, to demand a reckoning at the hands of those who had brought these things to pass. Now, why was it the Government had failed in Egypt and in the Soudan so completely as they had done? Because their policy in both had ever been a policy of inconsistency and vacillation, of indecision, of delay, and of retreat. It began in Egypt with the threatened withdrawal of the troops. "Retire and retreat as soon as possible "was their policy at that time; and that had been the tone and spirit of their actions ever since. So much for their policy in Egypt; and now he wanted the House to consider why the Government had failed so completely in the Soudan. They had failed in the Soudan because almost from the very first, after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and after they had assumed the great responsibilities which they deliberately took upon themselves in Egypt, they adopted an attitude with regard to the Soudan by which they sought to separate and dis
    1428
    associate entirely the interests of Egypt from affairs in the Soudan. That was an attitude which every impartial person who was acquainted with the subject, either in Egypt or in England, could have told them, and would have told them, was impossible and ridiculous. From the first their policy was to ignore the Soudan altogether. Was that not so? He challenged the right hon. Gentleman opposite to contradict it. Like ostriches, they buried their heads in the sand, and imagined that because they declined to interfere with the affairs of the Soudan, the Soudan and its affairs would never interfere with them. They divested, or attempted to divest, themselves of all responsibility for the Soudan; and the Prime Minister repeated more than once that the affairs of the Soudan were entirely beyond the sphere of the political and military operations of his Government. He remembered being at Cairo, not long after the time when the unhappy General Hicks started on his fatal expedition, and having there a conversation with a distinguished Englishman; and he asked him this question—"Is it really possible that any English Government can sanction the departure of an English General upon an expedition so difficult and so dangerous as this is reported to be without giving him any assistance or support whatever?" His friend replied—"My dear fellow, what is the use of talking about the English Government; their policy is to ignore the Soudan altogether; they will have nothing whatever to do with it; they do not know where it is; I do not believe they have ever heard of it; they are not even aware that there is such a place in existence; and, what is more, you may be certain they never will so long as they can possibly avoid it." Now, that was an illustration of the way in which this Government had habitually attempted to evade their just responsibilities, not only in Egypt, but in all parts of the world. This attempt of the Government to avoid their legitimate and necessary responsibilities—necessary because of the position they had assumed in Egypt—was followed by prolonged indecision, and delay on their part; and indecision and delay had produced their natural and inevitable results. The very first of these was the actual necessity of the war in which we were now engaged; for the movement which might have been

    1429
    suppressed with ease at first had now developed into a revolution and a general uprising of the Desert, which would tax all our resources to control and subdue, and which, if not subdued, would endanger the very safety and security of Egypt, with everything which that involved in the interests of England and of Europe. That was the first, and perhaps the main result, of Ministerial indecision and delay. But another would be found in the exceptional difficulties which were presented by the war in which we were now engaged; for those difficulties were chiefly due to the delay in the despatch of the Expedition. A third result was also occasioned by delay, and was probably the most melancholy of all. The Expedition only reached its destination just in time to be too late to rescue Gordon, or to save Khartoum; and a fourth result was what he must describe as, in his opinion, the hazardous position of our Forces on the Nile to-day. He might be asked—"Why is it that the Opposition never expressed their disapproval of the policy of non-interference on the part of the Government before?" His answer to that question would be—"We did express that disapproval at the earliest opportunity after the Papers were presented to us, and after policy of the Government was officially before us; and we have declared that disapproval over and over again." The noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington) made a very remarkable statement last Session on this question, which really deserved the attention of the House. He referred to the celebrated Report of Lord Dufferin, and said that that Nobleman described and that the Government acknowledged, the policy of non-interference as soon as Lord Dufferin's despatch was officially laid upon the Table; and he also made this further statement—that the Opposition, because they took no hostile measures at the time, must be held to have acquiesced in the policy of the Government. But he denied that the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War stated the case rightly, and repudiated the conclusion which he drew. How did he support it? By the quotation of a single paragraph in Lord Dufferin's Report, which ran as follows:—
    1430
    "Colonel Hicks, a distinguished retired Indian officer, has been engaged by the Egyptian Government to join the Commander-in-Chief of the Soudan as Chief of the Staff. A few retired European officers accompany him, who, perhaps, will be able to inspire the troops with confidence. Both Colonel Hicks and his companions have entered the Egyptian Service on their own responsibility, nor have either Sir Edward Malet or myself been concerned in the arrangement."
    That was the quotation the noble Marquess made, and upon which he based his absolutely unreasonable proposition that the Opposition had acquiesced in the policy of the Government. What were the facts of the ease? The policy of the Government was one thing, and the policy of Lord Dufferin, as indicated in the despatch, was a totally different thing. The policy of the noble Lord and of his Friends in the Soudan was first non-interference, and afterwards abandonment. The policy of Lord Dufferin pointed to an exactly opposite conclusion. The subject was so important that he would read one or two more quotations from Lord Dufferin's despatch. They were as follows:—
    "Some persons are inclined to advise Egypt to withdraw altogether from the Soudan and her other acquisitions in that region; but she can hardly be expected to acquiesce in such a policy. Possessing the lower ranges of the Nile, she is naturally inclined to claim dominion along its entire course; and when it is remembered that the territories in question, if properly developed, are capable of producing inexhaustible supplies of sugar and cotton, we cannot be surprised at her unwillingness to abandon them. … A plan should be carefully considered for the future administration of the country. … The first step necessary is the construction of a railway from Suakin to Berber … The completion of this enterprize would at once change all the elements of the problem. Instead of being a burden on the Egyptian Exchequer, these Equatorial Provinces ought to become, with anything like good management, a source of wealth to the Government … It would be wise upon the part of Egypt to abandon Darfour, and perhaps part of Kordofan, and to be content with maintaining her jurisdiction in the Province of Khartoum and Sennaar."
    Did that point to a policy of non-interference? From the beginning to the end the despatch of Lord Dufferin, instead of recommending such a policy, teems with suggestions for the regeneration of the Provinces of the Soudan; and how the noble Lord could have quoted from it in support of such a policy he could not understand. He was grateful, however, to him for giving

    1431
    him the opportunity of referring to the despatches, because it bore directly on what was really the main question before them—namely, what should be our policy in the Soudan in the future? Now, there were three policies before us. The policy of the Opposition, the policy of the hon. Member for Newcastle, and that of the Government; and while two of them were clear and intelligible, the third was scarcely worthy of being dignified with the name of a policy. He would take the policy of the Opposition first. His right hon. Friend the Loader of the Opposition would seek to establish a stable Government in Egypt and in those parts of the Soudan which were necessary to its security. The Prime Minister said that the Opposition had not defined them. That was true; but he was not aware that it was incumbent upon them that night to define their boundaries precisely. That was a matter, possibly, for experts—at all events, for the most anxious and careful consideration hereafter. At the same time, he was not disposed to quarrel very greatly with the interpretation which the Prime Minister placed upon the Motion, that they must include Khartoum and all to the East of Khartoum. There, to some extent, he differed from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen). Now, there might be much, perhaps, to be said against that policy. It had not been said at present. The Prime Minister objected to it; and why? Because it would establish a British Government over aliens—a Christian Government over Mussulmans. The right hon. Gentleman might use exactly the same language with reference to India at this moment. Whatever might be said of the proposals of his right hon. Friend, they constituted a clear and intelligible policy, and the Conservative Party supported it for this simple reason—namely, that a stable Government in those parts of the Soudan was absolutely necessary to the well-being and to the tranquillity of Egypt, and the tranquillity of Egypt was necessary to the interests of England and of Europe. He had said that there were three policies before them. He ought to have said four, and the policy of the right hon. Member for Ripon was the fourth. The right hon. Gentleman had taken exception to the interpretation which was placed by the
    1432
    Prime Minister upon the Motion of his right hon. Friend with regard to the area proposed to be included in the Soudan on the ground that it was unnecessarily wide. The right hon. Member for Ripon had asked why the whole of the Eastern Soudan should be necessary to the security of Egypt? The answer, he was afraid, must be that unfortunately it was so, and that it was essential, at all events, to the peace of those parts of the Soudan which were necessary to the security of Egypt. The right hon. Member for Ripon proposed another alternative—namely, that we should get a grip upon the Nile by holding Berber and the railway from Berber to Suakin. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman so far. That much was necessary, of course; but how were we going to get our grip upon the Nile, and to keep the railway by holding Berber, and by holding that alone? They must look upon this matter from a practical point of view. The railway would be 280 miles in length; and he had been told that it would take 30,000 men to hold Berber and to guard the line along its whole length. How were we going to protect such a length of line against hostile tribes to the North and to the South unless they were subdued, and the tribes, at all events in the South, would never be subdued unless we held Khartoum? The tribes could travel easily great distances through the Desert. Nothing could be easier for them than to cut the railroad at any point at which it might be undefended; and his strong belief was that for the safety of the railroad only it would be absolutely necessary to hold Khartoum and probably Kassala as well. Moreover, he could not conceive anything less likely to conduce to the peace of the Soudan than to have two opposing Forces—the English or Egyptian Forces at Berber, and an unbroken Force of the Mahdi at Khartoum. His own opinion was that so serious was the enter prize in which we were now engaged that no half-measures would suffice; and he could not help expressing the opinion, with all deference and respect, that the plan of the right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) was not sufficiently practicable to be likely to lead to a permanent solution of the question. He now came to the policy of the hon. Member

    1433
    for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley), who was a thorough-going reformer; and, judging from his speech the other night, he would like to introduce a Reform Bill for the Empire without delay which would reform it out of existence altogether. The hon. Member stated that we had already undertaken responsibilities which were long past the limits within which they could be properly discharged. But how and in what quarter would the hon. Member propose to reduce them? Would he give up India? He supposed the hon. Member belonged to the "Perish India" school. Would he begin by abandoning the Colonies at a time when they were showing such noble attachment and loyalty to the Mother Country? Politicians of the hon. Member's stamp ought to give the House some idea of the ultimate objects which they had in view. But he was certain of this—that the hon. Member's views, whatever they might be, were entirely alien to the sentiments and feeling of the people of the country and the Empire of which, he supposed, with the exception of the hon. Member for Newcastle, they were all so proud to belong. As to the Soudan, there was no possibility of mistaking the hon. Member's intentions. He saw not the slightest obligation to establish, and probably no object in establishing, a stable Government in the Soudan. On the contrary, he would leave it to the people of the Soudan to work out their own deliverance for themselves. That would include, he presumed, the immediate withdrawal of our Forces on the Nile. He supposed the hon. Member would at once countermand the second Expedition. [Mr. JOHN MORLEY: AS soon as practicable.] That policy was clear and intelligible, though he need not say he entirely disapproved of it, and foresaw very considerable difficulties in its execution as well. But what were they to think of the proposals of the Government, which appeared to be absolutely purposeless and absolutely unintelligible? What was the object of the war in which we were now engaged? The House was still as much in the dark on that point as they had been when this debate commenced. That was a question which had been pressed upon the Government from all sides of the House, and it was a question which he hoped would continue to be pressed
    1434
    until they got the information they had a right to demand. Was it the intention of Her Majesty's Government to establish a stable Government in the Soudan? No. That was the policy of his right hon. Friend, which the Prime Minister repudiated altogether. Was it for the relief or the rescue of Lord Wolseley and his Forces? No; the Prime Minister said he took no pessimist view whatever of their position. Then, was it to be a war for prestige or revenge? He declined altogether to be a party to any such proceeding. "No," said the Prime Minister; "we must overthrow the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum." Well, and afterwards—what then? The Prime Minister was dumb; absolutely dumb. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no !] No; not absolutely dumb, because the right hon. Gentleman had given them the other night a shadow, a glimmering, of a half-formed purpose and intention to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon had already referred. The sentence in which the policy of the Government was propounded was a model of ambiguity, and was characteristic of the Ministry. It ran thus—
    "What we say is that we are not prepared at the present moment to say that there is no obligation on us to leave behind us an orderly Government, and we cannot say now at a stroke without going further that we will abandon at once and for ever the idea of doing anything for the establishment of a Government there."
    Quite irrespective of all Party considerations, there was no man in that House who did not feel that at this moment the Empire was in a position of very considerable danger, and that we were in the face of a national crisis of no inconsiderable dimensions; and he appealed to hon. Members on both sides of the House to say whether, under circumstances similar to these, there ever had been such a statement put forward by a Prime Minister before? It came to this. The right hon. Gentleman would not pledge himself to anything; and at a moment when the whole country was hanging on his lips to know what the policy of England really was to be, all he vouchsafed to say was that he would not absolutely pledge himself to do nothing after he had broken the power of the Mahdi. What the House wanted to know was this. Was he going to do anything at all, and what was it to be? If he repudiated the policy of establishing a

    1435
    stable Government in the Soudan, which was the policy of the Opposition, would lie establish any kind of Government at all, and what kind of Government was it that he proposed to leave behind him? The fact was that the right hon. Gentleman did not appear to know himself, or, if he did, he was too much afraid of his Radical supporters to say what it was. In the face of a crisis such as this, this was trifling—trifling with Parliament, trifling with the people; and he hoped that the House of Commons would at last put down its foot and mark its sense and condemnation of this never-ending weakness and irresolution which had brought us to the present terrible state of things. Whatever might be thought of the original policy of the Government in the Soudan, nothing could excuse, nothing could condone, nothing, as far as he knew, could even qualify the conduct of the Government towards General Gordon after they had sent him to Khartoum. It was difficult on Monday night even to listen with ordinary patience and courtesy to the speech of the Prime Minister on that point. It was pitiable to hear his lame excuses for an absolutely indefensible position. They were torn to shreds by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University (Mr. Gibson), and he would not enter upon them again to-night; but he made this assertion in defiance of the statement of the Prime Minister—he affirmed that there was nothing to render impossible the despatch of Lord Wolseley's Expedition for the relief of Gordon two months at least before it started; that it could have been despatched; that it ought to have been despatched; and that no one, he believed, was more disgusted than Lord Wolseley himself at the delay of the Expedition, and that the fruits of that delay were being reaped by our Forces on the Nile at present. That was his assertion, and if there were any Member of the Cabinet who would get up in his place and dispute it, he challenged him to grant a Committee of Inquiry, and so disprove it. The Government told them that Gordon fell because he was betrayed. He replied that their long and unpardonable delay—their inaction—was the blackest and cruellest treachery towards him; and more than this—he said that on them, the English Government,
    1436
    must rest for ever in the first place the disgrace, the dishonour, and the guilt of the life and of the blood of that noble and heroic man. But, great as was the guilt of their conduct towards General Gordon, and although he believed that in the country it would be the last straw that would break the camel's back, it was only one among the innumerable array of their misdeeds. An hon. Member said the other night that we were menaced at this moment from almost every quarter. Unhappily, that was true to-day; but it was not true as long as Lord Beacons-field was Prime Minister of England. It was not pleasant, at a time like this, to be reminded, as day by day hon. Members walked through the Lobbies into that Assembly, that they had in their very midst at the moment he spoke the agents of revolution and disorder, the foes and the implacable enemies of all society and all civilization in the world. And what about Ireland? Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. Was Ireland a source of strength or a source of weakness to the Empire at a moment like the present? After 15 years' experience of the policy of the Prime Minister in Ireland, there could not be a doubt that Ireland was never more discontented with the English rule, or more bitterly opposed to the English connection, than she was to-day. Some of her Representatives—even Members of that House—had not scrupled quite recently to speak in public in terms of exultation over the difficulties with which the Empire was surrounded. It was impossible to deny that, in our hour of need, she was a source of weakness rather than of strength to the Empire to-day. How did we stand abroad? France alienated and cold; Germany and Prince Bismarck, whose relations with this country under the Government of Lord Beaconsfield were friendly and cordial in the extreme, and which might be so as he believed again, but for the right hon. Gentleman, were barely civil to us now—indeed, he might say positively rude. And as for Russia, he did not even like to dwell upon the position of Russia on the Frontier of India at this moment. Now, what he wished to submit—and, whatever the House might think, he was not submitting it from Party considerations—was that all these things had followed upon five years of the rule of the right hon. Gentleman.

    1437
    They were the outcome—the natural and inevitable outcome—of the madness of the Mid Lothian campaign. We were paying the price of that campaign today, and a heavy reckoning it was. These were some of the consequences in which he and we were foundering and floundering—perhaps the right hon. Gentleman might remember the expression—in which he and we were foundering and floundering to-day. The only bright spots which he saw in the political horizon were the heroism of our troops in Egypt on the one hand, and the significant and spontaneous outburst of loyal attachment on the part of our Colonies on the other. This incident alone, as gratifying and remarkable as it would become historic, ought in itself to give courage and determination to any English Government worthy of the name. What was to be done to recover a position which was the legacy of Lord Beaconsfield, and which had been so cruelly squandered by the present Prime Minister? Two things, in his opinion, were absolutely essential. The first was to get rid of the Prime Minister and recover the friendship of our Allies in Europe. The second, to increase, and to largely increase, without delay, the Military and Naval Forces of the country, which, if all we heard were true, were too sadly deficient at the present time. In the present position of the Empire, and as a matter for its safety, that was a question which he regarded as being an immediate and primary duty for whichever Party was to rule this country in the future. And now he must apologize to the House for the length to which he had detained them, and he had only this one more word to say. He was told that the Motion of his right hon. Friend was a weak one. Well, it contained no bad language, he admitted. He was not there to say that, if he had had the drafting of it, he might not very probably have used worse words instead. But that it was a weak one was not his opinion. It placed before the country a distinct, a great, a courageous, and an honest policy. Let there be no misunderstanding as to the meaning and the purpose of the Motion of his right hon. Friend. It meant, in his judgment, neither more nor less than this—-that the Opposition were pledged to a policy which differed little from the establishment of a Pro-
    1438
    tectorate in Egypt and in the Soudan for an indefinite period of time. That might be a wise or an unwise policy; in his opinion, the course of circumstances had made it an inevitable policy. But that it could be truly described as a weak policy he utterly denied. Let it not be supposed that the Opposition, representing, as they did, a great historic Party in this country, had entered lightly on this course, or pledged themselves to a policy such as this without much and anxious consideration. They were guided by motives which could not be mistaken. No man in his senses, no Party in their senses, could desire of their own accord to take Office at a moment like the present, and succeed to the desperate and appalling heritage which the right hon. Gentleman would leave behind him. But so great, in their opinion, was the peril of the Empire under the continued guidance of the right hon. Gentleman and those who sat around him, that they regarded it as their bounden duty to the nation, at whatever cost it might be to their Party and themselves, to compass the dismissal of this Government, if it were possible, and if necessary to take their places in the Councils of the Queen. In this great crisis of their country's fortunes they were neither afraid nor unprepared to do so. He knew not what might be the course which would be taken by the majority of the House on that occasion; but he did know this—that for the votes which would be given upon this question they would all of them have shortly to give an account to the great tribunal of the nation. And sure he was of this—that whatever the result of the division in this House to-morrow night, not many months—it might be not many weeks—would pass before the accumulated errors of the Government, their craven conduct and imbecile purpose with regard to Egypt—above all, their treachery to Gordon and their black betrayal of that gallant hero-would meet its righteous and its just reward in the deep and bitter execrations of an outraged people and of an indignant nation.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, the hon. Member who has just spoken claims to be a prominent Representative of patriotic principles; and, in a period confessedly of great difficulty and

    1439
    anxiety in this nation, what he proposes to an English House of Commons and to the English people is that they shall dismiss a Prime Minister, who is Prime Minister upon this title, and upon this title alone—that he has received the confidence of the people; and for what reason? To disarm the hostility of Foreign Governments. That is the patriotic policy of the Conservative Opposition.
    MR. CHAPLIN: I said he should be dismissed in order that we may recover the Allies whom his mistaken policy has estranged.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: That comes to much the same thing. The English people are to dismiss a Prime Minister to recover their Allies. I am old enough to remember that exactly the same thing used to be said many years ago about another Prime Minister—also the head of the Liberal Party. Attacks were made year after year upon Lord Palmerston because he was unpopular with Foreign Governments, and it used to be said in those days—"Dismiss the Minister in order that you may recover the alliance of Austria, Germany, and France." But, Sir, there was pride enough in the House and in the country to reject that species of patriotic appeal. I doubt whether an appeal of that character is likely to strengthen the position of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire. Passing from that eminently patriotic argument, which does not conduce much to the dignity of the House—[Ironical laughter]—well, I am entitled to my opinion that to dismiss the person who is Prime Minister, and who commands a majority in this House, in order to please foreign nations, is not a very dignified or patriotic course. Now, Sir, it is somewhat difficult in this debate to answer what I was going to call the triangular, but what are rather the multi-angular, arguments by which it is best. I shall have something to say later to the argument—the powerful argument—of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen). But I must say that, while differing a great deal from what the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire has said, I must thank him in one sense, as he will shorten my speech in the debate, for he has said a great deal of what I intended to say in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon. I
    1440
    am obliged to the hon. Member for having fired his shot into the steel armour of the right hon. Member for Ripon. I may excuse myself for taking part in the debate on the ground that I have never addressed the House on the Egyptian Question since it commenced. There is one topic which I should like to mention. I was perfectly satisfied—I think we were all perfectly satisfied—with the statements made by the Prime Minister on the subject of General Gordon. I think hardly any man who has had what I cannot help calling the misfortune of responsibility in these transactions—whatever harsh terms may be used in debate—I think no fair-judging man will think that we do not feel as strongly on this subject as you do. Therefore, I do not think it necessary to notice any harsh language which would attribute to us any intentional disregard or neglect of the interests or the life of that illustrious man. I take no notice of such a word as "treacherous," which has been employed in this debate. But one charge you are entitled to make, which we are bound to answer, and that is, that we have committed errors of judgment, and that, if we had acted sooner, we might have prevented that great catastrophe. Now, if you say, by the light of recent events, that we were wrong in sending Gordon to the Soudan, I am not prepared to deny it. Unquestionably, knowing what we know now, no power on earth would induce me to consent to that step. But before you censure us on this head, consider what the circumstances were in which we were placed. Hicks Pasha had been defeated. We had determined that the Egyptian Government should evacuate the Soudan, which they agreed to do, though not willingly at first; and they asked us to provide them with an officer—that, I think, was the phrase—to assist in the evacuation of the garrisons. Well, the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) said we did not know where the Soudan was. But there was one man who did, and it was Gordon, whom we consulted. Now, I am not endeavouring to shield ourselves from any responsibility under Gordon's name. I refer to him to show that we took what means we could to obtain information. The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire has said—"You ought not to have attempted to evacuate the

    1441
    Soudan;" and he has read some passages from Lord Dufferin's Report. But there is a greater authority than Lord Dufferin on the question of the Soudan. I have great respect for Lord Dufferin, but he had never been in the Soudan; but General Gordon had been there, and knew it better. Now, I am not putting the responsibility of the evacuation of the Soudan on Gordon; that responsibility is all our own. But when we instructed Gordon to evacuate the Soudan, what did he say? At the beginning of last year there was laid upon the Table of Parliament a Memorandum by General Gordon, which was received on February 1. It is Egypt, No. 7. General Gordon there says—
    "Though it is out of my province to give any opinion as to the action of Her Majesty's Government in leaving the Soudan, still I must say it would be an iniquity to reconquer these peoples, and then hand them back to the Egyptians."
    MR. CHAPLIN: Without what?
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Without guarantees of future good government. [Opposition cheers.] "Wait till you have heard the rest. Gordon then adds—
    "It is evident that this we cannot secure them without an inordinate expenditure of men and money. The Soudan is a useless possession?—ever was so, and ever will be so."
    You have our opinion, and this is the justification of our opinion—
    "Larger than Germany, France, and Spain together, and mostly barren, it cannot be governed except by a Dictator, who may be good or bad. If bad, he will cause constant revolt. No one who has ever lived in the Soudan can escape the reflection, What a useless possession is this land? Few men, also, can stand its fearful monotony and deadly climate. Therefore, I think that Her Majesty's Government are fully justified in recommending its evacuation, inasmuch as the sacrifices necessary towards securing good government would be far too onerous to admit of such an attempt being made. Indeed, one may say it is impracticable at any cost."—(Egypt. No. 7 (1884), p. 3–4.)
    Therefore, if the policy of Gentlemen opposite is declared by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire in the speech he has just made, it is a policy which is denounced in the words of General Gordon which I have just read. General Gordon adds that the Soudanese will never be oppressed by men coming from lands so remote as Circassia, Kurdistan, and Anatolia. I hope my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon will remember
    1442
    that passage when I come to ask him some questions. That was the opinion of General Gordon; but there was another distinguished man, alas! also dead, General Stewart, who made his observations upon this Memorandum. He said—
    "I quite agree with General Gordon that the Soudan is an expensive and useless possession. No one who has visited it can escape the reflection, What a useless possession is this find, and what a huge encumbrance on Egypt."—[Ibid.]
    Well, I understand that the policy of Gentlemen opposite is, if they cannot make the Soudan a huge encumbrance on Egypt, they will make it a huge encumbrance on the English people. And that is the issue as regards the future we have to decide. General Gordon, I say, went out fully accepting the policy of the evacuation of the Soudan, and fully convinced hat it was possible to accomplish it peacefully. It may be asked now—"Why did not you send him at the head of a British Army?" Why, that never entered into our contemplation, nor into his. If that was wrong it was quite open to you to have condemned that policy, because we stated that General Gordon had gone on a distinctly peaceful mission. We may have been entirely mistaken in that. I believe we were mistaken; I now believe it was never possible to have entered the Soudan except at the head of a great British Army. These may have been errors; but they were errors not of people ignorant of the Soudan, not of people who did not know what it was, but they were errors of specialists. This is one of the great difficulties which I see in the situation with which we have to deal, that it is the men who have known the East best who have been found most mistaken in the circumstances which would arise from time to time. You cannot doubt for a moment that General Gordon, with his great knowledge of those countries, did believe it was possible to extricate those garrisons by peaceable means. He not only thought so when he left England, but he thought so when he reached Cairo, and for some weeks after he reached Khartoum. You will find from his earlier letters from Khartoum that he was still satisfied that his mission would succeed. I was rather surprised at the remark that we changed the character of General Gordon's mission after he started. Well, it was true

    1443
    that the character of his mission was changed, and that he had authority from the Khedive. But it was inevitable really, when you come to think of it. How could a man deal with the Egyptian garrison at Khartoum, with men who were subjects and servants of the Khedive, how could ho resettle the Soudan and make arrangements in what was regarded as an Egyptian Province, without being clothed with the authority of the Khedive? Unless we had sent him out purely as a British Agent, to deal with a country that we intended to annex, it was inevitable that he should be clothed with the authority of the Khedive. Under the Firman of the Sultan Egypt had authority over the Soudan; and, therefore, how could we do otherwise than have General Gordon clothed with the authority of the Khedive? Another charge against us was made with fervid eloquence by the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), who said—"You refused everything Gordon proposed." The first criticism upon anything Gordon had proposed did not come from us. Just before he entered Khartoum he issued a Proclamation which was attacked from the other side of the House; he issued a Proclamation referring to the toleration of slavery, and the attack did not proceed from these Benches. As to the formal proposals made by Gordon to us, what were those that were refused? Are they such as you think we ought to have supported? If so, I will ask you why you do not say so? His first proposal was that we should send out Zebehr. I did not hear of any great enthusiasm for that proposal at the time it was made. Our refusal was not based upon any indication that the appointment would have been made the subject of a Vote of Want of Confidence. I would not have been a party to sending out Zebehr. We had his character from Gordon himself. Gordon said the country could not be governed except by a Dictator, who might be good or bad. What sort of a Dictator would Zebehr have been? In my opinion, he was a man, according to Gordon's own showing, whom it would not have been right for the English people to have invested with influence or control. But there were other conditions. So generous were the impulses of Gordon that he believed of men better
    1444
    than they deserved; and if we had sent Zebehr I do not believe Gordon would have been safe. That is the justification of my opinion on the subject; and, therefore, for no reason do I think Zebehr ought to have been sent. There was another reason to which the Prime Minister referred. If we had consented the House of Commons would not have allowed Zebehr to be sent. Therefore, it would have been an idle step and a mischievous step to have sent out Zebehr to Khartoum, for to have had our authority revoked would have made the situation much worse than it was before. At the same time, it was suggested that we should send Gordon 2,000 or 3,000 Turkish troops. Were we right, or were we wrong, in refusing to send Turkish troops to Khartoum? Again I say that if we were wrong, I am not aware that anyone endeavoured to point it out. Then, we cannot order Turkish troops about as we might the English Militia. Turkish troops could have been sent only upon terms to which the Turkish Government would have agreed. Perhaps the Turkish Government would not agree to their going to Khartoum unless they were allowed to go elsewhere if they thought fit. You could not have sent Turkish troops to Khartoum unless you intended to make the Turks masters of Egypt. Is that your policy? If so, let us understand it. It is a definite policy, and let us know whether it be one that the House and the country will adopt. For one, I am not willing to place Egypt in the hands of Turkey. I do not think the Turkish government of other countries is one which would justify England in placing further territories under Turkish control. But does anybody think that 2,000 or 3,000 Turkish troops could have settled the Soudan or destroyed the Mahdi? The hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) may think so; but when we considered the difficulties that had to be encountered by General Graham with 4,000 British troops at Suakin in dealing, not with the Mahdi, but with Osman Digna, of whom comparatively little was then known, how can in be asserted that 2,000 or 3,000 Turkish troops could have marched to Khartoum and settled matters? It was utterly impossible. What lies at the bottom of the whole of this catastrophe? Is it not that we have

    1445
    not realized the immense amount of military force and military resistance to be encountered, and the great difficulties to be overcome? That is true; but the responsibility is shared by those who have an intimate knowledge of the East, and of the Soudan in particular. You would not have believed it if you had been told beforehand that there was in the neighbourhood a man who would hold his own in two pitched battles with 4,000 British troops. General Gordon, before he entered Khartoum, desired to commend himself to the Soudanese by telling them that he had been sent by the British Government to avert the sending of Turkish troops. Having declared that he was there to prevent the sending of Turkish troops, could we have agreed to Turkish troops going a few weeks after? The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin condemns us for having rejected these two things. I say we should not be condemned.
    MR. GIBSON: I said you never complied with a single request.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I will show why we did not comply with the requests I refer to. It is said that we ought to have despatched a small force of Cavalry, less than 500, after General Graham's victories, from Suakin to Berber. I say that of all things that would have been most unjustifiable. Would anyone, after the experience of the battle of Abu Klea, now say that a handful of Cavalry should have been sent across a desert more waterless than the desert between Korti and Metammeh? How do we know what the men would have met at Berber; and does any man now, in the light of recent events, believe that if a few hundred men had gone to Berber they could have marched to Khartoum? I do not think so, and I am willing to state that as my reason for not having consented to the proposal. We had then had some experience of the mighty power of the tribes of the Desert, and we had fought the battle of El Teb, and after that to send the troops across 250 miles of almost waterless desert was not justifiable. That was the ground on which we could not accept the proposal. No responsible Government would have been safe in dealing with this matter except with a very considerable force, well organized. It may be asked—
    1446
    "Why not have sent General Graham's Force?" But you cannot send a force without transport. Is it known how 30,000 or 40,000 camels can be got together, and what time and measures it requires? We had no military means of doing it; and I appeal to any military authority as to whether it would not have taken weeks and months to transport a force of 4,000 men from Suakin to Berber? you could do it by railway, or by a gigantic transport; but either course would have taken a considerable period. That is why we did not take any of those courses to which I have referred. Then, what could we do? We could make preparations for an Expedition in the manner I have described, which, with adequate transport, would be able to convey a considerable force to the relief of General Gordon, and that we did. [Cries of "Too late!"] I say that the course we did adopt was to organize an Expedition which alone we considered safe to send, and to equip it with the necessary means of transporting it to Khartoum. Much has been said as to whether the best route for the Expedition was from Suakin to Berber, or by the Nile. I do not profess to offer any opinion upon that subject myself. I was bound to be governed, and was governed—and I consider myself to be justified in being governed—by military opinion. It was decided by the Military Authorities that at the time the Expedition was sent the Nile was the preferable route; and that, as far as I am concerned, was the justification for settling upon that route. Now it is said that all the circumstances to which I have referred have thrown us into the hot season, in which to send any force at all was highly dangerous and almost impossible; and therefore it was that the delay took place which retarded the advance of Lord Wolseley. Then it is said we were too late. Yes, Sir, too late—unhappily too late—because General Gordon had died, I think, two days after we were in the neighbourhood of Metammeh, close to Khartoum. But does that show that we had altogether miscalculated the time? Our calculation was founded on the military relief of Khartoum and the military leader. If there had been a military leader and he had been able to make his plans as before, what proof is there that we should not have been in time? If Gordon had

    1447
    been able to hold out a week or 10 days longer, it is quite certain that Sir Herbert Stewart's Force would have been at Khartoum. I say we were not too late; and I am entitled to say so. It is a consolation for us to think that, had it not been for the treachery of Ferhat Pasha, Gordon would have been saved. You say that treachery was the thing which might have been expected. Yes, it might, just as much the day after Gordon arrived at Khartoum as on the day on which he died. There was no period when he was not exposed to treachery. That is what I have to say in reference to this unhappy event; and when you censure us I think you should, and I am sure the nation will, consider what were the circumstances before us in which we had to act, and the ground of the action which we took. This is a thing which wrings our hearts as much as any person's here, and whatever censure you may think we deserve that we must bear. But the question before the House now deals with much larger matters even than that. This Motion deals with the future. The question is addressed to us from the Benches below the Gangway in the able speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley). "Holding the opinions you do, and having made the declarations you have made, why do you go to Khartoum?" That question is to be answered, and answered most distinctly. I have heard complaints of vagueness and uncertainty in regard to our answers. I do not think those complaints are just. Certainly I have a clear conception in my own mind of why I have consented to the Expedition to Khartoum, and I will endeavour to state it frankly to the House. I would never have consented to go to Khartoum with the intention of annexing or occupying the Soudan, or any part of it, for Egypt or for England. I never would have consented to go to Khartoum for the mere purpose of vengeance for the death of Gordon. We should have shown very little appreciation of Gordon's character if we did—it would have been a very ill monument to his memory. The only reason, in my opinion, that justifies our going to Khartoum since the death of Gordon—the primary object was the saving of Gordon, and there were secondary objects referred to by the Prime Minister—is that that is the only manner in which
    1448
    the evacuation of the Soudan can be safely accomplished consistently with the safety of Egypt. [Mr. COURTNEY: Oh, oh!] I know my hon. Friend the Member for Liskeard has got another plan. He thinks we may calmly and quietly retreat. I do not hold that opinion. The fact is that a retreat of the British Army before the Mahdi and his Forces is hardly likely to be either calm, or quiet. But then, I should like to ask, where are you going to stop in this retreat? When you leave Berber the Mahdi will go to Berber, and when you leave Dongola the Mahdi will go to Dongola; and I want to know where you are ultimately going to resist, because he may advance to Assouan or to Wady Haifa, and Cairo may be in danger. Therefore, for the safety of Egypt, I do think it is absolutely necessary that the military power of the Mahdi should be broken at Khartoum. That was the view of General Gordon himself before the Mahdi gained the great military position he has now acquired. For he said that if this overshadowing military power of the Mahdi is broken at Khartoum the people will have some chance of governing themselves under their own Sultans. That was his view of the matter. And what has interfered with the people governing themselves under their own Sultans? Nothing else than the overshadowing military power of the Mahdi, which Gordon told you was compelling an unwilling people to submit. I confess I arrive at the conclusion I have stated with the deepest reluctance and repugnance; and nothing but the danger to Egypt by leaving the Mahdi in military possession of Khartoum would have ever induced me to agree to such an Expedition. Therefore, inasmuch as the policy of the Government has been to get rid of these Egyptian entanglements, both in the Soudan and in Egypt Proper, at the earliest possible period consistently with the safety of Egypt, we were obliged to undertake a Military Expedition. That is the answer the Government have to make to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley). And now I come to the very different point of view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen). My right hon. Friend has dealt with us by the Socratic method of interrogation. Like a Grand Inquisitor, he says—" I have a number of questions to

    1449
    ask you, and you are bound to answer them." But I will ask him a question in return. Are the questions which he has put to us such as any responsible statesman has a right to ask, or any responsible Government a right to answer? I will ask, if my right hon. Friend were placed in a different position—if, instead of being one of the most distinguished Members of the House of Commons, he happened to be a candid friend and supporter of the German Chancellor in 1870, and when Prince Bismarck thought that Germany was in danger from France, and that the best method of repelling that danger was by crossing the Rhine, my right hon. Friend said to him—"Yes, you are going into France; you are going to Paris; but I will not support you unless you tell me what you are going to do when you get there. If you do not tell me whether you are going to annex Alsace and Lorraine, to proclaim the German Empire at Versailles, to ask an indemnity of many milliards, I will not support you at all, but I will give my vote to the Opposition, "what answer do you think Prince Bismarck would have given him? I am afraid not so polite an answer as we have given. Now, could any responsible Government engaged in an operation such as this pledge themselves or the country to the settlement they may make after operations which must depend largely on circumstances which they cannot control? Fancy asking Napoleon the day before Austerlitz what were the terms he was; going to make with the Austrians? These are questions which it is most unreasonable to ask, and which, in my opinion, it would be most improper to answer. You cannot tie yourselves beforehand to any definite plan of settlement of this description. It would be most wrong to bind the country to any such thing. All you can do is this—to say that if success attends your arms there are certain directions in which you will endeavour to make a settlement advantageous to the countries concerned. That is the only answer in the case I have supposed Prince Bismarck would have made. It was said that the German policy was "butcher and bolt." If Prince Bismarck was asked how much he meant to "bolt" he would answer—"I am going to secure Germany against the attacks of France. If
    1450
    fortune favours my arms I will make a settlement which shall best conduce to that end." And then he might be told that that was a vague and unsatisfactory answer. My right hon. Friend has given me an opportunity of testing his demands in another way. He has given hostages to fortune. He has got a plan of his own. Would my right hon. Friend forgive me if, in the highest good humour, I retort on him. He says—"Do not go to Khartoum; there is a better policy, a different plan altogether. You ought to hold Berber, not by British troops, but I hope it will be held as the outpost of Western civilization on the Nile." My right hon. Friend has a great objection to stating a policy by negatives. He objects to a statement of the Prime Minister because it had "ifs" in it and "negatives." But I observe that this plan of my right hon. Friend depends entirely for its success upon a negative proposition, because this outpost of Western civilization is not to be held by British troops. Then by what troops? Clearly not by Egyptian, after what happened to Hicks Pasha's Army, and with the Mahdi in full force at Khartoum. You would require 30,000 men to hold the railway to Berber, and if they are not to be British troops, who are they to be? You who complain of vague and indefinite proposals put forward your own proposals in terms which no man can understand. When you propound in a grave national crisis an alternative plan, why do you not propose it in terms which shall be clear to everyone? If you intend to have Berber maintained as an outpost of Western civilization with the Mahdi in full force at Khartoum, I venture to say that there are no troops in the world except British troops who can hold it. Why dons not the right hon. Gentleman accept the responsibility of saying that he is willing to extend the British Empire to Berber, and to create for us new responsibilities of enormous dimensions? My right hon. Friend does not propose to break the force of the Mahdi; he wants to have an outpost at Berber. But the best military authorities say that if you want to take an offensive and defensive position Berber is not the one to take, and that nothing justifies our going to Berber except the intention of going to Khartoum. That is fatal to

    1451
    the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. But I want to understand this Berber plan of his. He catechizes us very strictly, and he refuses to give us his support unless we answer his questions. But he is going to give his support to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and he asks them no questions. Why, that celebrated blank cheque is already drawn. My right hon. Friend's name on the back of any instrument makes it a very negotiable security; but I should like to know what assurances he has received that his plan is accepted by the Opposition? The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire has just denounced it as quite impracticable. My right hon. Friend says to us—"Answer my questions and adopt my plan, or I will vote against you, and put into Office a Government which is equally unlikely to adopt it." My right hon. Friend's plan violates two declarations made by General Gordon—namely, that there is to be no annexation of the Soudan, and that if Egypt is to be quiet the Mahdi must be smashed.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I want to avoid a misunderstanding. I did not say that I was against breaking the power of the Mahdi; but I put forward my plan as a simpler plan than that of the Government. But declaring "a minimum" does not preclude one from agreeing to further measures if they can be shown to be desirable.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: My right hon. Friend said—"This is a better policy than to march forward and break the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum." Therefore, his plan, which is to remain at Berber, was an alternative plan. The right hon. Gentleman is a man of great authority in this House, and he knows very well the consequences to which his actions may lead. Of course, he contemplates, in connection with the policy which he has announced, the possibility, and even the probability, of its leading to a change of Government. I can assure my right hon. Friend that personally I shall enter no protest against such a result; but there are only two things which, in my opinion, could justify a change of Government in the present grave condition of the country. One would be a total change of policy. Now, is there to be such a change? The Prime Minister has said that we have not changed our policy. We have declared
    1452
    that as soon as we can do so consistently with, the safety of Egypt we intend to evacuate the Soudan and Egypt. Is a different policy from that to be adopted upon a change of Government? My right hon. Friend has not asked, and Gentlemen opposite have never defined, their policy upon this matter. I do not say that they are bound to do it as an Opposition; but on the very day when they become a Government they will have to do it. Yes; before we change the Government we must form some conception of what the change is likely to lead to. Now all that we hear is—"Why do you say you are going to leave Egypt and the Soudan? Why do you not recognize more fully your responsibility?" What does this mean? It means, I suppose, that there is to be something in the nature of a complete annexation, protectorate, or influence—I do not care what you call it—that there is to be some more intimate and protracted and permanent responsibility on the part of England over Egyptian affairs. Now, if a vote of this House should place you in Office, you know very well that the majority would not be composed of people who entertain that opinion. You may have a majority, but it will not be a majority inclined to go further in the direction of responsibility; and, therefore, from the day when you take Office, you will be in a position in which it will be impossible for you to carry on the Government. Surely my right hon. Friend does not wish, in the present condition of the country, to have a change of Government with a change of policy, and that the new Government should be crippled and paralyzed from its very commencement by the absence of the power which alone could enable it to carry out its policy? If I thought that the Opposition agreed in our policy, in the policy of terminating, at the earliest period, the responsibilities in which we are already involved in Egypt, and that the House believed that by better administration, by some more efficient Executive, they could better accomplish that purpose, there is no man who would surrender his seat to them to-morrow more gladly than I. But you talk of a definite policy, as shown in your Resolution! Why, could there be a policy more indefinite? When you talk of establishing a stable Government in

    1453
    Egypt, do you mean an English Government? If not, what sort of a Government do you propose to establish there? I have at least as much right to ask that question of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote) as he has to ask the questions which he has put to us. But if we go further in the direction—I will not quarrel with words—of annexation, if you exchange English for Egyptian Government, your proposition must be that the sacrifices which England has made entitle her to claim exclusive administration and influence in Egypt. Is that your proposition? If it be, it is one of the most perilous and important propositions that this House has ever been asked to accept. I say that the policy you advocate, if it were wise, is impossible, and that, if it were possible, it would be most unwise. What are the conditions under which we find ourselves in Egypt at the present moment? We went to Egypt, having made the solemn declaration to Europe that we did not intend to do what you now ask us to do. We made that declaration in the name of the English Crown, and with the authority of the British Parliament. You have never challenged the propriety of that declaration. That declaration we have never altered, and you have never endeavoured to alter it, and you have never propounded to Parliament any protest against it. To anyone who now seeks to alter the conditions contained in that declaration, I say, "You are too late." We have bound ourselves by the obligations contained in that declaration; and how do you know that Europe would release you from them? Do you mean that you would release yourselves from them against the will of Europe by force of arms? It is not merely an Egyptian, it is a European, difficulty which faces you on that point. I could say a great deal more on this part of the subject, but it is necessary that I should be brief; and, therefore, I will pass on to another difficulty. I say that even if you attempted it you could not administer Egypt. You have referred to what you call the analogous case of India. But, even if the case of Egypt were analogous to that of India, I hold so high the responsibilities of the English administration of India that I am not willing to create another India. Do not let hon. Members opposite think that I belong to the "Perish India"
    1454
    school. I am like a man who has got a great and noble estate and does not want to ruin it by mortgaging it. It is, however, a mere delusion to suppose that the cases of India and Egypt are analogous. You cannot administer Egypt as you do your Indian Provinces. In India you have the field to yourself, and you have nothing to fear from European interference. But Egypt is a great deal more in Europe than in Africa for political purposes. Every European Power has its own particular interests in that country. It has its financial and its judicial rights, its International Tribunals, its Consular Tribunals, and its right to put its finger in every pie. Could you administer Bengal for a day in such circumstances? You would be met by these rights at every turn, and you could not get rid of them unless you expelled Europe from Egypt. You may depend upon it that every month that you remain in Egypt longer than you need will involve you in more and more responsibility. By adopting such a policy as that advocated by hon. Members opposite, you will find yourselves made the subject of the intrigues of politicians and of stock-jobbers. But, moreover, you will have to encounter English prejudices in your administration of Egypt. How are you going to administer a country in which slavery exists? Slavery does not exist in India, but it does exist in Egypt. Then, again, the position of the police in Egypt is one very alien to our ideas. These are a few of the great difficulties we should have to encounter in administering Egypt. But the greatest and the most insuperable difficulty that you will have to meet in carrying out your policy is the determination of the English people that what you propose to do shall not take place. I have watched their feeling upon this question, and I am sure that there is a growing determination on the part of the English people that they will not submit to the sacrifices which a permanent occupation of Egypt would entail upon them. I do not believe that this country approves the policy enunciated by the right hon. Member for Ripon that we should hold the route from Suakin to Berber and from Berber to Cairo. Depend upon it that if the existence of this Government is terminated, it will be not because we have done too little in Egypt, but because we have done too

    1455
    much there. And what will be the prospect of the Government which may succeed us? If it makes any change at all in our policy, it will merely be to go deeper into the Egyptian entanglement; and I venture to say that the task they will take upon themselves they will find it impossible to perform. If they should attempt to carry out such a policy, they will find that they will have to make an ever-increasing demand for men and money upon the country—a demand which will meet with an ever-increasing opposition. If the right hon. Member for Ripon will allow me to say so, his scheme for making Berber the outpost of Western civilization will be swept away like chaff before the wind by the public opinion of this country. For my own part, I adhere firmly to the declarations which the Government made when they first entered Egypt—namely, that they did not go there for the purpose of permanently occupying the country, and of maintaining an exclusively English power and influence there. If since that declaration was made the House of Commons have changed their minds upon the subject, if they are inclined to adopt another policy which means nothing less than the annexation of Egypt and the Soudan—because the subject has grown much more serious as the debate has proceeded—at least let the House of Commons and the country understand the gravity of the decision at which they are arriving. If this be the case, the House of Commons are right in changing the Government. For my own part, I shall vote against the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman, as I do not accept the policy which I understand that Resolution enunciates; and, whether in Office or out of Office, I shall offer to such a policy my most strenuous resistance.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: Two things must be perfectly clear from the speeches delivered from the Treasury Bench. The first is that the right hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down is overwhelmed with the difficulties of the situation, and that he does not see his way to disentangle himself out of those difficulties. The second point, which is equally clear, is that the observations of all the right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from the Treasury Bench are out of touch and harmony with the feeling of the country and of
    1456
    this House. The feeling of the country is one of mingled shame and indignation; but the Members of the Government neither feel that shame nor share that indignation. I doubt whether those who listened to the speech just concluded ever heard a more lame and feeble defence for the long course of neglect of General Gordon. The right hon. and learned Gentleman began by saying that the Government were wrong in sending General Gordon out, and that if they had only conceived how events would turn out, nothing would have justified them in sending him out. He said that General Gordon's mission at first was a pacific one. The Government thought that by that pacific mission he could accomplish the objects he had in view, and that his earlier letters from Khartoum showed that that was likely to be the case. But the subsequent letters of General Gordon had soon afterwards made it clear, by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's own confession, that his opinion on that point had undergone a change. That indication ought at once to have put Her Majesty's Government on their guard; for they must have known, from the character of the man, how great the danger was. So great was that danger, that no one but a hero like General Gordon would have undertaken it, and a hint of danger from him ought to have been sufficient to warn the Government of its magnitude. But nothing was done. Then we come to the request of General Gordon. He dared not send Zebehr, because, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman alleged, he was afraid of the House of Commons.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I said I believed that was the opinion of the House of Commons; but I did not share that opinion.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: At all events, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that we could not send Turkish troops without their coming to the conclusion that they were to be masters of Egypt. Then there was General Gordon's application for troops to go to Berber and Wady Halfa. But none of these requests were acceded to, although the Government must have known that he would not have made such demands unless he was in danger. Again, General Gordon said—"Let General Graham come on to Berber." General Graham

    1457
    had slaughtered thousands of the inhabitants in the districts in which he was fighting; and why was he sent there? Was it for the purpose of slaughtering these Natives, and then retiring? If that is so, the judgment of your policy has come down on your heads, for Osman Digna is as powerful an enemy to you now as he was before the sanguinary engagement at El-Teb. Well, the Government would not send General Graham to Berber, and they had not a single thing to suggest in favour of General Gordon, while they were negativing everything he proposed. At last, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary remarked, there was nothing to be done but to send out a great Expedition; and this, he added, was done. Yes; but the charge against the Government was that the Expedition was despatched too late. The Prime Minister had stated that the House of Commons, by a large majority, affirmed what should be done. As a matter of fact the majority was only 28, though I will not now dwell on that circumstance; but I wish to remind hon. Members that the majority was gained because of the promises made during the debate in May last. As far as Gordon was concerned, they were bound to offer him every help they possibly could. This was acknowledged by the Prime Minister himself in the speech which he made. If ever there was a man who ought to have been rendered secure by the Government which sent him out, that man was General Gordon. But I undertake to say that in the history of this country there never was an agent sent out by the State to whom less support was given, and whose demands were less encouraged, or met with more opposition at the hands of the Government who sent him out, than General Gordon. In the course of that debate in May you entered into a solemn covenant with General Gordon. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: No.] Why, the Prime Minister himself said—
    "On reasonable evidence of danger we shall endeavour to use the resources of this country for his protection."—(3 Hansard, [288] 73.)
    Unfortunately, in estimating what was danger Her Majesty's Government took into consideration the character, the genius, and the supreme power of that particular man; and what would have been danger to another they thought
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    would be no danger to him. The Prime Minister laid down two conditions. One was that there must be a proved necessity, and the other was that the object must be attainable. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) said, during the debate in May—
    "We must be satisfied that such an Expedition is necessary to secure the safety of General Gordon, and we must be satisfied of the practicability of that Expedition if sent."—[Ibid. 233.]
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) said it seemed to him that the necessity for an Expedition was proved even at that time; and the Government cannot get out of the responsibility which they assumed in the debate last May. The Government had been fully warned in time what would be most likely to happen at Khartoum if they did not succour Gordon. But, in spite of those warnings, they neglected the considerations of Gordon's rescue. They even allowed months to pass before they could make up their minds whether to adopt the Nile route or the route from Suakin to Berber, completely ignoring the fact that it was a very different thing to rescue a man who was thousands of miles away to a person who was only a few hundred miles off. What happened to General Gordon? He was assailed by famine, sword, and treachery. The Government had been warned of the famine over and over again. General Gordon himself announced how long his supplies would last, and those supplies were exhausted. They were warned of treachery, and Gordon fell by treachery. He fell by the sword, because there was no one there to succour him. Now, the only treachery—if treachery there was—was the treachery of Her Majesty's Government. If ever a man was betrayed, Gordon was betrayed, not by these men in Khartoum, but by the Ministers of the Crown. During all that long time every favourable rumour which came from Khartoum was made the most of; every warning and dangerous symptom was minimized to the utmost. The Government refused even to make preparations for the rescue that was requested, and the Expedition was only sent out when it was too late. Does the House remember the words of the Secretary of State for War on July 8, two months after the great debate, in which he said—

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    "We have already stated that it is not our intention to despatch an Expedition to the relief of General Gordon, unless it is clearly shown that that is the only means by which General Gordon, and those dependent on him, can be relieved. We have at present received no information which could make it desirable that we should depart from that decision."—(3 Hansard, [290] 512.)
    At that time, therefore, the Government had not made up their minds whether an Expedition, if it should be necessary, was to proceed by way of the Nile, or from Suakin to Berber. One of the gravest charges against them is that they ought to have been in readiness before. Thus, the words became at last applicable to them—
    "Too late, too late; ye cannot enter now."
    The silver cord and the golden bowl are broken; the honour of England is stained; and the Government are responsible for all this to the country. I refer to the past, not only on account of the extraordinary circumstances of the case itself, but because I am afraid that as it has been in the psat so will it be in the future. I will refer, not to a written document, but to the statement made in writing in words which cannot lightly be altered. What was the policy of those words—"The evacuation of the Soudan by Egypt and its restoration to freedom?" but first there is to be action against Osman Digna, making a railway from Suakin to Berber, and overthrowing the Mahdi at Khartoum. But what is to be gained by that policy, which can only be carried out at an enormous expenditure of life and treasure, an expenditure which has been placed no higher by anyone than by the Prime Minister himself? The Government have undertaken to do that in the face of the country; and when it is accomplished they propose to scuttle out of the Soudan, leaving the people to what is called their natural freedom. You will have killed a great many. You are not leaving a good impression behind you; and you are not likely, therefore, to do much for the security of Egypt by simply smashing the Mahdi. The Government have spoken of the future—that slavery and the question of a good and settled Government at Khartoum were matters which involved the deep consideration of the Government. Is that so, or is it not? Are these questions put forward seriously, or simply as makeweights, in
    1460
    order to induce the country to accept your policy at the present moment? If the latter, they have no right to appear. If you do not mean to carry them out, you have no business to mention them. The right hon. Gentleman said the only thing is to get rid of entanglements. Are you really going to make this railway? No one has spoken more strongly of its advantages than the Earl of Dufferin himself. When you have made it, what are you going to do? Are you coming back by the first express train? If so, you are entering upon an extravagant expenditure for no purpose whatever. That is a policy which I can never support. I can perfectly understand the policy of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley). It was a great mistake ever to have gone there, and the sooner you come back the better. But first to murder and fight and spend money and blood, and then to leave all your friends, is a policy which I cannot understand, and which I will not support. How, if these men help you and bring provisions, can you leave them to the tender mercies of their enemies? A policy more stupid and purposeless it is impossible to conceive. Then we on this side are told—"But you have no policy of your own." I should have thought that the words of the Resolution itself shadowed out a policy. It is perfectly clear that none but those who have officially been cognizant of what has been going on the last two years can give the details of a policy. You have destroyed the Egyptian Army; you have destroyed the power of the Egyptian Government and made its Ministers your puppets. You know Egypt cannot stand alone. As to the policy of the hon. Member for Newcastle, it is clear that if followed to its legitimate conclusion it would invite other nations to step into our places. Thus we have been forced into this peculiar position by the policy of the Government, so that it is clear that for our own interests—and, indeed, for the interests of the world—we must stay. Then we have India to think of. I cannot help observing the deep interest which foreign nations show to add their names to the guarantee of the money which is to be borrowed. This anxiety on their part, which shows a political interest on the part of foreign countries, is a matter about which we ought to be

    1461
    on our guard, and watch with great care. There must be stable and good government in Egypt; and, no doubt, for a long time English influence must be large in Egypt. Surely, the policy which is shadowed out in this Resolution is as clear with respect to the Soudan as it is with respect to Egypt. The Resolution says there must be stable and good government in those portions of the Soudan which are necessary to the safety of Egypt. No one has warned you to take care what you do in the Soudan more than General Gordon himself. You are always willing to quote Gordon when he supports your views; but not in the contrary case. It is all very well for you to say—"Well, then, you mean us to conquer the Soudan." Nothing of the kind. Why should we do anything of the sort? The Prime Minister says—"At all events, you wish England to exercise power over the whole of the Eastern Soudan." Why so? The Resolution says nothing of the kind. You want a stable Government in so much of the Soudan as must necessarily have such a Government for the safety of Egypt. The right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) thought the minimum might be to make a railway to Berber and to occupy it. That is certainly a minimum which I do not think will produce the results we desire to attain. It may be necessary to go to Khartoum; but I cannot go into the details of a policy—all that is matter to be considered afterwards. The broad outline of a policy is there. That is a sufficient answer to the Home Secretary's Bismarck, a name by which the right hon. Gentleman may, perhaps, be known for some time. I cannot congratulate him upon the way in which he got out of the dilemma in which he was placed. If we wish for freedom and good government in Egypt and the Soudan, the only way to attain them is to recognize and to act up to the responsibilities which the Government have put upon our shoulders, to act as we would for ourselves until the time comes for the people of these countries to act for themselves. That will never be without our intervention. It has been said that the terms of the Resolution are weak, and that there ought to have been a much stronger expression of the indignation that is felt by the country. I believe it is according to
    1462
    precedent; and it will be judged by its fruits if Her Majesty's Government have to give up their Offices. There is intense shame and indignation all over the country, which, but for that, would be satisfied with a Resolution in the usual terms. No Party has the right to bring forward such a Resolution if it does not mean business; and my right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote), and those who act with him, are prepared to take the consequences if the vote is in their favour. If they were not, they would be unworthy of their position. No one could envy the cares of Office now when there are entanglements all over the world. In the last four years Government have sowed the seeds of mischief, which it will take long to remedy. But a Party must make sacrifices for the country. I believe the present Government cannot escape from their entanglements, and that if they remain in Office their acts will still be "too late," and national disaster will be the result. I believe that with a change of Government alone one-half of the difficulties that give us so much trouble will disappear. The present Government cannot get out of their difficulties with Foreign Powers, because of the acts they have done and the declarations they have made; so that whatever they do in the future they will not be able to disentangle themselves. It was for that reason that the Resolution was placed on the Paper; and I can assure hon. Members and the country that though the Resolution may appear to them to be weak, it will be strong enough for their purpose. And those are very much mistaken who think that we brought it forward without a determination to take the responsibility involved in its adoption.
    MR. P. H. MUNTZsaid, it was not often of latter years that he obtruded himself upon the House; but if ever he had had any doubt about the danger of meddling in Egyptian affairs, that doubt had been removed by the Home Secretary. Little did hon. Members think of the entanglements they had got into since they approved of the present action of Her Majesty's Government in Egypt. They had now 25,000 men, or shortly would have that number, in the Desert, and were spending several millions a month. It was very easy to go to war; but

    1463
    what had been done in Egypt had not been called war. The Government had discovered some new-fangled name for it. It had begun by the Dual Control, a very innocent but stupid attempt to meet the wants of the bondholders. The Dual Control resulted in extortion and mismanagement, which led to a military mutiny, because the officers were defrauded of their pay. It was, no doubt, a bondholders' question, and for their sake all the blood and treasure had been expended. And now Great Britain was going to war for the sake of persons who went in for large interest—7 per cent on £100, for which they paid only £50. He did not blame the bondholders; but if they went in for high interest, which the Duke of Wellington said meant bad security, they ought to be allowed to take their chance. In 1877 our Consul General in Egypt informed the Marquess of Salisbury that Ismail Pasha told him that it was impossible to pay the interest upon the bonds; that the pay of the Army was in arrear for 12 months, and that of the Civil servants for 18 months; and that there would be an insurrection unless he was allowed to use the interest on the bonds for the service of the State. The Chancellor of the Duchy (Mr. Trevelyan) said the day before yesterday that the Dual Control was the beginning of the imbroglio. But Arabi's rebellion broke up the Dual Control, and then was the time that we might have got rid of it. Some Members of the Government had said that we were obliged to interfere to protect the Suez Canal, though Lord Wolseley said, in the House of Lords, there was no fear of that, because it would not have been interfered with by Arabi so long as it was not used for warlike purposes. We began with the bombardment of Alexandria, and wound up the first campaign with the battle of Tel-el-Kebir. Now we had another Army in Egypt in great difficulty, and in considerable danger, and it would have to remain six months before it could do anything. The Motion before the House was meant to turn out the Government. He was not prepared to advocate that at all; but he thought they had a right to demand that Her Majesty's Government should give the House what they had not yet given—some reasonable outline, not of their military, but of their general policy—
    1464
    something clearer than the House had hitherto had from them. Knowing the country as he did, he was sure the people would not be content to go on spending millions of money and sacrificing a large number of valuable lives unless they knew what they were looking for. They must have something definite and clear before their minds. His vote would depend upon what further explanation the Government might make; and it was with a view to obtaining further information that he had made those few remarks.
    SIR FREDERICK MILNER: Sir, in common with many others, I have been disappointed with the Motion before the House; but from what I know now I am perfectly satisfied with the proposals of the Conservative Party. It is not necessary to use strong language in order to bring Members of the House face to face with the enormous blunders committed by Her Majesty's Government during the past few months. It has been said that we were riding to be beaten; and the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), during the unfortunate and disgraceful episode of the other evening, said that it was useless discussing the. Motion, because the Conservative Party did not wish to carry the Vote. I can, however, tell the hon. Member that we are perfectly in earnest about it, and that the Conservative Party are prepared to take Office if the Government sustains defeat and is condemned, as it deserves to be. True, the Conservative Leaders recognize the grave disadvantage of such a position, and the awful legacy they would inherit; but we are accustomed to think of the welfare of the country before the interests of Party, and our Leaders are prepared to adopt the only manly and honourable course in such a crisis. If Her Majesty sees fit to call upon them they will accept the cares of Office, and do their best to redeem the terrible past. I trust that, before the conclusion of the debate, one prominent man will declare the policy of the Conservative Party. I believe that policy will be a firm and vigorous one, such as is recommended by the right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen). It is rumoured that a few Conservatives will absent themselves from the division on account of a private grievance; but I believe they will do nothing of the sort. I will say this—that

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    if any Member of the Conservative Party allows any private grievance, however great it may be, to interfere with his plain duty to his country he deserves to be execrated by every loyal patriot in the land. But some say—"What is the use of debate? The result is a foregone conclusion." I dispute that altogether. I contend that if the servile majority, who have directly assisted Her Majesty's Ministers to bring about the appalling events of the past few months, continue their fatuous allegiance, they may, indeed, be described as mere pawns, humbly willing to be moved about the political chess board, as a few distinguished players think fit; but I will not believe so badly of them. The Prime Minister complained in his speech on Monday that the debate was a mere repetition of the discussion of last year. He said—
    "There is not an act which the right hon. Gentleman has alleged against Her Majesty's Government, but what was in full cognizance of the House when it debated this question last year."
    That may be true. We are dealing with the same actions, the same insane policy; but there was this material difference—then we could only warn, entreat, and prophesy; now we can point to the results of neglected entreaties, to prophecies literally fulfilled. Then at that time the Franchise Question was the all-absorbing topic. Ministers believed that the distribution of votes to the urban population would serve as a cloak to cover a multitude of sins. Their servile followers said—"Perish, Egypt; perish, Gordon. Nothing must imperil the franchise." I will do the urban population the justice to believe that they would gladly have gone without votes for two—aye five—years to have saved the gallant Gordon, to have saved all those noble men the victims of Ministerial incompetency. Now, I must congratulate the Prime Minister on one thing—the marvellous sang froid with which he defended a perfectly indefensible policy. As far as I can make out, the sum and substance of his speech was, he repented him not one jot of his former sins, and was determined not to lead a new life for the future. I cannot help thinking that the Prime Minister made a serious mistake in not promptly accepting the mild terms of the Resolution—especially after the gentle, almost
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    caressing, way in which he was treated by the respected Leader of the Opposition. He would have done better had he bent his back beneath the blow, and even offered the other cheek to the smiter. Now, Sir, it will be my object to show that the death of Gordon, and of the brave men who made such heroic efforts to save him, was directly attributable to the wilful perversity of Her Majesty's Ministers in refusing to look plain facts in the face. That these noble men have been sacrificed, and all this ruin and misery caused by what the Marquess of Salisbury has called the squabbles of a Cabinet and the necessities of keeping a Party in power, cannot be doubted by anyone who looks at the facts. While I am aware that it would not become me to detain the House beyond reasonable limits, I will try and concentrate my remarks on what I conceive to be two very important points in this grave question. My contention is that Gordon's mission was spoilt, and all the lamentable consequences have occurred, from the unwarrantable interference of the wiseacres of Downing Street, who thought they knew more than the man on whom they had cast all the burden and responsibility. Now, let me ask first, what was the opinion of the Government of the man whom they sent out to extricate them from difficulties of their own creation? On February 12 of last year the Prime Minister stated that General Gordon was selected because, to use his own words—
    "He is a man whom I look upon as by far the highest authority on the subject."—(3 Hansard, [284] 715.)
    The Lord Chancellor, on February 12, declared that General Gordon—
    "Because of his vast knowledge of the country and great influence over the Tribes and Chiefs was better able than any other man to say by what means a policy of conciliation and pacification might succeed."—[Ibid. 615.)
    The President of the Local Government Board, on February 14, said—
    "He was better able to form a judgment than anybody else. He will have, I make no doubt, any support which he can need in the prosecution of his mission."—(Ibid. 967.)
    On February 19, Earl Granville said the Government took upon themselves—
    "Responsibility for anything General Gordon does."—(Ibid. 1291.)
    Now, what were Gordon's instructions?

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    I have summarized his duties from official despatches. Briefly, they may be taken as follows:—1st, to withdraw the troops, Civil employés, and Europeans from the Soudan; 2, to report on the best means of securing the safety and good administration of the Red Sea Ports; 3, to advise how best to counteract the stimulus given to the Slave Trade by evacuation; 4, to establish an organized Government in the different Provinces of the Soudan for the maintenance of order and the cessation of all disasters and incitement to revolt; 5, to restore public tranquillity on a sure basis; 6, to establish justice and order; 7, to maintain the security of the roads open to commerce. With these instructions, Gordon received a despatch from Sir Evelyn Baring. After describing the object of his mission, Sir Evelyn Baring concluded—
    "But the Egyptian Government has the fullest confidence in your judgment, your knowledge of the country, and of your comprehension of the general line of policy to be pursued."
    And again—
    "In undertaking the difficult task which now lies before you, you may feel assured that no effort will be wanting on the part of the Cairo authorities, whether English or Egyptians, to afford you all the co-operation and support in their power."—[Egypt, No. 6 (1884), p. 2.]
    Now, how was this support and cooperation given? By refusing every single request which General Gordon made. Those requests may be briefly summed up as follows:—In the first place, he asked that he might negotiate personally with the Mahdi. The Prime Minister failed the other night to make out that the Government were not responsible for the refusal of this request; and we have it on record that Sir Evelyn Baring distinctly refused to allow the negotiations in question, and that in this he was encouraged by the Ministers at homo. In the next place, he asked for Zebehr; but the Government refused this request, notwithstanding his earnest desire. In the next place, the Government refused to send troops to Wady Halfa, although General Gordon's request that this might be done was backed by Sir Evelyn Baring, Nubar Pasha, General Stephenson, and Mr. Clifford Lloyd. Then the Government refused to send troops to Berber to open out that route; and, lastly, the Government refused to allow General
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    Gordon to escape with the employés and the garrison from Khartoum. I am prepared to prove all these assertions from official sources. I will now take two of these refusals upon which I will dwell for a moment, because of their vital importance to the question. First, refusal to send Zebehr, whereby the Government deprived General Gordon of the possibility of executing his mission pacifically; secondly, the refusal of the Government to secure Berber, whereby they compassed the ruin and death of General Gordon. When Gordon realized how huge, how overwhelming was the task he had undertaken, aggravated as it was by the insane policy of the Government in declaring their intention to abandon the Soudan, he saw that he could not accomplish his task alone. Therefore, after deep and anxious thought, he declared that Zebehr was the one man who could help him out of the difficulty. Now, remember that Colonel Stewart strongly supported this request. Sir Evelyn Baring thrice impressed on the Government the absolute necessity of granting that request, and further suggested that Zebehr Pasha should have an allowance of £50,000 a-year for a certain time. He said—
    "I believe that General Gordon is quite right when he says that Zebehr Pasha is the only possible man. I can suggest none other, and Nubar Pasha is strongly in favour of him."
    Thus Gordon, Stewart, Baring, and Nubar Pasha—all the ablest men on the spot—were unanimous as to the absolute necessity for sending Zebehr; but Downing Street was inexorable, and this is the way in which the Prime Minister carried out the resolution which he expressed on February 12, that they would do nothing to interfere with Gordon's schemes, which alone promised a satisfactory solution of the difficulty. It is true that many persons disapproved of Gordon's wish that Zebehr Pasha might be sent to him. Undoubtedly many Members of the Conservative Party were opposed to it; but why? Because the Government, with their usual love of concealment, never fairly explained the situation, or the reasons why Gordon urged the appointment of Zebehr. Had the Government put this House in possession of the facts of the case, the appointment of Zebehr Pasha would, I believe, have

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    been approved. I believe there is, indeed, little doubt that the Prime Minister was at first inclined to grant General Gordon's request. What, then, was the reason the request was refused? The Prime Minister let out the reason on Monday, when he said—
    "Then came the recommendation to send Zebehr; but it is well known that if, when that recommendation was made, we had complied with it, an Address from this House to the Crown would, before 24 hours were over, have paralyzed our action."
    This is, indeed, the secret of most of the blunders of the Government—their continual fear of being turned out. Now, it has been charged against the Conservatives that they would have endeavoured to turn the Government out on this question; but had General Gordon's despatches been produced, I am convinced that they would have given the Government their support. Let me remind you of an incident that shows the temper of the House at this time. I refer to the now celebrated Manifesto of Gordon as to the non-interference with slave-owners. On the 25th of February the hon. Member for Greenwich (Baron Henry de Worms) asked Questions as to this; thereupon the hon. Baronet the Member for Harwich (Sir Henry Tyler) interposed, and, amidst the cheers of hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, asked if it would not be better to let Gordon carry out his dangerous mission in the way that seemed best to him? The Prime Minister said that he strongly concurred in the general sentiment expressed in the truncated Question of the hon. Member for Harwich, and added—
    "I understand that likewise to be the decided feeling of the House."—(3 Hansard, [284] 1873.)
    I am perfectly well aware that, on the face of it, the appointment of Zebehr appeared to be objectionable. He had, no doubt, been a man of bad character, and a great slave hunter; but we might have known that Gordon would not have recommended his appointment without good reason. When Gordon said that the appointment of that man was a necessity, he ought to have been sent, even if that statement had stood alone. But General Gordon also gave reasons for thinking that Zebehr Pasha was improved. He pointed out that Zebehr was much civilized by his residence in
    1470
    Cairo, that it could be made worth his while to keep his contract, and that his slave-hunting proclivities would be effectually stopped by the evacuation of Bahr-Gazelle and the Equatorial Provinces. As to putting an end to slave-holding, that was necessarily a work of time; for just as in England, in 1883, immediate emancipation was denounced as confiscation—a view supported by the Prime Minister—so it would have been there. But be that as it may, the Government, backed by Earl Granville, were inexorable; and I contend that by refusing to allow Zebehr to go, they prevented Gordon, once for all, from carrying out his pacific mission. I have dwelt at some length on this matter, because I think it is one of the crucial points of the whole case. I contend, secondly, that the Government are directly responsible for Gordon's death by refusing to open the road to Berber and to secure the place. On February 27 Gordon implored that this road might be opened to Berber by Indian Moslem troops. At first, I admit, Sir Evelyn Baring was opposed to this; but afterwards he saw the necessity for it, and stated that Sir Evelyn Wood and General Stephenson said it was possible. On March 24, Sir Evelyn Baring wrote—
    "General Gordon is evidently expecting help from Suakin, and he has ordered messengers to be sent along the road from Berber to ascertain whether any English force is advancing. Under present circumstances, I think an effort should be made to help General Gordon from Suakin … General Stephenson and Sir Evelyn Wood … are of opinion that the undertaking is possible."—[Egypt, No. 12 (1884), p. 186.]
    So that at this time the Government knew that Gordon was in urgent need, and would not help him. But now they pretend that they thought he was in no immediate need; and because the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) chose to formulate a new meaning for the verb to "hem," Gordon was left to perish. If he had been "surrounded," I suppose help would have been sent; but because, according to the right hon. Gentleman, he was only hemmed in, therefore he was left to die. I have looked out the word to "hem" in an original copy I have of Johnson's Dictionary. I find it means "to cross the edge of cloth by a double hem, to enclose, environ." Therefore, it strikes me that "hemmed in" is even a more confining expression than "surrounded."

    1471
    It is impossible for the Government to say that they were not warned as to the importance of keeping Berber. Over and over again, both in this House and in the Press, they were urged and entreated to take advantage of our victories over Osman Digna, and to secure Berber; but, forsooth! the Government would not submit to Press dictation. When Berber fell, and his communications were cut, there was no hope for Gordon; and what makes the matter worse is that the reason the Government gave for not keeping the road open after El Teb and Tamasi was that it was too hot for troops. But if it was then too hot for the troops already there, and in some degree acclimatized, what is to become of the young unacclimatized fellows sent there now? I will not attempt to go further into this melancholy history; but I cannot help contrasting the way in which the Prime Minister spent his autumn, and the way in which Gordon spent his. The Government went scouring about the country, delivering orations at every railway station, hamlet, and town, haranguing mobs about their benevolent intentions with regard to the rural householders, while General Gordon was struggling day after day against starvation and ruin within, and savage foes without, and waiting in vain for the relief that never came. God grant that he may now know that thousands of English hearts were burning with indignation, thousands of strong English arms were longing to brave all the terrors of the Desert if only they might save him, and were restrained only by a Ministry that valued their own political position before the life of that noble hero. Nothing in the Prime Minister's speech was more weak than his reasons for not sending the Relief Expedition earlier. We were told that the choice of route required the most careful and prolonged consideration; but surely the Government might have found out, without much investigation, that the Nile route was more practicable at high Nile than after it began to fall. At any rate, they might have commenced their preparations earlier. What was it that happened on August 5 that they did not know before? Why, they found their Party had become exasperated, and that they must take steps to relieve Gordon or quit Office. The re-
    1472
    sult was that, having put off action to the very last moment, this step, like every other taken by them, came too late. Now, in conclusion, let me ask the Home Secretary, who has enlightened us to-night with a speech that would make us think he knew every square inch of the Soudan—let me ask him, is it not a fact that Her Majesty's Government are now committed to undertake every single thing which they declared no human power should make them undertake? Are they not committed, so far as this Government can be committed, to anything? Is it not a fact that they are committed to take Khartoum? Is it not a fact that they are committed to smash the Mahdi, who is heading a people struggling to be free—and rightly struggling for freedom—according to the Prime Minister? Is it not a fact that they are committed to smash Osman Digna for the third time? Is it not a fact that they are about to storm Berber, when a year ago General Gordon stated that 200 Hussars were all he required to secure him there? Is it not a fact that they are about to make a railway to Berber, which they think will take six months to complete, but which Lord Wolseley tells us will be nearer 12 months? Is it not a fact that we entreated them over and over again last year to make this railway; and that as late as November I put a Question to the Secretary of State for War urging him to make it as a means of retreat for our Army when the Nile had fallen? Is it not a fact that they are about to send 5,000 Indian troops from India to Egypt, when last year General Gordon implored that 200 or 300 might be sent? Is it or is not a fact that the difficulties now are ten times greater than they were last year; that the Mahdi's Forces, flushed with success, are ten times as numerous; that a doubting belief in the Mahdi has turned now to a firm belief in his divinity; that religious fanaticism threatens Egypt with destruction, and threatens trouble throughout the whole Mahommedan world, if not promptly checked? Is it not a fact that only a year ago General Gordon said the rebellion was only a trumpery affair, which he could put down with 500 Turkish troops, or any other troops sent him? It may be true that 2,000

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    Turkish troops would not have been enough; it may be true that the Home Secretary, in his over-weening self-esteem, thinks he knows more about the Soudan than General Gordon, who spent years there, and knew the tribes intimately; but I am justified in thinking—and I know many here will agree with me when I assert—that in the estimation of the people of England General Gordon's opinion will be taken before that of the Home Secretary. I ask, can any right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite contravene these facts I have put forward? I ask hon. Members who sit opposite whether, in the face of these facts, which cannot be controverted, they will still pin their faith and give support to a Government which has brought about this state of things? I earnestly trust—I earnestly believe—that the result of this division will be very different, indeed, to that in the division after these same facts had been debated last year.
    MR. CARTWRIGHTsaid, he hoped the Government would, in regard to certain points, give some information which might relieve the difficulties of mind under which he and many other hon. Members who sat on that side of the House were labouring as to the vote they were called upon to give. The Resolution submitted to the House fell under two heads. First there was the retrospective portion, but he would say nothing about that. The point of importance was the second head of the Resolution that dealt with the question of the hour. In the course of the debate he had heard some remarks which seemed to show certain misapprehensions of what he considered to be the character of the struggle in which we were engaged, and of the policy to be adopted. He had heard it called a struggle against a people who were fighting for their liberties. He ventured to say that this was not a struggle of nationalities. It was a struggle on one side for Western civilization against a wave of very militant Islamism; and the issue would not only touch England closely, but also, at many points, the interests of the Western communities and of the Western world at large. The question we had to consider was how we were to solve that problem? He heard to-night, what he must consider so far, an authoritative statement
    1474
    from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt) that we were about to be engaged in a struggle that would involve us in this—that we were to go and, to use a phrase which had become current, try to "smash up" the Mahdi at Khartoum. He (Mr. Cartwright) was bound to say that that would be a task of no ordinary magnitude. If it were to be entered upon, he hoped that all it involved and all it was likely to bring upon this country would be distinctly laid before the constituencies. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said that we were to go to Khartoum for the purpose of putting down the Mahdi; but he did not inform the House what we were to do with Khartoum after the Mahdi went out of it. The Mahdi well knew what his interests were, and if he chose to retire to Obeid, were we to follow him thither; and if he escaped us, was this country prepared to go beyond there into the Equatorial regions? They had been authoritatively told by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) that the railway from Suakin to Berber was being constructed for military purposes only, but also was to be a broad-gauge line, so that its construction would have the character of an abiding and a permanent line. The proposal to build such a line he looked upon as being perfectly ridiculous, if the line was to be abandoned after the campaign. When they made, in a region like the Soudan, a monument of Western civilization like this railway, was it wise, was it proper, was it expedient, on the termination of the war, to allow it afterwards to be handed over to the use of savage barbarians? He called attention to this, because, in the last few years, we had had instances of action that were somewhat spasmodic and emotional. The Expedition of General Graham to Suakin resulted in feats of arms which were glorious for our military renown, but which were attended the next day by a retreat; so that the enemy was stronger a few days after than they were a few days before. Were we to have the same thing at Berber? He hoped the Government would have a clear and distinct answer to this question. He could not forget that, though they had heard to-night

    1475
    that there was to be no annexation of the Soudan either by England or by Egypt, Parliamentary Papers had just been issued, which showed that there had been an idea of making an Egyptian Prince the Ruler of that country. There was much difficulty in ascertaining what was to be the real scope and limit of this great enterprize, the goal of which was Khartoum at present, but which might soon become Obeid. Therefore, anxious as he was to give his vote in support of Her Majesty's Government, he hoped they would condescend, through some responsible Minister, to give the House assurances that they were not pledged to an Expedition the magnitude of which was illimitable, and the results of which it was absolutely impossible to forecast. Above all, he hoped there would be a guarantee that we were not about to engage in Expeditions only attended by feats of arms and by slaughter and butchery, and which might prove as fruitless as the Expedition of General Graham to Suakin and the battle of El Teb. The House ought to know whether we were going to introduce into that country some form of orderly government. He would again express his respectful hope that the Government would take into consideration the difficulty in which some of their supporters were placed with regard to the vote which they were about to give. He was far from desiring to support the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote); but, as at present advised, he would say that if he were not provided with better light as to the intentions of the Government, and as to the scope and end of their action, he should be prepared to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley).
    SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he deeply sympathized with the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) in the difficulty in which he was placed. The humble appeals which the hon. Member had made to the Government would, he hoped, induce them to relieve the anxiety of the House and the country. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt) had ridiculed the suggestions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen), which he considered impertinent and
    1476
    declined to answer. Then the right hon. Gentleman sneered at India; but was good enough to admit that the Government had experienced failures and made some mistakes. Made some mistakes—why, good God! their hands were deep in blood. They were ankle deep in it. The request of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon was a very legitimate and reasonable one—namely, that he was not prepared to support a policy, which pledged us to breaking the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum, without receiving some more definite declaration of the policy of Her Majesty's Government than had yet been obtained. The Secretary of State for the Home Department, in referring to the speech of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), actually had the audacity to compare the present Government in regard to foreign affairs with that of Lord Palmerston. The idea of comparing the policy of Lord Palmerston's Government, which secured us peace and the respect of Europe, with the present Administration, which had plunged us into war broadcast, and had made us contemptible in the eyes of other countries, was too absurd. Then the right hon. Gentleman had smothered the House with long extracts from Gordon's despatches, tending to prove how wrong the Government had been in the past. But that was not what the House required. The House wanted information with respect to the new departure of the Government which had been announced by the Prime Minister. What hon. Members wanted to know was, whether this new departure would strengthen, not the hands of the Government—for neither himself, nor, he supposed, anybody else, cared a row of pins about the Government—but the hands of the country in the eyes of the world. Do not let us be loft any longer in ambiguity about this matter; but let the country be frankly told what the Government really intended to do. Let them enlighten the House as to their new departure. There was no doubt of the character of the indictment of the policy of the Government after the speeches of his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), and the right hon. Member for Ripon. But there had been some remarkable speeches also from the Benches opposite

    1477
    below the Gangway. The hon. Member for East Cornwall (Mr. Borlase) was so thorough a supporter of the Government that he said the Prime Minister was entitled to the honours of a Roman triumph. The hon. Member had forgotten the words of Gibbon, who said that many of those to whom a Roman triumph had been decreed were "condemned to everlasting infamy." Then the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Picton) announced himself as speaking on behalf of the "democracy of organized industry." That was a beautiful phrase. No doubt, the hon. Member knew where it came from. It came from Tom Paine's Age of Reason. The hon. Member for Leicester ridiculed the policy of the Government, but then went on to say that he intended to support the policy which he had just ridiculed. The junior Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley), whose Colleague's speech the other day he (Sir Robert Peel) read with admiration, proposed an Amendment which reminded him of one described by Sheridan as being like a mealy potato with pickled onion, because it at once condemned and shielded the Government. What would the country think of hon. Members who could denounce and yet support the Government? It was pleasant to think that there were Members of an advanced Party, who could maintain an air of independent Radicalism by speaking one way, and an air of independent respectability by voting another. It was clear from the speeches delivered by the right hon. Gentlemen the Member for Ripon and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, that the Government were miserably drifting into a hopelessly defenceless position. It seemed so difficult to arouse them to a sense of their situation, that it was natural the Opposition should try their hands at something better, and should declare a policy which this direct Vote of Censure manifestly though tacitly implied. ["Oh, oh!"] It was constantly asked of the Opposition—"Why do not you declare your policy; let us know what you mean, and we will shape our course accordingly? "This was said by the miserably weak Government of 1839–40; and the late Sir Robert Peel replied—"When I am called in I will prescribe, but not till then." The consequence was—to use an expression not unfamiliar to the House
    1478
    —out they went. The Leader of the Opposition had done quite right in not waiting for Papers, and in pressing manfully to the front, for the country was in a state of dismay and agitation. It was impossible for any honest politician not to be surprised at the enthusiasm which the most moderate attacks against the Government engendered outside the walls of Parliament. Wait for Papers, indeed! Did not we know enough? In the opinion of the country, General Gordon had been done to death; the "Christian hero" of the Prime Minister had been the scapegoat of political exigencies, the victim of political indecision; and he, for one, in common with other hon. Members, had seen, what he was ashamed to allude to—the humiliating spectacle, on Monday night last, of the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department attempting to ride off from responsibility on the back of the traitor who betrayed Gordon. To make the case worse, the affidavits of the two anonymous Egyptian Colonels, to which the Prime Minister had referred, to the effect that no human power could have saved Gordon, reminded him of the affidavits quoted by the President of the Board of Trade in regard to the Aston Riots. By the irony of fortune there had just come to hand a letter of Gordon's, dated the 14th of December, in which he said—
    "All is now up; I expect a catastrophe in ten days' time. It would not have been so if your people had kept me better informed as to their intentions."
    This clearly proved that the Colonels' affidavits were worth no more than those of the President of the Board of Trade. Was this a moment for joy and congratulation, as the Marquess of Ripon said it was at Liverpool? In the view of a vast number of people there had been most defective strategy in all these proceedings of the Government. The situation was this. Instead of relieving Gordon, all their efforts were directed in relieving Wilson, who had gone to relieve Gordon, and now in relieving Buller, who had gone to relieve poor Stewart. Yet the Marquess of Ripon, fresh from honours won in India, could speak of this as a moment for joy and congratulation. ["No, no!"] He would quote the report of the speech

    1479
    from The Times. Lord Ripon's words were—
    "There are circumstances in the troubles of the Soudan upon which we must all congratulate ourselves."
    He contended that there were no such circumstances. The Prime Minister said his policy now was to smash the Mahdi, and then make a friend of him. Smash the Mahdi, indeed! He should say the Mahdi was much more likely to smash Her Majesty's Government. But while all this was going on, it was something pitiful to hear the appeals ad misericordiam to the Opposition not to venture to censure the Government at the present moment. If ever there was a time when they should censure the Government it was the present. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for India (Mr. J. K. Cross), the other day, said that—
    "This is not a time to criticize and censure the action of the Government; we can only hope for the best."
    That was exactly the hand-to-mouth policy which the Government had been pursuing. They had been hoping for the best, and always getting the worst of it. But there was one Member of the Government who had come to the rescue, and there was such a mawkish sentimentality about his speech that it was impossible not to refer to it. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General (Sir Farrer Herschell), speaking at South Shields immediately after he heard of the fall of Khartoum, of the death of Gordon, and of the retirement of the British, said—
    "He was not for one moment going to say that Her Majesty's Government had not made mistakes;"—
    the Home Secretary had said as much that night, so that the statement had been confirmed—
    "this was an erring world, where everybody made mistakes; and to suppose that they had got infallible Ministers was to suppose that they were not going to get human beings whom they could understand."
    That was the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General; and he would defy anyone to understand the human beings, as the hon. and learned Member called them, who were now Ministers. There was one omission which struck him in the speech of his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition (Sir Stafford Northcote).
    1480
    He (Sir Robert Peel) thought it was hardly fair to omit stating that, in all the blunders and butcheries in which the Government had been mixed up in Egypt, they had really many other things to look to. They had been studying, for instance, the political philosophy of one of their Colleagues, with whom they had been in correspondence, and they had been engaged upon the greatest Constitutional change since 1688, undertaken with the view of strengthening the influence of the Radical Party. But, putting on one side those matters, there could be no doubt whatever that the situation of affair's at the present moment was deplorable. There was a universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction prevailing in almost every part of the Empire; and what was much worse, there was a total loss of respect on the part of the other Powers of Europe towards England. Never, since the time of the First Napoleon, were the relations between France and this country more strained than now. He was one of those who complained of the treatment of Turkey in this matter. His opinion was that it would have been in the interests of Europe if the Prime Minister, instead of constantly attacking Turkey, had followed the policy of Lord Palmerston and had really taken that country into his confidence. ["No, no!"] That, of course, was a matter of opinion; but he (Sir Robert Peel) had followed the policy of Lord Palmerston for many years, and believed it to be, upon the whole, a right policy. He wished to refer to the position of Italy in this matter. Three Expeditions had left Italy for Massowah; and, in the Italian Chambers, Signor Mancini had stated distinctly—"We are not going to Massowah by Treaty, but by understanding with England." He considered that this was a serious matter, for who could say that such an invasion of Turkish territory by Italian troops might not lead to a European war? What had the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) said in that House upon the subject? The noble Lord had been questioned upon the matter more than once, and he had stated that there was no Treaty or arrangement between the two countries with respect to the occupation of Massowah; that Her Majesty's

    1481
    Government had no information as to the intentions of the Italian Government, but that they had reason to believe that the Sultan had not assented to the occupation of Massowah. He could not conceive any situation more unfortunate than for a Minister to make a statement in the House of Commons upon this matter directly contrary to that of the Prime Minister of Italy. It was impossible to reconcile the two statements. The Italians had more than once attempted to take Massowah; and, in 1880, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs wrote a despatch to Sir Augustus Paget at Rome, and that despatch showed that, since the year in question, the policy of the Government Upon this point had changed, because Her Majesty's Government in 1880 considered that the Egyptian Government held Sovereignty over Massowah and that part of the country, and protested against the exercise of any right of Sovereignty on the part of Italy.
    LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Is it Assab or Massowah?
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: Assab.
    LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: You said Massowah.
    SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that what he had said was the Sovereignty of the country of which the bay formed a part. Lord Granville, in 1880, protested against the occupation of a part of the coast which belonged to Egypt. Now, he (Sir Robert Peel) believed that that occupation was likely to lead to fanatical outbreak among the Mussulman tribes in that part of the world; and he maintained that, unless the Government took very great care, serious danger would result from the occupation of Massowah by the Italians with 10,000 men. Were they going to assist the Government, or to assert a Sovereignty over the country? He asserted that the Italian Government never went there with 10,000 men unless there was a Treaty, or, if not a Treaty, some arrangement with Her Majesty's Government. There was one remark which the Prime Minister contested to-night, and which was made by his hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin). The Motion of his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition stated that the policy of Her Majesty's Government had involved great sacrifice of valuable lives and heavy expenditure without any beneficial
    1482
    result. Well, on Monday night the Prime Minister turned to the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley), and said—
    "I deny altogether the assertion of the hon. Gentleman, that the expenditure of blood, and treasure has produced no beneficial result. Have we not abolished the kourbash and corvée? Have we not improved the irrigation of Egypt?"
    That was the policy of the Government—spending millions of money, and sacrificing hundreds and thousands of valuable lives, for the purpose of abolishing the kourbash and corvée, and improving irrigation. But even that was not true. He (Sir Robert Peel) spoke on the authority of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, who wrote to The Times, and said that he had abolished the corvée; but, when he left Egypt, it had been re-established. Therefore, the result was that Her Majesty's Government had abolished the kourbash and re-established the corvée, and improved the irrigation of the land. Now, in addition to this Italian policy to which he had referred, we had in London at present a special Ambassador from Turkey—Hassan Fehmy Pasha. What had he come here for? He (Sir Robert Peel) had tried to find out what was the object of his mission. In fact, he had asked Fehmy Pasha himself, and he failed to obtain from him the precise object of his mission. But if he had failed to learn from Hassan Fehmy what was the precise object of his mission, at all events he had been able to ascertain what Lord Granville had said to him. Fehmy Pasha asked whether Her Majesty's Government were inclined to evacuate Egypt, and Lord Granville told him they were for political reasons. Fehmy Pasha asked when, and Lord Granville said—
    "The British Government, being a Constitutional one, is dependent upon public opinion, which compelled the Cabinet to send an Expedition to the Soudan, and would not permit the evacuation of Egypt without some return for the sacrifices England has incurred."
    MR. GLADSTONE: Who said that?
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: That was Lord Granville to Fehmy Pasha. But, on the 19th of February, the first day of the re-assembling of Parliament, the Prime Minister said—and he (Sir Robert Peel) deeply regretted it—
    "I need only remind the House that the policy declared by Her Majesty's Government has always been, with respect to the Soudan,

    1483
    the evacuation of the Soudan by Egypt and its restoration."
    MR. GLADSTONE: To freedom.
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: That was not in the first speech.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I have referred to the reports, and in consequence of a considerable movement at the time in the House when I used the words "restoration to freedom" the words "to freedom" were not heard by the reporters.
    SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, it did not appear in the report; but, of course, he accepted the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Caine), speaking at Brixton on the same day—for it was well to compare the different utterances of Ministers—said that the results which had followed in the Soudan were only the consequences of Mr. Gladstone's earnest desire to evacuate the Soudan as quickly as possible. But they had heard the Prime Minister say that the intention of the Government was not the abandonment of the Soudan, but the evacuation of the Soudan by Egypt; and the intention of the Government, as shown by the construction of the Berber-Suakin railway, is one of occupation. Immediately on the confirmation of General Gordon's death, this official notice was sent round to all the newspapers in the country—
    "It is now decided, in accordance with the wishes of Lord Wolseley, to open the Berber-Suakin route."
    He wanted to know, what every person in the country was anxious to learn, why the Government did not adopt that plan when there was an opportunity of doing so last spring? The Conservative Party and the country were in favour of the establishment of the Berber-Suakin route. Why was not this course adopted, instead of the immense cost which had been entailed in men and money now thrown away on the Nile Expedition? But then the Government had apparently entered upon another plan. Now they had again, apparently, changed their mind. A vast Expedition was leaving for Suakin, evidently for a new purpose, and he had no doubt it would be too late. All these Expeditions had arrived too late. They reminded him of some lines as to the position of this country some years ago—lines which were written by a very cele-
    1484
    brated statesman, and were very happy and applicable—
    "In planning expeditions 'gainst the foe,
    Our Ministers are ever sure, but slow;
    Each expedition shares a common fate,
    Slow to depart, and sure to be too late."
    It appeared to him that the Government were now adopting a policy of revenge. They were going to avenge Gordon's death. Was that right or wise? Poor Gordon was dead, a scapegoat to the political exigencies of the Government, a victim to their vacillation. But was a war to avenge Gordon a right or judicious thing for this country to undertake? Among others who had said that Gordon was to be avenged was his hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the War Office (Sir Arthur Hayter). That hon. Gentleman had said—
    "Gordon is to be avenged. No Government would be worthy of the name who did not come to that decision. To withdraw would entail a loss of prestige; but it was not intended to rescue the garrisons in the South of the Soudan."
    A resolution was, of course, at once passed expressing confidence in the Government. The other evening the Prime Minister used an expression which, he hoped, would never again be adopted by a Prime Minister of this country. The right hon. Gentleman, on February 19, asked—"Can we escape by accommodation?" He could not understand how such an expression could be used at a time when the Government had spent millions of money on a reckless war, and sent many brave men to their graves. The House, he hoped, would decline to support the policy of the Government without further pledges and stricter declarations as to the nature of that policy. He was prepared to give his support to this Motion before the House, because he believed every day proved that the policy of the Government was injurious to the public interest, and was working incalculable mischief to the welfare of the Empire.
    Sir CHARLES W. DILKE and Mr. COURTNEY rose together. Mr. SPEAKER called upon.
    SIR CHARES W. DILKE,who said: Sir, I am sorry to stand between my hon. Friend the Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) and the House; and as I am certain that my hon. Friend will have an opportunity of addressing the House before the close

    1485
    of the debate, I have thought it right that some Member of the Government should rise to reply to the speeches which have been addressed to us by distinguished Members of this House since the speech of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. As to the fine comedy of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken—["Oh!"]—I do not use the word in an offensive sense; but I desire to point out that the roars of laughter in which we have all of us been kept for the last hour, by the right hon. Gentleman, are hardly in keeping with, and hardly suited to, the dignity and gravity of the subject before the House. I shall not follow the right hon. Gentleman into the consideration of Lord Wolseley's strategy. I am not a military man, and the right hon. Baronet is not a military man, and is probably no higher an authority on matters of strategy than a layman like myself. Nor shall I follow him in some of the other comments he has made. But I must take exception to the course pursued by the right hon Baronet in giving to the House as quotations from speeches, delivered on various occasions, words which are not quotations at all, but long summaries with his own opinions upon them. One most remarkable example of this practice is to be found in the allusion made by the right hon. Baronet to a recent speech of the Marquess of Ripon. He went very much out of his way to bring the name of the Marquess of Ripon into the matter; and he charged the Marquess of Ripon with having, on a certain occasion, made some undesirable remarks, and with having congratulated the country upon the present unfortunate state of affairs. Now, the passage in the Marquess of Ripon's speech had reference only to the heroism displayed by the British troops. The House will, perhaps, allow me to read what it was that the Marquess of Ripon really did say. What he said was this—
    "There were circumstances connected with the present state of affairs upon which they might undoubtedly and fairly congratulate themselves. What could have been more magnificent than the conduct of the British Army in the Soudan? The lesson that foreign countries would learn was that we were the same people who fought in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny. Another cause for congratulation was the offer of assistance made to England by her Colonies."
    1486
    Surely no comment of any kind is necessary in reference to these observations, and it is only necessary to put before the House the actual words of the Marquess of Ripon for hon. Members to see how unfair is the attack which has been made upon my noble Friend. The right hon. Baronet also misquoted, if the House will allow me to use the expression—but I will put it in any other words if the right hon. Baronet objects to that term—the right hon. Gentleman gave his own version of the words of Mr. Clifford Lloyd's letter to The Times with regard to the corvée, and he entirely misrepresented the words used by the Prime Minister in the course of last week.
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: What did Mr. Clifford Lloyd say?
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I read the letter in The Times very carefully, and, although I do not agree with it, I did not understand Mr. Clifford Lloyd to say that he had abolished the corvée, and that it had been re-established.
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: Since he left.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I do not pretend to use Mr. Clifford Lloyd's exact words. I am quoting from memory the language of his letter which appeared in The Times, not having the passage at hand.
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: Perhaps the right hon. Baronet will pardon me if I interrupt him. It is not very fair for the right hon. Baronet, when he is charging me with wilful misrepresentation—for that is his meaning—to speak from memory, without referring to the actual words of Mr. Clifford Lloyd's letter.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I can assure the House that I have no desire to hurt the feelings of the right hon. Baronet; but I read Mr. Clifford Lloyd's letter, and I gathered from it an entirely different impression from that which has been conveyed by the right hon. Baronet. With regard to other points, there can be no doubt that the right hon. Baronet has misrepresented what the Marquess of Ripon said, and that, on three occasions, when he professed to quote the words of the Prime Minister, as a matter of fact he misquoted them.
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: I really must interrupt the right hon. Baronet, who has now repeated his charge against

    1487
    me. The right hon. Baronet has distinctly charged me with wilful misrepresentation, and I am entitled to defend myself against that charge, and to explain to the House that I used the very words of the Marquess of Ripon. I deny that I, in any way, misquoted him. I quoted his very words. I am in the hands of the House. If I have in any way said anything that was not fair to the Marquess of Ripon, I am perfectly ready to apologize. The words I quoted were to the effect that, in reference to the Soudan, there were circumstances upon which we might undoubtedly and fairly congratulate ourselves.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I am in the recollection of the House. I maintain that the right hon. Baronet made an attack upon the Marquess of Ripon; and I desire to show that, so far from the noble Marquess having made an unpatriotic speech, he did just the reverse.
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: I never said that the noble Marquess had made an unpatriotic speech.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: That appeared to be the impression which the right hon. Baronet wished to convoy to the House. The right hon. Baronet is fond of making rather sweeping and strong statements. The right hon. Baronet said that he knew from the highest possible authority that our relations with France at the present time were more critical than they had ever been since the battle of Waterloo.
    SIR ROBERT PEEL: I said that they were more strained than they had ever been since that time.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I was not at all aware that we were on the brink of a war with France, or on anything but the most excellent terms with that country. I do not know how the right hon. Baronet can suppose that our relations with France are more strained than they were at the time of the Pritchard incident in reference to Tahiti, or at the time of the Spanish Marriages, when we undoubtedly were on the brink of war. I do not know whether the right hon. Baronet means by "the highest authority" the French Ambassador, the Prime Minister, or the President of the French Republic. It ought to be one of those three persons to justify the language used by the right hon. Gentle-
    1488
    man; but I greatly doubt whether the right hon. Baronet got his information on the subject from cither of them. I shall have occasion presently to refer again to the misrepresentations of the right hon. Baronet on other matters; but I will now, in the first place, deal with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross). The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech to-night, took us back a very long way, and he spoke of the danger to the country which had arisen from the seeds sown by the present Government in Egypt during the last four years. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imagine that the Egyptian Question had been raised entirely by the present Government since they came into Office, and that hon. Members opposite are not in the smallest degree responsible for any part or share in these transactions. The right hon. Gentleman appears to have forgotten all about the meeting at Willis's Rooms, and the action of another Government which had rendered it necessary to send the British Fleet to Alexandria. He is quite ignorant of anything like pressure on the part of the Party opposite, and certain circumstances which preceded the transactions of four years ago. The country, however, will never forget that the present Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and several of their Colleagues were in Office for many years without mixing this country up in the affairs of Egypt, and that it was the late Government who upset the late Khedive and set up the present Khedive.
    MR. BOURKE: Not at all. Never.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: The despatches are before the House, especially the despatches relating to the bringing of France into the control of the affairs of Egypt, and including Austria against the desire of Austria, and I ask the House if that did not bring this country into the position of direct responsibility which it now occupies in regard to Egypt? I ask the House also to remember that it was the action of the Marquess of Salisbury when he came into Office which changed the Dual Control, which had formerly been merely a financial one, into a political and international one. The right hon. Gentleman taunted us with not having sent out Cavalry to Suakin and

    1489
    Berber; while the hon. Member for York (Sir Frederick Milner), who spoke shortly after the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire, made a vigorous attack upon us on this ground alone. He also said that the blood of Gordon rested upon us. That is the nature of the accusation of the hon. Baronet, which he endeavoured to substantiate in a speech of great length, because we had not allowed General Gordon to avail himself of the assistance of Zebehr Pasha. The request of General Gordon to have Cavalry sent to him was dependent upon his obtaining the assistance of Zebehr Pasha; and when the Government decided that he should not have that assistance his request for Cavalry fell through. Do hon. Members recollect that speech which the Marquess of Salisbury made with regard to Zebehr Pasha? And, in the face of that speech on the part of their Leader, how could hon. Members opposite now maintain that Zebehr Pasha should have been employed? Do hon. Members opposite mean to endorse the statement that the death of General Gordon and the fall of Khartoum were owing to the not sending out of Zebehr Pasha?
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: What I said was that General Gordon requested us to do certain things—five in all; that we refused every one of them, and substituted nothing in their place.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I was not referring to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman at the moment, but to that of the hon. Baronet the Member for York (Sir Frederick Milner). The right hon. Gentleman carefully guarded himself against giving a distinct support to the request for sending out Zebehr Pasha. We must remember that all of the military authorities in this country were distinctly opposed to the sending of a small force to Berber at that time. We are told that we should probably be doing no good, and that we should be running a risk which no Government were justified in running. That was the opinion of the military authorities. Now comes the question whether the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire is right in saying that at a later period than that we were too late in the action which we took. The whole stress of the argument against us, with the exception of that of the one hon. Gentleman I have
    1490
    mentioned, who attacked us for not having sent out Zebehr Pasha—the whole stress of the argument against us is that we were too late in the action which we took on the Nile, and that we must have been prepared to be too late—that we acted, in fact, at a later moment than the best moment at which we should have acted; but those who make that accusation against us have not attempted to justify it by any facts or dates at all. They seem to think that we let pass the moment of the highest Nile, and that we let slip the best opportunity for taking action upon the Nile. That is not the case. The first action for advancing up the Nile was taken previous to the highest Nile. The steamers for the transport of an Expedition were passed up the Nile as soon as it was possible to pass them up; and, as a matter of precaution, the orders were given even before the Expedition was decided upon. This was about the middle of July—a considerable time before the actual necessity for an Expedition had been demonstrated. ["Oh!"] I do not know what there is in that statement that can be considered objectionable.
    An hon. MEMBER: The words "Before the actual necessity for an Expedition had been demonstrated."
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I quite understand the feeling of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and which they expressed in the debate in August, that the necessity was demonstrated before we thought it was. But although that may be the feeling of hon. Gentlemen opposite, we did, in point of fact, act in advance of our own views on the subject, because, as we thought it might become necessary to despatch an Expedition at the earliest date, we passed the steamers up the Nile, and as soon as the river became sufficiently high we took steps which would have to be taken if the Expedition were afterwards decided upon. These orders were given in July, and the steamers passed up the river some time before the Expedition was decided upon in August. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite say that at that date we had no intention of aiding or rescuing General Gordon. Before we decided to send British troops up the Nile, on this very dangerous Expedition, it was our bounden duty to try whether there were other means in exist-

    1491
    ence by which Khartoum could be relieved. These means were tried in July, when active steps were taken to get the Kabbabish Tribes, who were opposed to the Mahdi, to go to Khartoum. Major Kitchener was sent to them, and spent a considerable sum of money in order to negotiate for the relief of Khartoum. This was in July, at the time when the boats were being prepared. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire has quoted to-night a letter from General Gordon, dated 19th of September, in which he complains of receiving no answer to his applications. The right hon. Gentleman has quoted it as if he thought that the receipt of no answer by General Gordon was in some degree our fault. Now, at the moment when that letter was written by General Gordon, Lord Wolseley was actually at Cairo; and every possible step had been taken, two months in advance of that date, to send news to General Gordon at Khartoum. Every conceivable step had been taken, two months before that date, to send news into Khartoum. Messengers had been sent by the Nile, through Suakin and Berber, by Massowah, and even through Tripoli and the Barbary States. Indeed, every possible and conceivable step had been taken for sending an answer to General Gordon; and although, unfortunately, he was without news from us at that date, it cannot be said that it was our fault that General Gordon was so situated. The right hon. Gentleman and other speakers have lately spoken of our being too late, as though we were too late in the ordinary sense of the word, and as though the danger could have been foreseen and prevented with greater speed. Some hon. Members have persuaded themselves that Khartoum actually fell from want of provisions; but, in the opinion of the great majority of this House, that was not the case. There is every possible reason to suppose that Khartoum fell through treachery, and there is absolutely no evidence the other way. There is evidence to show that there was plenty of food to enable the garrison to hold out until Lord Wolseley's Forces reached the city in the ordinary course of events. General Gordon informed us, over and over again, that he had food to last up to December, or, at the least, up to the end of September. On the 18th of September he stated that
    1492
    he had money and food enough in Khartoum for four months, after which time he said he should be embarrassed; but he used no stronger word than "embarrassed." He assumed that no troops had been sent at that time to relieve him; whereas, as a matter of fact, Lord Wolseley had sent troops up the Nile in boats, and a great number were on their way. General Gordon said that if troops were sent, the rebellion would cease as soon as they reached Berber. That fact shows how misinformed even General Gordon was as to the military situation. Now, although General Gordon then expected to have provisions only to the end of the year, as a matter of fact, there can be no doubt that he made sortie after sortie in the late months of the year, in which he captured provisions. The right hon. Gentleman opposite smiles; but there is a great mass of evidence to that effect, and we have the distinct statement of the last messengers who left Khartoum, that General Gordon was in perfect health, that his steamers were going down the river, and that he was constantly capturing grain and taking it up the river. Some hon. Members opposite have blamed the Prime Minister for quoting the anonymous Colonels of General Gordon; but what better evidence can you have than that of General Gordon's two Colonels, and of his Admiral, and of the 250 men who came down from Khartoum? They were Gordon's most trusted men; they acted as his body-guard during the siege; they were constantly going up and down the Nile; and their testimony to Lord Wolseley was that Gordon was not in great straits for want of provisions. Then there was the fact of the four steamers, which were well provisioned, and not by any means steamers that would be sent down by a starving town. It seems, therefore, to be as certain as anything can be that the statements of the messengers are true, and that Gordon was brought to his death by treachery within the town alone. If the danger was treachery, it was one which could not have been avoided by a more speedy military action than Lord Wolseley actually took. Now, I turn to some of the later questions, which are by far the most important raised in this debate, but which it is impossible to consider with-

    1493
    out previous reference to those military questions which have been made the ground of attack upon the Government. There are some hon. Members on this side of the House who think that after the fall of Khartoum became known we ought immediately to have withdrawn from the Soudan. I think it is unnecessary to discuss that question from the political or general point of view, when you remember how overwhelmingly strong against it are the purely military arguments. We had from Lord Wolseley a statement which, judging from subsequent events, appears to have been too sanguine as to the possibility of either of two courses being taken—either concentration at Korti, or advance. But Lord Wolseley asked for and expected an Expedition from Suakin; and, therefore, farther and considerable military operations were regarded by Lord Wolseley as an essential portion of our plans. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) asked a distinct question with regard to military operations. He put one of those questions which it is generally unwise to put and unwise to answer. I am able to say that, because I am not going to make that appeal with regard to this particular question. But speculative questions as to what is to happen in six months' time, at the end of our military operations, are questions which it would be unwise for any Government to pledge themselves to definitely. I cannot think that has been done in any previous military operations in this country, and it would be unwise on our part to do it now. But the hon. Member has put so extreme a case that it is possible to answer it. He asked, if the Mahdi were to retire to the Equatorial sands, whether we should follow him? I answer that no English Minister would be sufficiently mad or foolish to follow the Mahdi in that way. With regard to the future of the Soudan, the hon. Member for York (Sir Frederick Milner) made a somewhat humorous statement to the House, though I think it was somewhat unconscious humour. He expressed a fervent hope that before the close of the debate one of the prominent Members of the Opposition would enlighten him by expressing a firm and enlightened policy. I do not think he is likely to be successful. He seems to have spoken without any regard to the
    1494
    speeches which his Leaders have made up to the present time. He does not seem to have paid any attention to the speeches of his Leaders, either in this House or in the other House, to-night, or to the speeches of the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), or of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross), or of the Duke of Richmond to-night in "another place." None of those speeches seem to have made any effect upon him, and I think his Leaders will not be much flattered when they read that statement to-morrow; and certainly the anxiety of the hon. Member is likely to be increased by the statements which have since been made in the course of the debate. I sympathize with right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they refuse to give form to declarations of policy. My contention is that no Government and no Opposition ought ever to be asked, six months in advance, to pledge themselves in detail as to the j results of military operations. Those results must depend upon circumstances and the nature of the operations themselves. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire made certain general declarations with which I should be prepared myself to agree. He quoted the words of the Resolution, and he said that we ought to do our best to insure a good and stable Government succeeding us. Quite so; and then the right hon. Gentleman said that a good and stable Government in the Soudan meant our staying in Egypt. But this seemed to imply our staying in such portions of the Soudan as were necessary to our security in Egypt; and, no doubt, a large portion of the Party opposite appear to be desirous of pledging us to the policy of staying there. The right hon. Gentleman then read the words of the Resolution, and said the portion of the Soudan in which we must stay must be that portion which was necessary for the security of Egypt. All the highest military authorities of this country have agreed previously in fixing the frontier of Egypt so as to exclude these portions of the Soudan. If you looked merely to military considerations, you would not find it necessary to keep these portions of the Soudan, including Berber and Khartoum. The right hon. Baronet the Mem-

    1495
    ber for Huntingdon (Sir Robert Peel) told us that there was no ambiguity in the Resolution of the Leader of the Opposition. Those who have followed the explanations of that Resolution would be disposed to think there was an immense amount of ambiguity covered by its terms. For instance, the right hon. Gentleman says we are to stay in Egypt and those portions of the Soudan which are necessary for military security, and that the minimum of the right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) was not enough. But he did not say what line be would fix, but put it entirely on the ground of military security. He did not assume any necessity for staying in the Soudan for the purpose of securing good government in the Soudan, or those parts of it which were necessary for the security of Egypt. Some hon. Members have gone so far as to speak of our staying in the Soudan for the sake of trade, and for the benefit of those of the inhabitants of that country to whom we are under obligations. Therefore, I am justified in saying that the speeches on the other side make the Resolution that is moved ambiguous in the highest degree. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) got into a little difficulty, for he said we must establish a safe, and firm, and settled Government in Egypt. That certainly means our staying there ourselves, and yet that we must keep faith with Europe; and I do not know how the two purposes are to be reconciled without breaking faith in some way. The right hon. Gentleman said he would not go into detail, but would only lay down the broad outlines of a scheme; and I am bound to say that his outline is very broad indeed. He refused altogether to commit himself to any frontier line, or to a frontier line within 200 or 300 miles outside Khartoum. He certainly said that Berber was not enough. I will now turn to the questions which have been addressed to Her Majesty's Government with regard to our policy, and the questions put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) which have already been dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Homo Secretary. I also propose to deal, at the same time, with the questions which have been put by the right hon. Baronet who has just spoken. My right hon. Friend the Mem-
    1496
    ber for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) asked for a great deal of further information; and I was struck by the difference between the speech of my right hon. Friend on this occasion and the speeches which on former occasions he has addressed to this House on foreign subjects. My right hon. Friend was Ambassador to Constantinople while I was Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, and we had much conversation about foreign affairs. I may, therefore, confuse what he said in private with what he has said in public speeches, and if I do I hope he will forgive me. But he has always tried to guard Governments—all Governments—from over-pressure of detail in regard to questions relating to foreign affairs, because of the difficulty and inconvenience of suddenly pressing a Government in this House for details about matters which are the subject of pending negotiations. That is my right hon. Friend's general view; but on this occasion, if he will allow me with all respect to say so, I think my right hon. Friend has violated his own principle in asking questions upon many points of great delicacy, which are the subject of pending negotiations at the present time; and with his knowledge of public, and especially Oriental affairs, I would ask him to pardon me if I answer his questions less completely than I might otherwise do, although I will answer them to the best of my ability consistently with the interests of the public. My right hon. Friend put questions to us in reference to the occupation of the Red Sea ports by Italy; and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Huntingdon (Sir Robert Peel) made an attack upon us in regard to the occupation of Massowah. I am sorry that the right hon. Baronet is not at this moment in his place, because I was about to refer to his remarks, and in his absence I am unable to speak in so much detail as I would have done if he had been in the House. The right hon. Baronet quoted a great deal of the despatches as to Assouan, and dragged in Massowah, although that place was not in question in the least degree. The right hon. Baronet asked for information in reference to pending matters between this country and Italy, and the negotiations now going on with Hassan Fehmy Pasha in this country; and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen)

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    also asked questions as to Hassan Fehmy's object in being here, the position of Germany and Russia, and the autonomous or international position of Germany in Egypt. With regard to some of these questions, I would the less try to satisfy my right hon. Friend than to argue with him, and try and convince him that on his own principle he ought not to be satisfied. Hassan Fehmy Pasha, who is here at the present moment, is actually carrying on negotiations at this time. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Huntingdon (Sir Robert Peel) has pretended to give the House some sort of account of those negotiations, and has said that Hassan Fehmy Pasha himself give him an account of what passed with Earl Granville. Now, Hassan Fehmy Pasha is a man of great ability, uprightness, and integrity, and is in the highest degree a statesman, and one of the two very best men in the service of the Turkish Government at this time. He is an admirable example of a Turkish barrister of great eminence in the law, but he is not highly skilled in the languages of Western Europe; and possibly the right hon. Baronet has failed in understanding from him what it was that Earl Granville said. I will, however, confidently assert that Earl Granville never made the extraordinary statement which, passing through two mouths, has been ascribed to him by the right hon. Baronet. I speak with certainty on the subject, because the conversation has been formally recorded, and Fehmy Pasha has attested the accuracy of the record. I can only say that Earl Granville never said anything of the kind. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) has asked me a question in reference to these negotiations. I can only, in the face of the fact that negotiations are now pending, tell him that it will be found from the Blue Books before the House that we have not only recognized the rights of the Porte in the Red Sea, but that, over and over again, we have pressed the Porte to take over those parts of the coast which the Egyptian Government has been unable or too poor to manage. For one reason or another the Turkish Government delayed doing so, and have never acted upon the policy we have pressed upon them. We have no reason to believe that now there is any desire
    1498
    on their part to take a more active part on the shores of the Red Sea than they have taken during the many months we have been pressing them to occupy the places the Egyptian Government has evacuated. Prince Hassan has been sent into the Soudan under circumstances which are absolutely and entirely known to the House. Nothing has passed with regard to his mission which is not contained within the four pages of the Paper in the possession of the House. Therefore, there is no mystery or secrecy in this transaction. Lord Wolseley desires that he should be sent to him, because Lord Wolseley feels keenly his position as a Christian Commander in a Mahommedan country, and wishes to have a Mahommedan with him to increase his influence over local officers. The statement which was made to-night, that we have sent him as the Governor of the Soudan, is not a true statement; because, as will be seen from the last Papers, we prevented any such rank being given to him. Then, as to the position of Germany and Russia in Egypt, we have been asked why those Powers take a more active part in the affairs of that country than they formerly took, and what is behind this activity? The greater activity of Germany and Russia was shown at the time of the Conference by a request then made that there should be German and Russian Representatives on the Caisse. My right hon. Friend must admit that, if the Caisse exists at all, it is desirable that all the Great Powers should be represented upon it. Whenever any changes in the Law of Liquidation are required it is necessary to appeal to the Powers; and it is much more easy to obtain the consent of the Powers to the recommendations of a body on which they are largely represented than to the recommendations of a body on which only a few are represented. Then, again, as to foreign control, there is not the danger of active foreign intervention in the case of a body on which four or five of the Powers are represented upon it. I cannot think that the mere admission of the Representatives of Germany and Russia can be a subject of blame on the part of my right hon. Friend. It has really been done at the desire of all the Powers, who wish to prevent any financial pressure and increase of charges upon Egypt. Then, my right hon.

    1499
    Friend asks a more important question, and one much less easy to answer. He inquired of us as to the internationality or autonomy of Egypt—whether it is to be international or autonomous? One of the difficulties of using long words is to know always what they mean. "Internationality" is a word which never means the same thing in two cases, and "autonomy" may also be used in different senses. For instance, I find it difficult to know whether Belgium and Switzerland are international or autonomous in the opinion of my right hon. Friend. [Mr. GOSCHEN: Autonomous.] Then, my right hon. Friend wishes to know whether Egypt is to be governed by an International Control, and to cease to have any power of self-government at all. I hope we shall not do anything which is likely to make Egypt international, in the sense of losing the power to govern her own affairs. Her Majesty's Government, in the unfortunate position of things in the Soudan, have not received any considerable amount of local support. I know hon. Members opposite are under the impression that that is in consequence of the declaration that it was our intention to leave the country. But I believe that that absence of local support preceded any declaration of the kind, and any of the consequences to which they allude, and that it is founded upon the fact that we are dealing with a considerable amount of fanaticism. The Mudir of Dongola, who has been specially mentioned in the course of this debate, is a person whom it is undoubtedly impossible for us to abandon to his enemies after the services he has rendered to us. But he is not an inhabitant of the Soudan; he is an Egyptian Turk. He was formerly employed in the Delta, and wishes very much to be employed there again. His chief desire is that when he ceases to be of use in the Soudan he should be employed in the Delta. There can be no doubt that one of the objects we ought to have in view in the course of our operations in the Soudan is the protection of the interests of those who have assisted us. The most difficult, perhaps, of all the questions put by my right hon. Friend, to which it is possible to give an answer at all, is a question he addressed to us with regard to Italy. The question is one on which I think I can throw some little light,
    1500
    although I fear that I shall not be able to satisfy my right hon. Friend. The right hon. Baronet who attacked us just now with reference to the position of Italy in the Red Sea told us that the Prime Minister of Italy made a statement upon this subject which was entirely at variance with the statement of the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice). Now, the statement of Signor Mancini is entirely at variance with that of the right hon. Baronet, because he said in the Italian Chamber exactly what was said in the House of Commons by my noble Friend. The right hon. Baronet said that we have changed our policy in regard to Massowah. I have already said that Massowah is not mentioned in these despatches, and that it is not a subject of negotiation in any way. But if we have changed our policy on this point with regard to the occupation of a particular town on the Red Sea in the course of four years, surely the change is not one at which the right hon. Baronet need wonder or be astonished, or accuse us of flagrant inconsistency, because, four years ago, it was thought that a particular town should remain Egyptian, and because Egypt is now too poor to keep it, and, therefore, the care of it ought to be transferred to somebody else. I do not think that the circumstances lay us open to any charge of inconsistency. The late Government stated in this House that they were prepared to hand over Herat, which is called the key of India, to Persia; but I imagine that if we did so now, the Opposition would not think it inconsistent to challenge that policy, and propose a Vote of Censure. Therefore, it is very probable that in the course of a period of four years a change in our policy with regard to the occupation of a not very important seaport may have come over "the spirit of our dream;" and I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of the extreme delicacy of the position of Italy with regard to Turkey, similar as it is to the delicacy of our position towards Turkey in regard to the occupation of Cyprus. Italy is in possession of certain territory which she admits to be under the Sovereignty of Turkey, as we admit Cyprus to be. I should like to know, if anybody in the Italian Chamber was to go into the question of our occupation of Cy-

    1501
    prus, where the position is somewhat similar, what would have been thought by us? My right hon. Friend, who was Ambassador at Constantinople, will appreciate the value of the remark. There is, at this moment, not only friendship and amity between this country and Italy, but there is the closest possible friendship and amity in the relations between the two countries. We disclaim all responsibility for the proceedings of the Italian Government in their operations at Massowah. We are not responsible for them in any way; we did not suggest them originally, although we acquiesced in them; and we do not consider, under the circumstances of the case, that we are called upon to express any opinion with regard to that Expedition. But, in general terms, we cannot refrain from expressing our earnest desire that the extremely amicable relations now existing between the two countries should not only continue, but even be strengthened. It should be remembered that Italy has a large number of its people in Egypt; the language of Italy is greatly used there in commercial transactions; that it has a considerable trade passing through the Suez Canal; and that the most valuable results are anticipated from the friendly relations between Egypt and Italy. It is a country, too, whose remarkable revival in recent years has excited the sympathy of all Englishmen. We had, before there was any question of an Italian Expedition to Massowah, or to any of the ports on this coast, pointed out to the Sultan that Egypt was not able to maintain them, and that it had better take steps with regard to them. But time passed; no steps were taken; and I think that, under these circumstances, we should not be the first persons to protest against the action of Italy. My right hon. Friend pressed us very much upon the subject of the Suakin and Berber railway—a subject much more difficult to answer. Surely my right hon. Friend must admit that it is impossible to give an absolutely binding pledge upon the subject at present. Suppose he were in power and were asked to give a pledge as to his own policy, that he would in all circumstances keep Berber, maintain the trade route, put down the Slave Trade, and open up the country to civilization. Would he give that pledge? Suppose that the
    1502
    Mahdi was at Khartoum with unbroken power, with an immense force of religious fanaticism behind him, would my right hon. Friend give the same answer as to the immunity of the railway and the trade route, and the opening up of the country to civilization, as he would if the Mahdi were dead, without any fanatical successor? You must remember that in an Oriental country it is quite within the bounds of possibility that this whole movement may suddenly break down; that the country may be restored to its former position; and that the people may return to their old allegiance. Take the possibility of the death of the Mahdi. These prophets, as a general rule, do not leave successors behind them. The inutility of a railway line under certain circumstances in such a country could be easily shown. A comparatively small force of the enemy could prevent its working. Although military reasons have made us make the line, I hope that it may remain, I hope that the Soudan may return to such a state of tranquillity and peace that the railway line, after a few years, will be regarded as a commercial undertaking, and may be utilized for purposes of trade. I would never be a party to the protection of the line by an enormous military force, or at an enormous expenditure of money. But it would be the height of folly to give an absolute pledge. That seems to me to transcend the ordinary conditions under which pledges may be asked for and given. There can be no doubt that the railway, if it were maintained, would be a blessing to Africa; but, on the other hand, no one in this country would consent to keep for years a large British garrison in Berber at an immense expense for the purpose of protecting a railway which, if it had to be protected, would be absolutely useless for purposes of commerce and civilization. Therefore, I think my right hon. Friend will admit that it is impossible for any Government whatever to give an absolute and binding pledge in reference to the Suakin and Berber railway. The utility of a railway, if our Forces are to be kept in the Soudan for 12 months, must be evident. The House will remember the difficulty that was experienced in moving troops out of Alexandria four years ago. Then, in general terms, my right hon. Friend asks the Government for pledges

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    with regard to the future government of the Soudan. It is not, in my opinion, possible, to give more explicit pledges than those already given. My own impression is that no pledge as to the ultimate future of the Soudan, or of Khartoum, is possible under present circumstances. It is undesirable to give pledges which in the nature of things cannot be carried out. There is no general agreement in this House or in the country as to what that future should be; but if there were such an agreement, it would be foolish to attempt to put it in the form of a pledge. Our intention is to use all reasonable care to leave behind us in the Soudan a lasting state of tranquillity. We will not and cannot go beyond the statement that we will use all reasonable efforts. We decline to convert that statement into a binding pledge. We should be merely deluding the House if we were to say more than that. My right hon. Friend seems to contemplate the possibility of our keeping a grip on the Nile at Berber. I would ask him whether in the course of the debate he has heard from the Party opposite anything in the nature of a binding pledge that would dispose him to entertain the idea that they would accede to his wishes in this respect? I do not complain of the vagueness of the statements of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite; but I contend that it would be hostile to the interests of the country if binding pledges on such a subject were made at the present time. Hon. Members opposite have spoken tonight of a policy of "bloodshed and bolt;" but it is difficult not to cast our eyes back a few years and to remember what was the policy of the late Government in Afghanistan. If ever there was a policy of "bloodshed and bolt," it was in Afghanistan. ["Oh!"] I mean in the abandonment of Cabul, the capital of Afghanistan, without leaving behind any settled Government. [Cheers, and ironical cries of "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members cheer ironically; but the expression "bloodshed and bolt" does not apply to the policy of the present Government in Candahar, which was contemplated by themselves, and has been approved by Sir Donald Stewart himself. I would ask hon. Members who cheer ironically to read that statement. When we left Candahar we left behind us a settled Government, and
    1504
    such a condition of things as resulted in the formation of an independent and united Afghanistan, which was what we demanded. If that should be possible, of course we should like to pursue in Africa a policy such as that which we followed with so much success in Afghanistan. We have not forgotten the success of that policy; and although some hon. Members seem to think that we shrink from giving a pledge that we will carry out in the Soudan the policy we have so successfully pursued in Afghanistan, I am quite sure that I have now shown that the conditions of the present situation are such that it would be merely imposing upon the good sense of the House and the country if we were to attempt to carry our pledges further than we have carried them already.
    MR. MARRIOTTsaid, that with regard to the rebuke with which the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down thought fit to commence his speech in reference to the right hon. Baronet the Member for Huntingdon (Sir Robert Peel), and the laughter and spirit of levity he had provoked being out of place, he (Mr. Marriott) thought the House would agree with him that such a rebuke came with a very bad grace from a Member of Her Majesty's Government. He did not want to go into details, which were now well known all over the country, as to how some of the Ministers acted on the receipt of the intelligence of the fall of Khartoum; but, considering how they acted, he thought the rebuke which the right hon. Baronet had administered to the Opposition was singularly ill-timed. He could not help admiring the audacity of the right hon. Baronet. He only wished the Government had displayed the same audacity in their policy as the right hon. Gentleman had in his arguments. When he told them of "bloodshed and bolt" in Afghanistan, he (Mr. Marriott) should like to ask who bolted there? Why the present Government, who left Candahar and bolted, after the successful march of Sir Frederick Roberts. Who bolted from the Transvaal? Why, the whole policy of the Government had been to make a successful war, and then bolt; and what he wanted to know was, whether we were going to have another bloody war, and then another bolt, with-

    1505
    out any tangible good resulting to civilization? The right hon. Baronet tried to make out that the Government were not responsible for the death of General Gordon, because General Gordon was betrayed by treachery. That was not the first time this excuse had been made. It had been made by the Prime Minister in one of those airy phrases he was fond of using, such as that of "a people struggling to be free." He would ask the right hon. Gentleman for one moment to consider the dates, and then say what foundation there was for the assertion that Gordon was sacrificed by treachery, and not by the neglect of the Government. General Gordon's last letter was dated December 14, and in that letter he said he expected the catastrophe in 10 days. He himself well knew that the catastrophe was going to happen; but if relief had come in December, that which did not happen till January 26 would not have happened at all. He wondered whether the right hon. Member for Ripon was satisfied with the answer he had received to his question? He wondered if he was satisfied that the Government was pursuing the right course? The Ministry, the right hon. Baronet stated, had all along said that their intention was to leave in Egypt a stable and lasting Government; but the fault which hon. Members found with them, and which the country found with them, was that they had never realized what a stable and lasting Government meant, or the process or period of time that it would take to establish it. Having destroyed the Army and upset the existing Government of Egypt, they considered that they would be able to set up another Government in the course of two or three years. The House and the country ought to bear in mind this fact—that, considering they had overthrown in Egypt the very foundations of authority, and that there was no Egyptian Army, the establishment of a stable Government in that country could not be accomplished in less than a generation; and, therefore, if that was the intention, they must remain there for 25 or 30 years. Before a stable Government could be established, Her Majesty's Government would have much to do; they would have to restore order—no easy matter; they would then have to produce an equilibrium of the finances, and that also was no easy matter, as
    1506
    Her Majesty's Government had already found out; and then they would have to give the Egyptians equality of laws and equality of taxation, which things, as he had already said, would take a generation for their accomplishment. The country asked why, if Her Majesty's Government intended to do all this, and to remain in Egypt until it was done, they had not said so plainly at the outset, instead of beating about the bush, at one time speaking of six months, at another of a year, as the duration of their stay there, and now giving no definite reply on the subject at all? The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, in replying to the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition, put forward this defence. He said that the matter was res judicata; that all these matters had been brought up before; that they had been made the subject of Votes of Censure; that the country was satisfied; and that, therefore, the House ought not to go over the ground again. But the right hon. Gentleman forgot that, although the Votes of Censure were not carried, the conduct of Her Majesty's Government was only condoned. [Ministerial dissent.] He was using the language of the Home Secretary. He and hon. Members on those Benches said, not that the Government had committed three, four, or five errors of judgment, but that they had committed a series of errors of judgment, and that at different periods those errors had been condoned. But were they, having committed another error of judgment, again to be condoned? Why, the Prime Minister had never yet realized the initial mistake made in bombarding the forts of Alexandria without having troops ready to land there. The historian of our times would have to record that the English Fleet entered the harbour of Alexandria in the month of May, 1882; that upon the 30th of that month the English Consul sent home a telegram, not only in his own name, but in the name of the European inhabitants of Alexandria, which stated that, so long as the Fleet remained, their lives and their property were in danger unless troops were in readiness to land; that, on the 11th of June a riot took place, during which several lives were sacrificed, and the English Consul (Mr. Cookson) insulted and wounded; and

    1507
    that when, notwithstanding these warnings, the Fleet bombarded the forts, the lives and property of the Europeans in the city were left at the mercy of the rabble. He said that, were the Government a Corporation or a Railway Company, and were they brought before a Judge and jury in this country, not only would they be held liable for the amount of the damage resulting from the bombardment at Alexandria, which his hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) stated at £4,000,000 sterling, but a verdict of manslaughter would be returned against them for the lives that were lost. But Her Majesty's Government had never realized that fact. Why had this been condoned? Because the telegram of Mr. Cookson was not published until after the war had begun, when everything else was forgotten, and the victory of Tel-el-Kebir put out of sight the fault of the Government in not providing for the protection of life and property at Alexandria. On the 5th of October, 1882, Earl Granville addressed a despatch to the Earl of Dufferin, in which the Earl of Dufferin was asked, in the most polite manner, to show to the Porte that England wished for her co-operation, while all the time England had imposed impossible conditions on her Army and impossible conditions on her Fleet. The House knew that the Porte was deceived, and that there existed a great soreness in consequence. But in that despatch there was one line which might have given hope as to the future. Earl Granville said that, while the sacrifices they had made had given England power, that power had thrown upon her great responsibilities. He would ask hon. Members to take their minds from the 5th of October, 1882, the date of the despatch, to the 8th of August, 1883. At that time Colonel Stewart had been sent to Khartoum, and it would be found that 30 or 40 despatches suggesting reforms were sent by him to Sir Edward Malet and passed on to Cherif Pasha. Then General Hicks sent despatches, all of which were received. But about the 8th of August Earl Granville began to be alarmed, and for the first time showed the white feather, for he wrote out to Sir Edward Malet, reminding him that Her Majesty's Government assumed no responsibility whatever in regard to the condition of affairs
    1508
    in the Soudan. Now, at that time, let it be borne in mind, the Soudan was as much a part of Egypt as Jersey was of England; and yet Sir Edward Malet was instructed to point out that he was debarred from giving advice with reference to affairs in the Soudan. Then followed the sacrifice of General Hicks and his Army, and the defeat of Baker Pasha, after which, in the month of February last year, a Vote of Censure was moved in that House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), both of whom he regretted not to see in their places, took part in the debate on the Motion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford rejoiced that Her Majesty's Government had at last discovered and acknowledged their duties, and added that, bearing in mind the difficulties of their task, he should vote with them. He wondered whether the right hon. Gentleman rejoiced now, whether he felt sorry that he rejoiced then, and whether he thought it would have been better had he voted against the Government? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon also said that the policy of the Government must be different from their past policy; and he added that he believed the Government would stand by their pledges, and he would stand by them. What did the right hon. Gentleman think of the Government pledges now? They had given pledges which might be as easily broken as those of last year. Hon. Members knew what had taken place between February and May last; they knew the Government policy was never to act themselves, but only when public opinion guided them. It was not until that article appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette that they sent out General Gordon; they sent him out first on account of public opinion, and, secondly, because it was a cheap thing to do. After that El Teb and a series of battles took place; General Gordon was believed to be in danger, and accordingly hon. Members on that side of the House did the duty of an Opposition by again proposing a Vote of Censure. Upon that occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford was silent; but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon delivered a speech, in which

    1509
    he said that Her Majesty's Government had not recognized the danger of the situation, and impressed on the House that not only the Government, but every individual Member, incurred great responsibility by the vote he was about to give. He (Mr. Marriott) agreed with that; but what vote was given by the right hon. Gentleman? Why, none at all. Having told the House of their responsibility he went away, as did also the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, without voting. Hon. Members knew that on that occasion the conduct of the Government was condoned; that they pledged themselves to be responsible for the safety of General Gordon; and they knew that on the 8th of August the Government had not made up their minds. The right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down said they were preparing to act months before; but if that were so, why did they not take the House into their confidence? The Government came down to the House in August and asked for £300,000 on account of the Expedition which it was known in November would cost £7,000,000, and when they must have known that the Expedition was undertaken too late. On the 13th of September they had not expressed their intention of giving field allowance to the officers of the Staff; and he said, without fear of contradiction, that on the 13th of September it was the opinion of military men in Cairo, the opinion of their own Staff officers, and the opinion of Mr. Cookson, that they were six weeks or two months too late; and if there were a Royal Commission to inquire into the circumstances, he was confident that Lord Wolseley, were his opinion asked, would say—"I knew at the time—nay, I expressed the opinion in Cairo—that we were six weeks too late." Well, then, who was to blame? Was it not the unanimous opinion of hon. Gentlemen on those Benches, and of many hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the Government ought to have begun to act sooner? They said—"We do not want the Government to send soldiers into the climate of the Soudan in June and July, but we want them to begin their preparations for doing so; to get their boats ready, if boats are to be used, so that the Expedition may start at the earliest fitting moment." And had it started in September, instead of in No-
    1510
    vember, there could be no doubt that Khartoum would not have fallen, that General Gordon would have been saved, and that the English Flag would have now been floating over the city. Who, then, was to blame for what had happened but the Government? He observed on the Benches below the Gangway the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney), who sacrificed himself when he left the Government, and who in an interesting speech, which he (Mr. Marriott) had read, took his constituents into his confidence, and told them that, like him, the Prime Minister disapproved of the Egyptian War and the Expedition to Khartoum. But if that were so, how came it that the war and the Expedition were carried out under the auspices of the Prime Minister? [Mr. COURTNEY dissented.] The hon. Member shook his head, but he said in his speech that it was a policy of which the Prime Minister disapproved. He was so reported in the newspaper in which he had read the hon. Member's speech. The hon. Member was deserving of respect for having sacrificed his place in the Government to his opinions as to proportional representation; but although he left the Government on that question, he (Mr. Marriott) thought that the question of the Egyptian War was of more importance still, and he would remind the hon. Gentleman of the saying, "Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel." Again, the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) had applied to the Government language which hon. Members on those Benches would be called to Order for using; he said they were "cowardly, and not honest." If that were the opinion of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite, he would ask if they were going to vote for a Government whom they declared to be dishonest and cowardly? If so, he hoped their constituents would know it, because he was convinced that the great body of the working classes would then support the policy of the Opposition. He knew that many were taken with the phrases that had been used in reference to this question—such, for instance, as that of "scuttling out of Egypt; but the establishment of a civilized and stable Government would not only be a great blessing to Egypt and the Soudan, but it would also be the means of opening up an enormous trade

    1511
    with Liverpool, Manchester, and the manufacturing districts; if a railway were made between Berber and Suakin, there could be no possible doubt that those in the North would gain enormously. But for that one thing was necessary—there must be a civilized and stable Government. Now, a civilized and stable Government was impossible at the present moment without the help of England, and that was impossible so long as Her Majesty's Ministers remained in Office. He quite admitted that some of Her Majesty's present Ministers might carry out a proper policy for Egypt and the Soudan; but the problem would never be solved until this country had a good understanding with Germany, Austria, and Turkey. He quite reciprocated what had been said about Italy. They all wished to be on the best terms with that rising nation, which had their good wishes; but an alliance with Italy alone was a danger both to her and to ourselves. The only alliance should be with Germany, Austria, and Turkey, which would be the best alliance possible; but how could such an alliance be brought about whilst they had such a Prime Minister as Mr. Gladstone, and such a Foreign Secretary as Earl Granville? The Turks had not forgotten the despatch of Earl Granville of the 5th of October, 1882. It was easy to deceive a person once, but it was very hard to do it twice; and it was not astonishing if the person deceived felt a little sore, as they knew the Turk did in regard to the treatment he received from Earl Granville. The Turk had not forgotten those splendid harangues in Mid Lothian, and those splendid pamphlets written by the Prime Minister about a "bag-and-baggage" policy. If Gentlemen opposite were so opposed to the shedding of blood—and nobody was more opposed to it than Gordon had been—the only way to prevent the shedding of blood was to go to the Soudan on a good understanding with the Turk. The Sultan of Turkey had, they knew, immense authority over all Mahommedans. He was their head—their Pope. The Mahdi was a false Pope and a false Prophet. A good understanding with the Turk was almost the first requisite to acting peacefully in the Soudan, because in the Soudan they were fighting people who did not
    1512
    wish to fight with us, and whom we did not wish to fight with. All this had been brought about by the almost unheard-of bungling of Her Majesty's Government. The Soudanese were a peaceful people who loved work, who made the most beautiful articles in silver and gold, and sold them to Egyptian and Arab tyrants and slave dealers. These were the people they were now fighting, and who were led away by a few whom the Prime Minister had described as "struggling rightly to be free." The Soudanese themselves, the original inhabitants of the Soudan, were an industrious people, who wished to be at peace with this country; yet what could they think when they saw our soldiers at their doors? Why, that we were invading their country as their enemies. He believed that if we went to them in an amicable spirit, and offered them money and goods in a peaceable way, we might be friends with them, though, of course, we must have force to appeal to as a last resort. But with the present Prime Minister and Earl Granville in Office, he maintained that it was almost impossible for any real solution to be found for the Egyptian Question. Even the present debate was not the most serious one that would have to be taken, because, after all, they had to find the financial solution of the question; and he never could conceive the people of this country agreeing to a Multiple Control. That Control would be condemned not only by that House, but by the country at large. The country would never stand the spending of £20,000,000 or £30,000,000, and then the putting of the Control under a variety of nations, each acting against the other, and each having different interests to serve. He knew the moderate Members on the other side of the House were waiting for the declaration of the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington). That was rather a happy trait of the Prime Minister. He got up and made a rabid speech, which pleased the extreme Party, the Radicals calling "Excellent!" but the moderate men, disliking it, declared that they would not vote in support of the Government; and then the Whips went whispering about, and got the Secretary of State for War to finish the debate; and he would give some kind of sooth-

    1513
    ing syrup which, would satisfy the moderate Party. The result was that the Prime Minister satisfied one Party and the noble Marquess satisfied the other, while no promise was kept and no pledge redeemed. He (Mr. Marriott) did not make the charges against the Government which had been made by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley). He did not repeat the charge made by the right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen), that they made promises they did not keep; but he did say that their want of action and the disproportion between their promises and their fulfilment of promises had been such as to earn for them a character for hypocrisy all over Europe. Promises were made and carried out in a half-hearted manner, and pledges were put forward with which the country did not agree. Was that to continue? The decision rested with the Moderate Liberals, who in heart and feeling were much more with the Opposition in this matter than with the Prime Minister. They agreed almost entirely with the policy the Conservatives were advocating, and yet they—or some of them, at any rate—would vote against the Motion censuring the Government. There was only a narrow passage—the Gangway—dividing the Moderate Liberals from the Radicals, whilst from the Conservatives the former were divided by the wide floor of the House; and yet, in feeling, in regard to the Egyptian policy of the Government, the Liberal Members were much nearer to the Conservatives than to the Radicals. But, however near the Opposition they might be, for Party purposes they would not vote against the Government. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had told them that that would be a very serious occasion in the House; but, in his (Mr. Marriott's) opinion, there never was a more serious time for the country, and he did not believe that the feeling in the House was half as serious, nor the indignation against the Government half as bitter and pronounced, as it was throughout the country. That House did not represent the real feeling of the country; but to-morrow and on Saturday, when they read the papers, they would find that the speeches which had been made, and the vote which had been taken in "another
    1514
    place," were a much truer representation of the opinions of the country than the speeches made or vote taken in this effete and moribund, so-called "popular" House. The House of Commons did not represent the feeling of the people of the country; and he would only refer on this point to one remark made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen). On a recent occasion the right hon. Gentleman told them that he would not vote for a Motion of Censure, because he did not wish to give a blank cheque to the Marquess of Salisbury. The right hon. Gentleman had never had great confidence in the people of this country. He had always been opposed to household suffrage and its extension to the counties; but could the right hon. Gentleman have used any phrase more clearly showing his distrust of the people than that now quoted? What did it mean? Why, "You may pass a Vote of Censure; but if you do we shall have to go to the people, and they will return the Marquess of Salisbury, and I am not prepared to trust the Marquess of Salisbury." But the Marquess of Salisbury had never asked for a blank cheque. The Conservatives were of opinion that, of late years, far too many blank cheques had been given to Ministers sitting on the Treasury Bench. What were wanted were Ministers with a firm and decided policy, and power was wanted in the House to check the Government if necessary. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) had acknowledged the evils of the present Administration; and he (Mr. Marriott) asked the House whether, in the face of the evil courses which this Government had pursued throughout the whole of these Egyptian affairs, they were going to give them another Vote of Credit? The words of the Resolution might be considered by some open to criticism; but its plain meaning was that the past deeds of the Government did not entitle them to confidence—that Her Majesty's Ministers were no longer fitted to be entrusted with the management of the affairs of the country, and that others could be found who could be depended upon to carry out a policy in accordance with national sentiment; therefore he hoped that many, even on the Ministerial side of the House, would be found to support it.
    MR. BRYCEsaid, that at that late hour of the evening:—12.50 P.M.—he would confine himself to a very few observations, and would not follow the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down into his attack upon the Mid Lothian speeches, nor into his references to the probability of Party voting on the Ministerial side of the House, to which the hon. Member had, perhaps, felt himself at liberty to allude through being himself so exceptionally free from the possibility of being charged with giving a Party vote. One part of the hon. and learned Member's indictment consisted of the bombardment of the forts of Alexandria, which event took place whilst the hon. and learned Member sat on the Liberal side of the House, and to which event the hon. and learned Gentleman, at the time, took no objection. What was the critical point to the Members sitting below the Gangway in the triangular duel which the House was witnessing?—and he called it such because it seemed to him that those of them on the Liberal Benches who were not altogether satisfied with the declarations of the Government conceived that the Government and the Opposition were mutually answering one another, but had failed to answer the objections which were made to any further aggressive operations in the Soudan. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt), in one of the most powerful speeches which even he ever delivered in the House, had answered with singular effect the arguments of the Opposition, who pleaded in favour of establishing a stable Government in the Soudan. He had shown the difficulties which would have to be encountered in an undertaking of that kind—how little there was to gain by it, and how much to lose. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross), who followed the Home Secretary, on the other hand, had shown how inadequate would be the destruction of the power of the Mahdi unless it were accompanied with something more. He (Mr. Bryce) did not think the answer given by the right hon. Baronet the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) completely removed the objection which many of them felt to the policy announced by the Government. For him-
    1516
    self, he wished to draw a marked distinction between the political and military features of the situation. He admitted the plea put forward by the President of the Local Government Board, and previously by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan). He agreed that the movements of Her Majesty's troops would have to be guided very materially by the exigencies of the case, and did not think the House was the proper place in which to express opinions as to the military features of the case. The Government must have given to them a large discretion in the matter. But he did believe that the House and the country were entitled to a clearer statement as to the political objects at which the Government were aiming. In spite of all they had heard from four Cabinet Ministers, they wore still in the dark as to those objects. The Prime Minister had said that Egypt was to evacuate the Soudan, but carefully abstained from giving his pledge that England should do so. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had dwelt on the importance of breaking the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum; but he had omitted to say why it was so necessary to break his power at Khartoum, and what was to be done in case he withdrew South or West of Khartoum and established himself at Kordofan. An hon. Member had asked what course would be followed if the Mahdi retired in the direction of the Equator; and the right hon. Baronet the President of the Local Government Board had rather evaded the question by saying that no one would think of following the Mahdi to the Equator. But suppose he withdrew to where he was before he attacked General Gordon, to those very regions in which his power had grown to its present formidable dimensions, what security was there that the Government, in their operations against him, would not consider it necessary to remain for a long period at Khartoum, to pursue him and engage in campaign after campaign beyond Khartoum? They could not find much comfort in the hopes expressed by the President of the Local Government Board, that the power of the Mahdi would expire of itself, and would not survive a single defeat. It was true that these outbreaks

    1517
    of fanaticism sometimes died away as rapidly as they had arisen; but there were cases in Mahommedan history in which the originator of some religious movement had found a successor, under whom it had continued and grown more potent. The present movement had risen so fast, and had consolidated itself so much, that they must not base their policy upon any hope that the Mahdi's power would disappear of itself. It seemed to him (Mr. Bryce) that the Government ought now to be prepared with a distinct declaration as to what they would do in case they found the campaign lengthening itself out. The House ought not to pass any Amendment which would forbid a forward movement if the military exigencies of the case required it; but ought to require an assurance that a movement of that kind would not turn into a long campaign, and, above all, that no step should be taken which should bind them to permanent occupation. Therefore it was that he looked with great apprehension to the making of the Suakin-Berber railway. It was impossible to suppose that when a railway of that kind was once made, public opinion in England would consent to abandon it. If any proposal for such abandonment was made, they knew how many arguments would be raised against it. They knew how strongly the absurdity of abandoning a trade opening such as that to the tribes of the Desert, after having spent large sums of money on it, would be urged. The question was, therefore, could they give a simple Vote of Confidence in the Government, or were they bound in some other way to express their sense that a more specific statement of policy was wanted? It would seem as though an opportunity were afforded them for expressing that opinion in the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley); but that Amendment was defective in two important respects. It protested too much, and prescribed too little. It indicated no policy for the Government to follow—it forbade an act of military exigency, and not of administrative policy—an act which, indeed, he personally believed not to be necessary, and in support of which, he submitted, no sufficient evidence had been tendered by Her
    1518
    Majesty's Government. Not even the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the speeches they had made on the military question, had given any sufficient grounds for believing that it was necessary to go forward against Khartoum; and he wished to call the attention of the House to the ignominious position in which they might be found if intentions of the kind announced by the Government, under the sudden impulse of the feeling caused by the news of General Gordon's death, should be apparently maintained between now and December next, and then, when December came, abandoned. It would be far better, now that alarm had subsided, to look calmly at the situation, and make up their minds that such a forward movement was not necessary, than to hold themselves out as intending to undertake it, and then to sneak away in December next, because public opinion would not support them. He ventured to say that public opinion was already opposed to the plan which the Government had announced. The people of this country were opposed to the making of a railway from Suakin to Berber, because they believed that it would ultimately involve a permanent occupation. He would like to ask the Government whether they thought it wise to endeavour to commit the country to a forward policy of this kind at a moment when they were so uncertain as to the views of the great mass of the new electors put on the electoral roll by the Franchise Bill? An hon. Friend of his (Mr. Picton) had denied, the other night, that the Democracy were eager for war. His own opinion was that the new electors, and the whole body of the working classes of the country, were somewhat too indifferent to our Imperial interests. He wished they were more interested in these matters, and more alive to the sacrifices they might be called upon to make in regard to them. It was because he was afraid that the Government, who were on the point of embarking in a forward policy, which would lead to the retention of British troops in Equatorial Africa for a long time to come, would find, before many months, that they were not supported by the public opinion of the country,

    1519
    and would therefore have to pull up I half way, that he begged them to pause before they committed themselves. They saw their Possessions in India threatened—they were threatened on the East in Burmah, and on the West in Afghanistan; and was that a time to engage in new liabilities? Was it not rather a time when they ought to reserve all their strength for the calls that might soon be made upon it? The Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) he could not support, as it did not suggest any aims or principles of general policy, but merely sought to condemn one particular military operation; and he had therefore placed on the Paper an Amendment of his own, which he should move if an opportunity arose for him to do so. It expressed a definite line of policy; and he could not help thinking that if the Government were more free than they were to express their real opinion, they would say that his Amendment did not fall very far short of their views. There was another Amendment given Notice of by the hon. Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock). He (Mr. Bryce), while naturally preferring his own, was willing to vote for that Amendment, should there be a disposition to think it more seasonable. He would only say, in conclusion, that hon. Gentlemen opposite must not complain of them because, while thinking that the Government should be more explicit in their declarations, they, at the same time, were not prepared to support the policy of the Opposition, which they deemed far worse than that of the Government. The Government, it was true, were not sufficiently anxious to withdraw from these complications, but the Opposition wished to increase them; the Government kept them in a mist, but the Opposition would plunge them into a night whose darkness might at last be relieved by a flash of lightning, which would only serve to show them that they were on the brink of a precipice.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.)
    Motion agreed to.
    Debate further adjourned till To-morrow.

  PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION BILL.
  (Mr. Craig-Sellar, Mr. Davey, Mr. Raikes, Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir Henry Holland.)
  PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION BILL.

    [BILL 25.] SECOND READING.
    [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment on Second Reading [25th February],
    And which Amendment was,
    To add to the word "That," in the Original Question, the words "whilst this House is prepared to take such steps as may be needful to strengthen its own Committees sitting on Private Bills, or by arrangement with the other House of Parliament, to refer opposed Private Bills to Committees consisting of Members of both Houses of Parliament, and thus obviate the present cost to promoters and opponents of having to appear before Committees of both Houses of Parliament, it is unwilling to delegate its legislative functions to paid Judges or tribunals."—(Sir Joseph Pease.)
    Question again proposed, "That those words be there added."
    SIR JOSEPH PEASEappealed to the House to allow the debate to be resumed. It was stopped yesterday by the hour arriving beyond which opposed Business could not be taken.
    MR. HEALY: I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.
    MR. SEXTON: I beg to second that.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—[Mr. Healy.)
    SIR JOSEPH PEASE: I may point out that a large majority of the House yesterday were in favour of this Resolution, and that many hon. Members have asked me to move this Amendment. It is not a matter of such great importance as to induce me to press it upon the House; but in good faith towards those who supported me I feel bound to do so.
    MR. SEXTON: When the Irish Members desire to proceed with Business at an early hour, they do not find English Members so anxious to assist them.
    MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I understand there was an agreement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, if this Motion were pressed, words should be inserted in the Amendment. The Amendment reads—
    "To leave out from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'whilst this House is prepared to take such steps as may be needful to strengthen its own

    1521
    Committees sitting on Private Bills, or by arrangement with the other House of Parliament, to refer opposed Private Bills to Committees consisting of Members of both Houses of Parliament, and thus obviate the present cost to promoters and opponents of having to appear before Committees of both Houses of Parliament, it is unwilling to delegate its legislative functions to paid Judges or tribunals.'"
    It was understood by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that if the Motion were pressed after the word "unwilling," the words "without inquiry and consideration" should be inserted. If these words are inserted, it really leaves the Resolution of no considerable importance—in no way pledging the House. Under the circumstances, therefore, I think the consideration of the Amendment might very well be deferred.
    Motion agreed to.
    Debate further adjourned till To-morrow.

    MOTIONS.

      POST OFFICE SITES BILL.
      On Motion of Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE, Bill to enable Her Majesty's Postmaster General to acquire lands in London, Birmingham, Bristol, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne for the public service, ordered to be brought in by Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE and Mr. HIBBERT.
      Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 72.]

      HYDE PARK CORNER (NEW STREETS) BILL.
      On Motion of Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE, Bill to provide for the maintenance of the New Streets at Hyde Park Corner, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE and Mr. HIBBERT.
      Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 73.]

      SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (NO. 2) BILL.
      On Motion of Sir JOSEPH PEASE, Bill for closing Public Houses on Sunday, making exception for the sale of beer during certain hours and for the Metropolitan District, ordered to be brought in by Sir JOSEPH PEASE, Earl PERCY, Sir. TREMAYNE, and Mr. CHARLES PALMER.
      Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 74.]
      House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.

MINUTES.
Sat First in Parliament—The Marquess of Cholmondeley, after the death of his grandfather; The Earl Vane (Marquess of Londonderry), after the death of his father.

CENTRAL ASIA—THE RUSSO-AFGHAN FRONTIER.—QUESTION.
EARL DE LA WARRbegged to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been called to a communication addressed to The Pall Mall Gazette by Madame de Novikoff, purporting to give the views of a high Russian authority in regard to the Afghan boundary; and whether it is true, as stated in this communication, that the Afghans were instigated to occupy Penjdeh by members of Sir Peter Lumsden's Staff?
EARL GRANVILLE: It is not correct, and, indeed, could not be so. Sir Peter Lumsden arrived at Sarakhs on November 8. On the 9th, Colonel Alikhanoff called on Sir Peter Lumsden to complain of the advance of the Afghans to Sari Yazi, 35 miles north of Penjdeh. He then stated that the Russians had been nearly a year at Merv, and that during the whole of that period the Afghan outposts had been at Penjdeh. As a matter of fact, both the Sarikhs and the Salors settled in the Penjdeh Valley have acknowledged that they were on Afghan soil, and have paid a revenue to the Afghan Government.

EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN—VOTE OF CENSURE.—RESOLUTION.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY,in rising to move—
"That this House, having taken into consideration the statements that have been made on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, is of opinion that—(1.) The deplorable failure of the Soudan expedition to attain its object has been due to the undecided counsels of the Government and to the culpable delay attending the commencement of operations; (2.) That the policy of abandoning the whole of the Soudan after the conclusion of military operations will be dangerous to Egypt and inconsistent with the interests of the Empire,"
said: My Lords, the Motion which I
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have the honour to lay before your Lordships to-night has a double aspect; it passes judgment upon the past, and it expresses an opinion with respect to the policy of the future. Some persons receive with considerable impatience the idea that at the present crisis of our country's destiny we should examine into the past, and spend our time in judging of that which cannot be recalled; but I think that such objections are unreasonable. In one of the gravest crises through which our country has ever passed we depend upon the wisdom and decision of those who guide our councils; and we can only judge whether that dependence is rightly placed by examining their conduct in the past, to see whether what they have done justifies us in continuing our confidence in the difficulties which are yet to come. Now, whatever else may be said of the conduct of Her Majesty's Government, I think those who examine it carefully will find that it follows a certain rule and system, and is in that sense, if in no other, consistent. Their conduct at the beginning of this Egyptian affair has been analogous to their conduct at the end. Throughout there has been an unwillingness to come until the last moment to any requisite decision—there has been an absolute terror of fixing upon any settled course; and the result has been that when the time came when external pressure forced upon them a decision as to some definite course the moment for satisfactory action had already passed, and the measures taken were adopted in haste, with little preparedness, and were ill-fitted for the emergency with which they had to cope. The conduct of Her Majesty's Government has been an alternation of periods of slumber and periods of rush; and the rush, however vehement, has always been too unprepared and too unintelligent to repair the damage which the period of slumber has effected. I do not wish to hark back into this Egyptian Question; but it is necessary to point out the uniformity of character in the conduct of the Government. The first commencement of our troubles was the height to which Arabi's rebellion was allowed to go. The Government knew very well the danger of Arabi while he was yet a small man, and had little influence. They were perfectly aware of the mischiefs he was brewing; and they not

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only declined to act themselves, but, if they are not greatly belied, they prevented the local authorities from acting—they prevented Arabi being removed, as he should have been removed, from the confines of Egypt. If that had been done, all the evil that followed would have been averted; but while his enter-prize was going on they reposed in absolute security, and they took no effective measures till the pressure of public opinion forced upon them the movement which culminated in the bombardment of Alexandria. That was a very fair illustration of the vice which has characterized their policy, that when they did move the movement was made suddenly, with no preparation, and with no foresight of what was to follow. The Fleet was moved in, and, as a matter of course, Arabi resisted, and the Fleet, as was inevitable, suddenly replied; and then it was found that there were no forces to land and back up the action that was taken. The result of that improvidence was not only that the Khedive's Throne was shaken, and the fidelity of his Army was utterly destroyed, but the town and fortifications of Alexandria, through the vengeance of Arabi, were grievously injured, and that tremendous debt for the injury done to Alexandria was incurred, which still remained a weight upon the Egyptian finances, and a hindrance to all negotiations for the settlement of foreign claims. That was the first act, the first specimen of that period of slumber followed by a sudden and unprepared rush. Then came the question of the Soudan, which was no new question. Before the battle of Tel-el-Kebir the Mahdi was already in arms. It was a matter as to which anybody who undertook to deal with the destinies of Egypt should have arrived at a decision as to the plan on which the Government of Egypt should act. But no decision was arrived at—the thing was allowed to drift; and Her Majesty's Government, plunged in absolute torpor, seemed to have but one care—that they should escape from nominal responsibility, ignoring the real responsibilities which would inevitably be attached to their actions. The despatches, one after another, during that period only repeat the old burden—"Her Majesty's Government has no responsibility as to what takes place in the Soudan." There-suit was that the unhappy Hicks was sent
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into the Soudan, wretchedly equipped, with an army altogether beneath the number that he ought to have had, composed of men, moreover, who had been turned out of the Eg3'ptian Army as worthless. The inevitable result followed—a result which Her Majesty's Government had no cause to be surprised at, for they were warned of it by their own confidential agents. Yet they absolutely declined to interfere, and hoped, by disclaiming; responsibility, to escape from the inevitable consequences of their own neglect. The anticipated disaster came. Hicks and his army were totally destroyed, and not a man escaped to tell the tale; and then it was that Her Majesty's Government awoke from the period of slumber, and the period of rush began. They adopted two measures, both of them as inadequate and inapplicable to the circumstances as it was possible to conceive, and both of them big with future trouble. In the first place, they announced suddenly to the world and to Egypt that Egypt must abandon the Soudan. It was impossible to conceive a more stupendous political blunder than that. It was a proclamation to all our enemies that they could enjoy impunity; and it was a proclamation to all our friends that they would be handed over without mercy to those who desired to overwhelm them. But the announcement was made, and from that moment the fate of the garrisons whom they had left scattered over the Soudan was sealed. The fate of the garrison of Khartoum was brought home to them forcibly, and they might have taken seasonable measures for its relief—they might have sent troops upon which they could rely to defend its garrison, and adopted some definite and effective plan of relief. Instead of that, they took advantage of the chivalrous devotion of one of the noblest spirits which this age has seen; and, making use of his self-devotion, they sent him forward on an impossible and hopeless task to accomplish by mere words and promises what they had not the courage to do by force of arms. From that commencement—the abandonment of the Soudan and the mission of General Gordon—all our subsequent troubles have ariseu. But that was not all. Among the garrisons of the Soudan were those of Sinkat and Tokar, which, so long back as November, 1883, were severely

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pressed by the Mahdi's lieutenants, and their danger was announced to Her Majesty's Government as extreme. For three months they took no notice of that danger; they allowed the matter to be left to General Baker and a body of Egyptians, whose worthlessness was announced in every page of the Correspondence laid before them. Of course, General Baker, with such a force, was inevitably defeated; but it was not until Parliament met—I think it was not until a Vote of Censure was announced—that Her Majesty's Government determined to make an effort to do that which they ought to have done, and which, if they had not been asleep, they would have done three months before, to make an effort to relieve the garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar. When the resolution was come to, when at last the necessity dawned upon their minds, they plunged into the matter with their usual improvidence and want of plan. They sent men to Suakin, apparently with no idea of what they were to do when they got there. Before they started Sinkat had fallen, and before they could undertake any active operations the garrison of Tokar, giving up in despair, had surrendered. Then the planlessness, the aimlessness, of the Government was revealed; they landed their Forces, and, lest they should expose themselves to derision for taking them away without doing anything, they slaughter 6,000 Arabs, and go away absolutely without any result for the blood of their friends or the blood of their enemies that they had shed. They go away guilty of all this bloodshed, leaving behind them absolutely no result, except the enmities and the blood feuds they had created, because they had plunged into the enter-prize without any definite view, and without any fixed plan to guide themselves. These three cases—the case of the bombardment of Alexandria, the case of the abandonment of the Soudan, and the case of the mission of General Graham's Force—they are all on the same plan, and all show you that remarkable characteristic of torpor during the time when action was needed, and hasty, impulsive, ill-considered action, when the moment for action had passed by. Their further conduct was modelled on their conduct in the past. So far was it modelled, that we were able to put it to the test which
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establishes a scientific law. The proof of a scientific law is that you can prophesy from previous occurrences what will happen in the future. That is exactly what took place in the present instance. We had had these three instances of the mode of working of Her Majesty's Government before us, and we knew the laws that guided their action. As astronomers, observing the motions of a comet, can discover by observation the future path by which that comet is to travel, so we could prophesy what would happen in the case of General Gordon. My right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote) prophesied it in the House of Commons, and was met by a burst of fury from the Prime Minister such as that Assembly has seldom seen. He was told that Egypt was of much less importance than, I think, Sutherland or Caithness, and that everything that was wrong was the result of deficits imputed to him in the finances some 10 years ago; and he was generally denounced because ho would interfere with the beneficent legislation of the Government on the subject of capable citizens and so forth by introducing the subject of Egypt as many as 17 times. Well, that did not prevent my right hon. Friend's prophecies from being correct, and I venture to repeat them in this House. I do not like to quote my own words—it is egotistical—but as a proof of what I may call the accuracy of the scientific law by which the motion of the Government is determined, I should like to quote what I said on the 4th of April, when discussing the prospect of the relief of General Gordon. The Government were proclaiming that he was perfectly safe, and that an Expedition to relieve him was an utterly unnecessary operation, while it was very unreasonable for us to raise the question before Parliament. What I said was this—
"Are these circumstances encouraging to us when we are asked to trust that, on the inspiration of the moment, when the danger comes Her Majesty's Government will find some means of relieving General Gordon? I fear that the history of the past will he repeated in the future; that, just again, when it is too late, the critical resolution will he taken; some terrible news will come that the position of Gordon is absolutely a forelorn and helpless one; and then, under the pressure of public wrath and Parliamentary Censure, some desperate resolution of sending an Expedition will be formed too late to achieve the object which it is desired to gain."—(3 Hansard, [286] 1616.)

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I quote these words to show that by that time we had ascertained the laws of motion and the orbits of those eccentric comets who sit on the Treasury Bench. Now the terrible responsibility and blame rests upon the Government, because they were warned in March and April of the danger to General Gordon; because they received every intimation which men could reasonably look for that his danger would be extreme; and because they delayed from March and April right down to the 15th of August before they took a single measure to relieve him. What were they doing all that time? It is very difficult to conceive. Some people have said—I think it is an unreasonable supposition—that the cause of the tardiness of Her Majesty's Government was the accession to the Cabinet of the noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies (the Earl of Derby). I have quoted some of the earlier misdeeds of Her Majesty's Government, partly for the purpose of defending the noble Earl from the charge—they were almost as bad before he joined them. What happened during those eventful months? I suppose some day the memoirs will tell our grandchildren; but we shall never know. Some people think there were divisions in the Cabinet, and that, after division on division, a decision was put off lest the Cabinent should be broken up. I am rather inclined to think that it was due to the peculiar position of the Prime Minister. He came in as the apostle of the Mid Lothian campaign, loaded with all the doctrines and all the follies of that pilgrimage. We have seen on each occasion, after one of these mishaps, when he has been forced by events and by the common sense of the nation to take some more active steps—we have seen his extreme supporters falling foul of him, and reproaching him with having deserted their opinions and disappointed the ardent hopes which they had formed of him as the apostle of absolute negation in foreign affairs. I think he always felt the danger of that reproach. He always felt the debt that he had incurred to those supporters. He always felt a dread lest they should break away; and he put off again and again to the last practical moment any action which might bring him into open conflict with the doctrines by which his present eminence was gained. At all events, this is clear—that throughout
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those six months the Government knew perfectly well the danger in which General Gordon was placed. It has been said that General Gordon did not ask for troops. I am surprised at that defence. One of the characteristics of General Gordon was the extreme abnegation of his nature. It was not to be expected that he should send home a telegram to say—"I am in great danger, therefore send me troops"—he would probably have cut off his right hand before he would have written a telegram of that sort. But he sent home telegrams through Mr. Power, telegrams saying that the people of Khartoum were in great danger; that the Mahdi would succeed unless military succour was sent forward; urging at one time the sending forward of Sir Evelyn Wood and his Egyptians, and at another the landing of Indians at Suakin and the establishment of the Berber route, and distinctly telling the Government—and this is the main point—that unless they would consent to his views the supremacy of the Mahdi was assured. This is what he said no later than February 29, almost when first he saw the nature of the problem with which he had been sent to deal—
"Should you wish to intervene, send 200 British troops to Wady Halfa … and then open up Suakin-Berber route with Indian Moslem troops … If you decide against this, you may probably have to decide between Zebehr and the Mahdi."—[Egypt, No. 12 (1884) p. 131.]
It was impossible that he could have spoken more clearly. But Mr. Power, who was with him, who was one of the three Englishmen in the town, who was the Consular Agent, whom he trusted so much that he sent him down with Stewart upon that last ill-fated journey, and whose decoration and reward he recommended to the British Government—he could speak plainly; he was not the General in command, and there was no appeal to his chivalry in the matter. Power said on the 23rd of March—
"We are daily expecting British troops—we cannot bring ourselves to believe that we are to be abandoned by the Government. Our existence depends upon England."
Well, now, my Lords, is it conceivable that after two months, in May, the Prime Minister should have said that they were waiting to have reasonable proof that Gordon was in danger? By that time Khartoum was surrounded; the Governor of Berber had announced that his

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case was hopeless, which was too surely proved by the massacre which took place in June; and yet in May Mr. Gladstone was still waiting for "reasonable proof" that the men who were surrounded, who had announced that they had only five months' food, were in danger. Apparently he did not get that reasonable proof till the month of August. I may note, in passing, that I think the interpretation which the Government has placed upon the language of their trusted officers has more than once been exceedingly ungenerous. They told us that they did not think it necessary to send an Expedition to relieve Sinkat and Tokar because they could quote some language of hope from the despatches of General Baker; and in the same way they could quote the same language of hope from the despatches of General Gordon. But a General sent forward on a dangerous mission does not like to go whining for assistance unless he is absolutely pressed by the extremest peril. All those great qualities which go to make men heroes and soldiers are incompatible with such a course, lead them to underrate danger, and to shrink as from a great disgrace from any unnecessary appeal for exertion for their protection. It was the business of the Government not to interpret Gordon's telegrams as if they had been statutory declarations; but to judge for themselves of the circumstances of the case, and to see that those who were surrounded, who were only three English men among such a vast body of Mahommedans, and who were already cut off from all communications with the civilized world by the occupation of every important town upon the river, were really in danger, and that, if they meant to answer their responsibilities, they were bound to relieve them. I cannot tell what blindness fell over the eyes of some Members of Her Majesty's Government. On reading over these debates I find that the Marquess of Hartington, on the 13th of May, actually gave utterance to these expressions—
"I say that it would be indelible disgrace"—indelible disgrace—"if we should neglect any means at the disposal of this country to save General Gordon."—(3 Hansard, [288] 224.)
And after that announcement by the Minister chiefly responsible, the Secretary of State for War, three months
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elapsed before any step was taken for doing that which he admitted that the Government were bound to do under the penalty of indelible disgrace. It has been said that General Gordon was destroyed by treachery, and that that treachery would have happened at any time when the British Army came near Khartoum's What does that extraordinary theory mean? It means that the Mahdi had agreed with Farag Pasha that it would be much more comfortable to go on besieging, and that they should go on besieging until Lord Wolseley's Force came and made it dangerous to continue doing it any longer, and that then the previously-arranged surrender of the place should take place. Have those who put forward this extraordinary theory not heard or read of the hard straits to which the Mahdi and his followers were for a long time reduced—how they were suffering from fever, from cholera, from small-pox, from the difficulty of feeding themselves, how there were constant threats that the Mahdi's men would desert his cause, and how very hard it was for him to maintain his position? Depend upon it that if the Mahdi could have shortened that period of trial by one hour he would have done so. But supposing this theory to be true—supposing the danger was so extreme, and that the moment General Gordon was in Khartoum treachery was certain sooner or later to do its work, and that its execution was only delayed until the necessary emergency arrived—what does that prove? Does it not show that the sending of General Gordon to Khartoum was an act of extreme folly? I do not know of any instance of such a man being sent to maintain a position like Khartoum without a certain number of British troops going with him. If British troops had been there such treachery would have been impossible. The sending of General Gordon by himself, to rely alone on the fidelity of Egyptian troops, for whose allegiance he had no kind of security, was an act of the extremest rashness; and if the Government can succeed in proving—as I do not think they can—that this treachery was inevitable, they only pile up additional reasons for condemning the expedient by which they sought to cover their previous action. I must confess that it is very difficult to separate this question

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from the personal matter which, it involves. It is very difficult to argue it on purely abstract grounds, without turning for a moment to the character of the man who was thus engaged, and the terrible risk which he ran. When we consider all that he underwent, all that he sacrificed in order to serve the Government in a moment of extreme exigency, there is something infinitely pathetic in reflecting on what must have been his feelings as day after day, week after week, and month after month passed by, and he spared no exertion, no personal sacrifice, to perform the duties placed upon him, as he lengthened out the siege by inconceivable prodigies of skill, ingenuity, and resource, and as, in spite of it all—in spite of the deep devotion to his country which had prompted him to this great risk and undertaking—the conviction gradually dawned upon him that this country had abandoned him. It is terrible to think what he must have suffered when, at last, as a desperate measure to save those whom he loved, he parted with the only two Englishmen with whom, during those long months, he had had any converse, and sent Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power down the river to escape from the fate which had become inevitable to himself. It is very painful to think of the reproaches upon his country, and his country's Government, which must have passed through the mind of that devoted man through successive weeks and months of unmerited peril and neglect. No wonder he should have at last written that tragic letter, which has only appeared yesterday before the world—the letter he wrote on the 14th of December—
"All is up; I expect a catastrophe in 10 days' time. It would not have been so if our people had kept me better informed as to their intentions."
The Government had no intentions to keep him informed of. They were merely acting from hand to mouth to avert a Parliamentary Censure or a political crisis. They had no plan, no intentions to carry out. If he could have known their intentions, that great hero would have been saved to the English Army, and a great disgrace would not have been enrolled on the history of the English race. My Lords, by the light of this sad history, what are our prospects for the future? Was there
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ever a time when clearness of plan and definiteness of policy were more required than they are now? I am not going to say that the policy of the Government is bad. I should be paying them an extravagant compliment if I said that. They have no policy at all. As my right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) epigrammatically described their policy the other night, they are going to Khartoum to please the Whigs, and they are going to abandon it to please the Radicals. I dare say that that is as true as any other description of their policy that can be given. But at such a crisis of our country's fate, in both Houses of Parliament, in the Press, in society—everywhere—you hear people asking "What is their policy?" You get no answer. You get no answer from themselves. Here and there you get a faint echo of a policy, something vague and ill-defined, like the distant sound, to which you can attach no definite meaning. You sometimes seem to see for a moment the phantom of a policy; but if you try to grasp it, it escapes you. We used to think that the policy of the Government was the evacuation of the Soudan as soon as the military operations were over. A very bad policy ! But even that does not seem now to be their policy. We do not know whether they are going to evacuate the Soudan or not. They do not know who are going to hold the Soudan; they leave themselves open as to that; it may be the Italians, the Turks, or the Chinese. Only one point they put their foot down on, and that is that Egypt shall not hold the Soudan. I confess I thought that when they swept all the, rest away they might sweep that away also; for there is the portion of the Soudan which the Earl of Dufferin thought should remain under Egypt, and which must always follow the destinies in some sense of "the Egyptian Government." Then we were told that they were to "smash the Mahdi;" but now we are to make use of the Mahdi. To smash the Mahdi is not the best way of inducing him to take a favourable view of your operations. If you smash the Mahdi, you may do it so thoroughly that he will not be of any use in the future; and it is possible he may retain a certain resentment for the process of being smashed. It is possible either that the Mahdi, in fulfilment of his claims to the

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religious position he occupies, will have to decline to have any dealing with the infidel; or that if you crush him so entirely by force of arms that he will consent to treat with you, he will have lost all position in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen, and you will not find his influence of any assistance in the solution of the terrible problem which you have in the Soudan. They have no policy, in the same way, as to the railway. It is a very important measure making a railway. It is very difficult work; it is unprecedented in history to project a railway into an enemy's country, and follow it up by conquering the country. Whether that is possible or not, the construction of the railway did seem to imply some policy. If the Government are going to make a railway, and then leave it to the first comer to take and do with it what he liked, that is an extremity of generosity which can only belong to a Government which lives from hand to mouth. It appears to me that, on this matter of our Egyptian policy, though I do not say that you can lay down the precise steps by which the end is to be obtained, still it is a time when we ought to conceive to ourselves what the end of our policy is to be—that we should clearly define it, and follow it out with consistency and persistency. Now, let us examine broadly what are the interests of England in this matter. With Mediterranean politics, as such, we have no great reason to concern ourselves. France may be mistress in Algeria and Tunis; Morocco may go its own way; and it is said that Italy has views in Tripoli; but Egypt stands in a peculiar position. It is the road to India. The condition of Egypt can never be indifferent to us; and, more than that, after all the sacrifices that we have made, after all the efforts that this country has put forth, after the position that we have taken up in the eyes of the world, we have a right, and it is our duty to insist upon it, that our influence shall be predominant in Egypt. I do not care by what technical arrangements this result is obtained. Technical arrangements must necessarily conform, among other things, to the International Law and the Treaty conditions of the world; but the substance of the thing must be this—with all due regard—I do not wish for a moment to disturb the rights of the
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Suzerain—but with due regard to those rights, the interests of England in Egypt must be supreme. Now, the influence of England in Egypt is threatened from two sides. It is threatened on the North diplomatically by the position which the Powers are taking up with respect to Egypt. I do not think it was necessary that the Powers should have taken up that position. I believe that, with decent steering, it might have been avoided; but it has not been avoided, and we undoubtedly have to face, at all events, the inchoate claims which will demand the utmost jealousy and vigilance of Parliament. I do not know what are precisely the arrangements which the Government are said to have arrived at with respect to the Guarantee. I greatly fear that it may include the idea of a Multiple Control, and to the idea of a Multiple Control I believe that this country will be persistently and resolutely hostile. But, diplomatically, we have to guard Egypt from the superior influences of any Power but our own from the North. From the South at the present moment we have a danger of another kind. We have the forces of fanatical barbarism let loose upon the South of Egypt. Owing to the blunders that have been committed, those dangers have reached a terrible height. They undoubtedly will require a very strenuous effort on the part of this country to conquer. But unless we intend to give over Egypt to barbarism and anarchy, unless we intend to sacrifice all the advantages for civilization that we have won there, and all the value of the services which that country may render to British interests as its path to the East, we must contrive to check this inroad of barbarian fanaticism which is impersonated in the actions and character of the Mahdi. Now, General Gordon never said a truer thing than when he said that we could not do so by simply drawing a military line, and that we might as well draw a military line to keep back fever. If the insurgent Mahommedans reach the North of Egypt, it will not be so much by their military force as by the moral power of their example that they will threaten the existing state of things in Egypt and the interests of all the European Powers, and, most of all, of our own. We have, therefore, to check—it is absolutely necessary that we should oheck—

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this advance of the Mahdi's power. Her Majesty's Government, in those glimpses of policy which they occasionally afford us, have alluded—I cannot say they have done more—to the possibility of setting up a good Government in the Soudan. I quite agree that a good Government is essential to us in the Soudan. That is the only dyke that we can really erect to keep out this inundation of barbarian and fanatical force. I entirely concur with them if that is their view, which I cannot certainly determine. I entirely concur with them that it is the duty of this country to see a good Government erected in that country, a Government upon which we can rely, and which shall have power to stem the forces which the Madhi has set in motion. But they speak of a Government as if it was a Christmas present that you can give a country and then go away. England, it seems, possesses a great many good Governments in store to give away; she can always give one to a nation when it requires it; or rather, like the ostrich's egg, they can leave it in the sand to hatch itself. But a good Government, like any other organized being, must pass through the stages of infancy to maturity. There must he a long stage of infancy during which this Government is unable to defend itself; and if it is to exist for any useful purposes, it requires, during that period, protection and security, which it can only derive from the action of an external Power. It is that protection and security that England must give. She must not desert her task in the Soudan until there is that Government which can protect Egypt, in which her interests are vital. I do not say whether it should be done by the Nile or from Suakin. I think I see a noble Lord, one of the greatest ornaments of this House, who has conducted an Expedition, not over 250 miles from Suakin to Berber, but over 400 miles, and that with success, over the same burning country, and his opinion, as given last year, is that the Suakin and Berber route is the route by which the Soudan should be held. In that opinion I do not say that I concur—that would be impertinent; but it is an opinion to which I can humbly subscribe. Whether it is to be done by a railway or not is another matter; but I fully believe that by using the Suakin
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and Berber route, we may maintain a hold over that portion of the Soudan which may enable us to perform that which is our primary duty—namely, to repress these forces of barbarism and fanaticism, to protect Egypt from further incursion, to nourish the civilization which they protected and secured, and which would find such abundant root in that fertile country; and, above all, to quench, and check, and ultimately to destroy, the Slave Trade, which has been the curse of Africa. All those advantages can be readily obtained if England will lay down a determined policy, and will adhere to it. But consistency of policy is absolutely necessary. You cannot envelop your policy in obscurity, trusting to chance and taking this or that side, according as Parliamentary exigencies require. You cannot do that without fatally damaging the prestige of your power and the chances of your success. We have to assure our friends that we shall stand by them; we have to assure our enemies that we are permanently to be feared; and it is only on the conditions on which our enemies dread us and our friends trust us that we can be successful in dealing with our enemies. My Lords, we must not conceal from ourselves that the blunders of the last three years have placed us in presence of terrible problems and difficulties, which will require all our manhood to overcome. We have great sacrifices, too, to make. I earnestly trust that this railway, of which I hear so much, may be made. It will be an enormous benefit to Africa. But do not conceal from yourselves that the task is one of no slight magnitude. To throw forward a railway into a country which is not in our possession has never been done before. When you have thrown it forward you will have to guard it against a population who know the country thoroughly, who are very difficult to reach, and who are singularly hostile to any Christian or civilized effort. If you carry this railway forward, you will not only have to smash the Mahdi, but you will have to smash Osman Digna as well, and to smash him so completely that he will not only not be able to resist at the moment, but that he shall be unable to turn back and take up the railway when it is made. All those things involve great sacrifices. They involve the expenditure

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not only of much money, but more of that English blood of which the noblest has already been poured forth. They involve the creation of blood feuds that you will have great difficulty in dealing with, and we are not so strong as we were. At first all nations sympathized with us; now they look upon us coldly, and even with hostility. Those who were our friends became indifferent; those who were indifferent have become our adversaries; and if our misfortunes and disasters go on much longer, we shall have Europe interfering, and saying that they cannot trust us—we are too weak—that our prestige is too broken to justify us in undertaking the task. My Lords, those are great dangers we have to face. They can only be faced by a consistent policy, which can only be conducted by a Ministry that is capable of unity of counsel and decision of purpose. I have shown you that from this Ministry you can expect no such results. They will only produce after their kind; they will only do what they have already done. You cannot look for unity of counsel from an Administration which is hopelessly divided; you cannot expect a resolute policy from those whose purpose is hopelessly halting. It is for this reason, my Lords, that I ask you to record your opinion that in a Ministry, in whom the first quality of all—the quality of decision of purpose—is wanting; from such a Ministry you can hope no good in this crisis of your country's fate. If you continue to trust them; if you continue for any Party reason—if Parliament continues—to abandon to their care the affairs which they have hitherto so hopelessly mismanaged, you must expect to go on from bad to worse; you must expect to lose the little prestige which you retain; you must expect to find in other portions of the world the results of the lower consideration which you occupy in the eyes of mankind. You must expect to be drawn on, year by year, step by step, under the cover of plausible excuses, under the cover of high philanthropic sentiments—you must expect to be drawn on to irreparable disasters and disgrace, which it will be impossible to efface.
Moved to resolve,
"That this House, having taken into consideration the statements that have been made
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on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, is of opinion that—?

1. The deplorable failure of the Soudan expedition to attain its object has been due to the undecided councils of the Government and to the culpable delay attending the commencement of operations;

2. That the policy of abandoning the whole of the Soudan after the conclusion of military operations will be dangerous to Egypt and inconsistent with the interests of the Empire."—[The Marquess of Salisbury.)

LORD WENTWORTH,in rising to move the following Amendment:—
"To leave out from 'That' to the end of the Motion, and insert 'an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, humbly representing to Her Majesty that the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government in respect to the affairs of Egypt and the Soudan has involved a great sacrifice of valuable lives and a heavy expenditure without any beneficial result, and has rendered it imperatively necessary in the interests of the British Empire and of the Egyptian people that Her Majesty's Government should not employ British forces to occupy the Soudan or to prevent the exercise by the Egyptian people of their right to select their own government,'"
said, he was always loth to occupy the time of the House; but at a moment when friends of peace were being assailed with opprobrium and ridicule no opponent of this most unhappy and unhallowed war ought to conceal his convictions, and it became his duty, however inadequately, to represent those opinions before their Lordships. Ever-increasing burdens had been laid upon the people, fresh responsibilities and growing dangers were incurred by the successive sanguinary crusades of the Government against Moslems and False Prophets. He had never thought it either wise or right to invade and conquer Egypt in 1882, and more than once he had expressed that opinion to their Lordships. If he considered that the blood lately shed, the slaughter of the enemy, the appalling and irreparable loss of so many of our own best and bravest men, were the fatal and necessary consequence of going to Egypt at all, these butcheries would be the strongest possible addditional condemnation of the fundamental error. But admitting, even for an instant, the comfortable doctrine of whoever was able to believe the bombardment of Alexandria to have been neither crime nor mistake, no case at all had ever been made out for the delusion that British interests in Egypt could be maintained either by sending agents to

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intervene in the affairs of the Soudan, or by withdrawing troops from where they might at any time be wanted to defend their already enormous Empire, in order to make new conquests in the remote deserts of Africa. He knew the valour of their soldiers, the heroism of their officers; but the more he admired them the more he hated to see them ordered on duties as to the purpose of which one dared not say—"May God defend the right!" Would that they might never fight for spurious prestige—the object of duellists and bullies—but only like Christian soldiers, in defence of their country. But the men who fell in battle would not be the only or the principal victims. There were millions who would suffer—perhaps starve—through the direct and indirect effects of war, taxation, and waste of productive energy; and, however bad they might think the Mahdi, his overthrow would add nothing to the happiness or welfare of the mass of the English population, who would have to endure most of the ruin and misery caused by war. But were they justified in speaking so harshly of the Mahdi if they compared his actions with our own? Was he invading and slaughtering us, and while so engaged was he praying to God to assuage the violent passions of the enemies who dared to resist him—as one of our chief pastors was said to have prayed about the Soudanese? Other fanatics than Arabs had caused their present troubles. They had no right to speak of a campaign to "smash up" the Mahdi as if it were a trial sent by the Supreme Dispenser of glory—which was very good for them—provided always they thankfully and piously followed those chosen saints who governed them. Rive years ago another celebrated campaign took place, but of a very different kind, for it was against blood-guiltiness, and brought to power the makers of the arrangements that followed Majuba. One of the victorious heroes—of Mid Lothian—spoke a week or two ago at Epsom, and earnestly recommended more war, at the same time urging the maintenance in Office of those Ministers who had brought us where we were, and this was represented as a patriotic duty. The noble Earl (the Earl of Rosebery) might have given another reason; but he either did not know or forgot to mention that almost immedi-
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ately afterwards he would himself become a Member of the Cabinet in which he was so warmly expressing his confidence. The safe and speedy withdrawal of their Army from the Upper Nile appeared to him the first necessity, and no reinforcements ought to have any object but the rescue of Lord Wolseley if, by a rash advance, he had become unable, without help, to get out of the country. They could not with honour or safety to themselves sacrifice that brave little Army, either by withholding from it the means of return, or by sending it on to fresh losses and risks, the avowed object for which had disappeared, and, indeed, had been proved not to have existed as a possibility. Whatever the natural condition of the Soudanese might be, ours was peace, and a heavy burden of proof rested upon those who would deprive us of it. How often were the aims of war as worthless as they were wicked! For example, war was not justifiable if made to save the places or restore the political reputation of Ministers guilty of a long course of violence and vacillation. Neither ought the forces of England to be used as a remedy to save from collapse the rotten speculations of a secret society of Semitic financiers and Levantine usurers. An unrighteous war would become the parent of other wars, and must corrupt the conscience of the nation. For, of aggregates as of individuals, Cowper's lines were true—
"Faults in the life breed errors in the brain, And these reciprocally those again."
Their Lordships might have observed in the unfortunate occupiers of the Front Bench instances of that action and re-action of conduct and character on each other. There was a large mass of peaceful public opinion in the country that would be for ever grateful to their Lordships if they would prove their power and their will to interpose their protection between the people and those dangerous men who would inflict on it the horrors of war; and he would entreat all of them, even the Members of the Government, before it was too late, to deliberate, without passion or panic, as to what were the real duties and interests of their country.
Amendment moved,
To leave out from "That" to the end of the motion, and insert "an humble Address he presented to Her Majesty, humbly representing to Her Majesty that the course pursued by Her

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Majesty's Government in respect to the affairs of Egypt and the Soudan has involved a great sacrifice of valuable lives and a heavy expenditure without any beneficial result, and has rendered it imperatively necessary in the interests of the British Empire and of the Egyptian people that Her Majesty's Government should not employ British forces to occupy the Soudan or to prevent the exercise by the Egyptian people of their right to select their own government."—(The Lord Wentworth.)
THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: My Lords, in rising to follow the noble Marquess and the noble Lord I can assure your Lordships that I do so with great difficulty and diffidence. To follow the noble Marquess at any time is no easy task; but to follow him on this occasion, when Her Majesty's Government must admit at once that the efforts they have made to rescue General Gordon have failed, renders the task still more difficult. We deplore, I think I may even say, more than the noble Marquess opposite or any noble Lord in this House the fatal end which has come to the mission of General Gordon, and, before I endeavour to meet the observations of the noble Marquess, I would say one word to express my personal grief at his death. I had known him myself probably better than most; and in common with all who knew him I felt not only that admiration for his career which all of us feel, but an affection for the simplicity of his character and the charm of his manner which I shall ever preserve during my life. I would also express, in a word or two, the grief which I feel at the loss of officers and friends of my own, and I would mention particularly General Earle, as I am able to speak with perfect knowledge of his high soldier like qualities, his great powers of administration and his devotion to his duty—a devotion in which he was not exceeded by any officer in the Army, and which undoubtedly would have enabled him to perform still greater services to his country than in the successful action in which he lost his life. I will not detain your Lordships by any further observations of this kind, though I should not omit to mention that the Navy has also its losses to deplore in the deaths of Lieutenants Pigott and de Lisle. My Lords, the noble Marquess has travelled over the history of many years, and, with his great power of language and his choice of epithets in
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describing the conduct of the Government, has gone back to the beginning of the whole of these transactions—the first beginning of Arabi's rebellion, and the event which the noble Marquess called, with elaborate inaccuracy, the bombardment of Alexandria. [Opposition laughter.] I repeat, with elaborate inaccuracy; because it is known to every man who has taken the trouble to examine into the circumstances of the case that the attack by Her Majesty's Forces upon the forts of Alexandria was conducted by my hon. and gallant Friend (Lord Alcester) in such a way that hardly a shot fell into the town, and the burning of Alexandria was caused by the forces of Arabi. The noble Marquess then went on to mention the unfortunate Expedition of General Hicks to the Soudan, the loss of Sinkat, and, indeed, all the transactions which have taken place since the beginning of the Egyptian troubles. In his reference to each of these the noble Marquess, in my opinion, was hardly accurate in the manner he dealt with them. For example, I will take the first—what ought the Government to have done to Arabi? The noble Marquess said that the moment we found Arabi was troublesome we ought to have exiled him from Egypt. How was it possible for Her Majesty's Government to have done anything of the kind? There is no man who ought to know that better than the noble Marquess. When the present Government succeeded to Office, the British Government was not in possession of complete power in that country. Then the noble Marquess went on to say that we should have sent an Army at the time of the attack on the forts of Alexandria; but he must himself recollect that our relations with the Powers in Europe were then such that it would have been impossible for this country by itself to send an Army—in point of fact, to invade Egypt. That was a course which I do not believe the noble Marquess himself, or anyone on the other side of the House, would at that time have recommended. My Lords, the noble Marquess criticized the Government for having, after the loss of the Army of General Hicks, issued a Proclamation making it known to the whole of the Soudan that, in their opinion, the Egyptian Government should abandon the possession of that country.

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Well, he might consider that that was an injudicious proceeding; but that was certainly not the opinion of those who knew the country best, including General Gordon, who always contended that the main cause of the insurrection in the Soudan was the misgovernment by Egyptian officials, and therefore that it would be a policy which would be satisfactory to the people of the Soudan that they should be told that the Egyptian Government would cease in that country. The noble Marquess then, in very eloquent terms, denounced the Government for not having sent British troops to rescue the garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar before the Army of Baker Pasha was defeated at El Teb. It appears to me that the Government at that time had every reason to suppose that the Army of Baker Pasha would have been victorious over the Soudanese. [Opposition laughter.] Noble Lords may laugh—indeed, I should be inclined to laugh myself if I had never studied the particular details of the case. It is all very well to laugh now, and to suppose that the Egyptian troops at that time were believed to be unequal to resist the troops that fought against them. It has only been found, more or less, by gradual experience that these troops—those who went with Baker Pasha—were not perfectly capable of meeting the Soudanese. Those troops who went with General Baker, I happen to know, were some of the finest men in the Egyptian Army; they were as big as our Guards, and if they had only stood the attack of the Soudanese for a few minutes they would have had the victory. [Opposition laughter.] I do not understand the laughter of noble Lords opposite at the very terrible massacre of those men. ["Oh!"] I repeat, and history will prove it, that from the type of General Baker's troops we had every reason to believe that they would give a good account of the enemy they had to meet there. The noble Marquess says—Why did we not send assistance before Baker's troops were in danger? What was the reason of our sending the Expedition at all? It was not because of any pressure of public opinion, or any agitation in the newspapers, or anything of that sort. It was because of the generous instinct of an English Government desiring to rescue, if possible, two garrisons almost within
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gunshot of the sea shore that were in a position of great danger from the hordes that surrounded them. I say that on all these occasions the motives which the noble Marquess has attributed to the Government for their action are not deserved; and that when those occasions arose we did what we conceived to be our duty in order to meet the difficulties which confronted us. And now I come to the terms of the noble Marquess's Motion. He asks your Lordships to say that—
"The deplorable failure of the Soudan expedition to attain its object has been due to the undecided counsels of the Government and to the culpable delay attending the commencement of operations."
I listened with attention to the noble Marquess's speech, in order to discover what ground he had for saying that the counsels of the Government were not decided in respect of the measures to be taken for the relief of General Gordon. I discovered that the noble Marquess differed entirely and completely from the view which the Government took from the very first on that matter; but I could not find anything in his speech to enable me to answer that part of his indictment. The noble Marquess, no doubt, however, endeavoured to prove that the Government had shown culpable delay in the commencement of the operations; and on that part of the Motion I will, with your Lordships' permission, say a few words. The noble Marquess here again went back rather far in his attacks on the Government. He went back to February and March of last year, and he quoted two telegrams to show that even at that time it was clear that General Gordon required to be supported by military force. Well, my Lords, there were telegrams from General Gordon about that time, making many suggestions, among others to the effect that Zebehr should be sent to Khartoum; that there should be a demonstration at Suakin; that some troops should be sent to Wady Halfa—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: To Berber.
THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: And that some Egyptian troops should be sent to Wady Halfa. Many suggestions were made; but when the noble Marquess read those telegrams he did not go fairly into the matter, and did not read to your Lordships other telegrams

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which showed, at any rate, that at that time the Government had no reason to suppose that the force against General Gordon was really a very powerful force, or that lie was in any real danger. For example, there were two telegrams received later than those which the noble Marquess quoted, because they served his ease. In one of these Gordon put the force of the enemy round Khartoum at 1,500 or 2,000 men, amongst whom there were, perhaps, not 150 determined men. And again, in a telegram from Khartoum, dated April 1, General Gordon says—
"I wish I could convey to you my impression of the truly trumpery nature of this revolt, which 500 determined men could put down."
I say, then, that at that time Her Majesty's Government had no reason to believe that General Gordon might not be able to give a good account himself of the opposition he had to face there; and, indeed, he was nearly doing so on several occasions. I simply state this to show that the telegrams read by the noble Marquess do not give a complete and accurate account of the circumstances of the case at that time. I will now go on to what happened in the month of May. The noble Marquess referred to the discussion which took place in the other House of Parliament at that time, and he read an extract from the speech of my noble Friend (the Marquess of Hartington) on May 13, and he said that, although the Marquess of Hartington had said that the Government were pledged as soon as they saw the necessity to do their best to rescue General Gordon, nothing whatever was done for three or four months from that date. In making that statement I do not think the noble Marquess was fair to Her Majesty's Government. It is clear that there is a distinct difference between the preparations for a campaign and the actual military operations. From the very beginning of the mission of General Gordon to Khartoum the Government had been carefully considering the different measures with a view to sending a Force to Khartoum if that should become necessary; and when the necessity became more urgent in May those preparations—namely, the examination of the different routes and certain other preparations—took a more definite form. I need not detain your Lordships
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by describing the different routes by which Khartoum can be reached—the Massowah route, the Suakin-Berber route, and the Nile route. It may be readily understood that operations by any of these routes are very serious in a military point of view. The Government, having carefully considered all the difficulties as to all these different routes, came to the conclusion that the route by Massowah must be put on one side, and that the route from Suakin to Berber was the one that afforded the best prospects of success. That was about the month of April or May of last year. To make that route successful it would have been necessary to have constructed a railroad, because the supply of water was so small that it would have been impossible to march a large force along that route without the help of a railroad. On June 14, I think it was, certain preparations were made for the construction of a railway from. Suakin. Engineers were sent there and a certain amount of plant, with the view of being prepared to enter upon the construction of a railroad as soon as the weather would enable troops to be sent to that place. Piers were made so as to facilitate the disembarkation of the materials for the railroad. But in order to make that railway it would have been necessary to have sent troops to Suakin, and to have so far obtained the mastery of the situation as to give security for the undertaking. At that time of year, during the months of May, June, and July, Suakin is probably the very worst place on the whole of that part of the Red Sea. It would not have done to have sent English troops at that time to Suakin to conduct operations of that sort. Therefore, all that was done was to make those preparations in June of last year. I have now to endeavour to explain the reasons why it was considered necessary, after full consultation, to alter the route from Suakin and Berber to the Nile. About the month of May the attention of the Government was more particularly directed to the Nile. There were some disturbances in Upper Egypt which necessitated the sending up of one or two battalions thither. A system of patrol of the Nile was established under Captain Bedford and other naval officers. A short time afterwards it was necessary to push on a portion of the Egyptian Army to Assouan and

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Wady Halfa. It was about the month of June that news reached us of the fall of Berber. Now, that Berber should be in the possession of the enemy made an entire difference in the situation as to sending an Expedition from Suakin to Berber. There are 100 miles of desert, with only one well on the last stage to Berber. Then, at the last moment, came the position of the Mudir of Dongola. It was thought desirable to send Major Kitchener to the neighbourhood of Dongola. His reports were satisfactory. The Mudir of Dongola defeated the troops of the Mahdi; and we believed it probable that a small force of British troops in the neighbourhood of Dongola would check the progress of the Mahdi, and that Gordon might be able to join hands and bring the garrison of Khartoum away across the desert or by Shendy and Berber to Dongola. An officer of the Royal Navy (Captain Hammill) was sent at the end of May to the Second Cataract to survey the cataracts, with the view of sending steamers. It was said that until the month of August, when the Vote of Credit was taken and the troops actually in motion, no preparations were made to relieve Gordon. But we had been occupied in making those preparations which were necessary if the Government decided to carry on operations. I must ask your Lordships' attention to this—that whether the operations were to be from Suakin or by the Nile, there were two limits in point of time over which the Government had no control. It would not have been right to send a large English Force to Suakin during the worst months; and, secondly, we could not get steamers necessary for the transport by the Nile past the cataracts until the river rose, about the middle of August. And, as a matter of fact, I believe that all the steamers that could be got up, leaving a sufficient number to carry on communications below, were actually taken up during August and September, so that no time was lost in that respect. I mention these facts to show that it is not correct to say that no preparations were made for the purpose of acting when the Government came to the decision that action should be taken for the relief of General Gordon. The reason why the commencement of opera-
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tions was delayed undoubtedly is this—the Government were most reluctant, and had been from the first, to involve English troops in an Expedition into the interior of Africa, and they hoped that circumstances might have arisen which would have enabled General Gordon to get the better of his antagonists and to come away from Khartoum with the Egyptian garrison of that place without the necessity of being assisted by British troops. I think that was a proper feeling on the part of Her Majesty's Government. We knew that when Gordon went to Khartoum he believed in his heart his mission was a pacific one, and that he would be able to execute his task without the support of British troops. I say distinctly Her Majesty's Government are not ashamed to confess that they were most reluctant to send an Expedition into the Soudan. I am not going to argue that if the Expedition had started earlier, or that if some other arrangement had been made, it might not have been successful. It is impossible for any man to prove that, any any more than to prove that if the arrangements had been in the hands of the noble Marquess his plans would have been successful. Some have entertained the view that success was impossible; but all I can say is that the Government arrived at these decisions with a full sense of their responsibility. Then the noble Marquess turned to the future policy of the Government in regard to the present position of the Soudan. I feel it far more profitable to examine that part of his speech which deals with the future. He says that the policy of abandoning the Soudan was dangerous to Egypt, and inconsistent with the interests of the Empire. He asked what was our policy, and he assumed that the Government had no policy whatever. Now, what are the circumstances of the case? The Government sent out an Expedition, which, unfortunately, failed just at the moment that we expected it to succeed, and when success was almost within our grasp. It then became necessary to consider and decide what orders should be given to Lord Wolseley with respect to the conduct of the Forces under him; and what the Government had to do was to give those orders to Lord Wolseley which he required in substitution for his first orders

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—namely, to do his best to rescue General Gordon. Having that decision to take, I believe the decision we took deserves the approval of your Lordships. The decision was to inform Lord Wolseley that it was his duty to prevent the power of the Mahdi spreading into those Provinces which were undisturbed, in order that Egypt might be protected against any danger from the forces of the Mahdi, and that for that purpose it would be necessary to overthrow the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum. I entirely respect and admire the frank and gallant manner in which the noble Lord (Lord Wentworth), representing opinions, undoubtedly, at the present moment, not popular in this House, has proposed his Amendment. I respect those opinions, and regret that events have forced us to go into the Soudan. Do not let the noble Lord suppose that Her Majesty's Government are engaged in these operations with any desire or inclination for them, or for their deplorable consequences. The noble Lord says that orders should now be given to Lord Wolseley to retire with as much expedition as possible from the position he now occupies. There I venture to differ from him; for I think if such orders had been given they might have brought on a military disaster, and affected most seriously the safety and prosperity of Egypt. The obligations we have entered into in Egypt render it necessary that British Forces should protect that country, and, in a military point of view, retiring before the Mahdi would have endangered the safety of Egypt. Immediately on receipt of the news of the failure to relieve Khartoum Her Majesty's Government announced to Parliament the orders they had given to Lord Wolesley. What more does the noble Marquess want? Does he want Her Majesty's Government to say what is to be the future government of the Soudan? What means have we at present of saying what it shall be? When the Expedition left Cairo instructions were given to Lord Wolseley with respect to the government of the Soudan. Of course, the main part of these instructions were to rescue General Gordon; but certain instructions were given with regard to the future government of the Soudan, which, as they are very short, I will venture to read—
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"The Egyptian Government would be prepared to pay a reasonable subsidy to any Chief or number of Chiefs who would be sufficiently powerful to maintain order along the Valley of the Nile from Wady Haifa to Khartoum, and who would agree to the following conditions:—

1. To remain at peace with Egypt, and to repress any raids on Egyptian territory.

2. To encourage trade with Egypt.

3. To prevent and discourage by all possible means any expeditions for the sale of and capture of slaves.

You are authorized to conclude any arrangements which fulfil these general conditions."
That appears to me to be a very clear expression of policy. A very able officer, Sir Charles Wilson, attached to Lord Wolseley's Staff, had instructions to assist him in carrying out this policy with respect to the future government of the Soudan. It would be his duty to find out what Chiefs there are, and on the conditions I have stated to put them in positions of authority. The Mudir of Dongola, who has distinguished himself very much as a courageous man, and who has a great reputation among Mohammedans, might, it was then thought, have been placed in authority at Dongola, and possibly also at Khartoum. Her Majesty's Government have as yet received no Report from Sir Charles Wilson as to those who might possibly, under certain circumstances, be placed as Rulers in that country. I maintain that Her Majesty's Government have explained that what they desire to see is a settled Government established in the Soudan, the best that can be arranged, and are even prepared to go so far as this—that some aid may be given by the Egyptian Government by way of subsidy in order to keep some hold over the good faith of those who may be appointed Rulers. The noble Marquess has very usually abstained from expressing any opinion himself as to what ought to be done. I do not remember in the whole course of these Egyptian debates so often brought on by him any occasion on which, how-over wise after the event, he ever gave Her Majesty's Government any advice as to what they ought to do. [Laughter.] Noble Lords opposite laughed; but I should like to ask them to mention any date on which any distinct and plain line of policy has been brought forward by the noble Marquess in respect of this Egyptian matter. There was only one occasion on which the noble Marquess went out of his way to express a decided

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opinion, and that was at the moment General Gordon arrived at Khartoum to damage him in the opinion of the country, by blaming him for his Proclamation with regard to slavery, and for his suggestion to send Zebehr Pasha to the Soudan. The present suggestion of the noble Marquess I understand to be that it would be desirable to place the Egyptian Government in the same position as before the war with respect to the Soudan. That is a proposal in which Her Majesty's Government cannot concur. How is it possible for the finances of Egypt to stand the cost of the administration of the Soudan? Does not the noble Marquess know that the cost of the Soudan has been one of the causes of the present financial difficulties? Does the noble Marquess believe that the Egyptian Government can again embark on a career of expenditure which will oblige them to borrow large sums of money without credit?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I recommended what the Earl of Dufferin recommended. I did not recommend the restitution of those parts of the Soudan to be governed by Egypt which were the cause of financial embarrassment.
THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: Does the noble Marquess not recollect that the Earl of Dufferin's recommendation was made before the defeat of Hicks Pasha? Does he think that the Earl of Dufferin would make the same recommendation now? It is very well for the noble Marquess to shelter himself behind the Earl of Dufferin's recommendation, made under different circumstances. As I have said, the recommendation would be contrary to the feeling of the people of the Soudan, and involve a drain on the finances of Egypt which they could not bear. Where are the troops to come from to carry out the administration of the Soudan? I can conceive of no recommendation which, under the present circumstances, is less likely to do good than that of the noble Marquess as to the policy he would have wished the Government to announce on the receipt of the news of General Gordon's death. The wording of the Motion of the noble Marquess was very remarkable. When a Motion was introduced in the other House of Parliament by the Leader of the Opposition in that
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House, it contained the somewhat vague recommendation—
"That the Government should distinctly recognize and take decided measures to fulfil the responsibility incumbent upon them to secure a good and stable government in Egypt and those parts of the Soudan necessary for its security."
The words "to secure a good and stable government in the Soudan" faithfully interpreted the desire of Her Majesty's Government. Then there was a meeting of the Conservative Party the other day—I think it was Monday—[The Marquess of SALISBURY: Tuesday]—at which a rather curious thing happened. Some of those present made speeches against the Leader of the Conservative Party in the other House, on the ground that the words of his Resolution were not strong enough, and I believe that that is the explanation of the Resolution moved by the noble Marquess.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Earl is somewhat unfortunate in his dates; the Notice of the Resolution was given on Monday, and the meeting took place on Tuesday.
THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: Then I suppose that "coming events cast their shadows before;" but, at all events, it is not likely that speeches would have been made against one Leader of the Opposition without the other Leader knowing something about it beforehand. This, at all events, is clear—that this Resolution differs from that of the Leader in the other House. The noble Marquess, instead of saying that it is the duty of the Government to obtain a good and stable government for the Soudan, asks this House to say that the policy of abandoning the whole of the Soudan is dangerous to Egypt, and inconsistent with the interests of the Empire. That, as I understand it, is a very different thing. But what does it mean? It means that, in order to secure the safety of Egypt and the interests of the Empire, it is necessary that this country should hold part of the Soudan after the conclusion of the military operations; and the noble Marquess has said in his speech to-night that Egypt should hold part of the Soudan. That is a policy to which Her Majesty's Government cannot agree. We do not think that the circumstances of the present time justify any such policy, and that it might be dan-

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gerous to the interests of the country. I The noble Marquess, in making the observations 'which he did, said some things with which I entirely agree. I agree that after the sacrifices which this country has had to bear in Egypt it is right that England should have a preponderating influence in Egypt. The noble Marquess discussed the danger and importance of the Mohammedan fanaticism which is extending to the Soudan. It is difficult for us, or for anyone, however much he may have been brought into contact with Eastern nations, to gauge the importance and value of that movement. For my own part, my opinion is that it is not to be estimated so highly as the noble Marquess has done. I do not think it is a "terrible danger." I do not deny that it is a danger and a power, and a danger and a power which we must meet; but I do not think that those who are really fanatics in that country are the majority, or are extraordinarily numerous. I think that they find it difficult to resist that wave of fanaticism; but the real fanatics are not the majority. I believe that these tribes of the Soudan are tribes who are ordinarily peaceful and industrious men, many of them interested in trade. I myself think, and hope, that this wave of fanaticism may subside as rapidly as it has risen. But I do not think that it is likely that it will be made to subside by the continuance of hostilities for any length of time, though it is necessary to show that we can hold our own. It may be by the influence of commerce and trade against fanaticism that we shall succeed, and I know of no better remedy than that. There is a great amount of commerce in that country, and many of the tribes are engaged in carrying goods from one part of the country to another. They are to some extent consumers of English and other products; and I hope that when matters are put on a better footing the influence of trade may destroy and defeat the influence of fanaticism. As to trade, my own personal opinion and feeling is that it is probable that this railway, which we have commenced for military reasons at Suakin, may have a beneficial result upon the difficulties that are now before us. As far as the Government are concerned, our policy is a clear one; we should hold our own in that country for the present, and arrange its govern-
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ment, so far as we are able, for the benefit and advantage of the people. I trust that other noble Lords who may follow the noble Marquess will not follow his example in attributing unworthy motives to Her Majesty's Government; but at least give us the credit of having endeavoured honestly to do our duty under the very difficult circumstances in which we have been placed.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON: The noble Earl who has just sat down has asked why my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) has not set out the details of a policy which Her Majesty's Government might follow with advantage. It is new to me to be told that it is the duty of a Leader of the Opposition in this House or the other to set out a policy for the guidance of those at the head of affairs. It is sufficient for us to point out where we think they have failed in the duties which have been imposed upon them, and to ask your Lordships to agree with us in that view. The noble Earl, in the latter part of his speech, wanted to know what my noble Friend behind me wished should happen at the conclusion of the military operations in the Soudan. As I understand, my noble Friend said that at the end of the military operations it was necessary that the Government set up should be supported until it had grown strong enough to stand by itself. Those, I think, are reasonable views, and ought to meet the approbation of your Lordships. There was another part of the speech of the noble Earl in which he complained of the tone of my noble Friend behind me in the first of the two propositions which he has put upon the Papers. My Lords, in the first part of the Resolution my noble Friend behind me asks the House to say that—
"The deplorable failure of the Soudan expedition to attain its object has been due to the undecided counsels of the Government and to the culpable delay attending the commencement of operations."
But what does the noble Earl tell us? He has told us that they were, for many months, anxiously considering what to do. That does not look like decision. The noble Earl has proved conclusively everything the noble Marquess has said. He tells us that in April there was an idea of making a railway from Suakin to Berber, and the Government at first thought of adopting

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this proposition. In passing I may say that this course was proposed by a gallant friend of mine—one probably of the most promising officers in the Army—General Stephenson. General Stephenson thought the line from Suakin to Berber was the best, and for holding that opinion, and not agreeing to the line taken on the Nile, was superseded. And now at the last moment the Government come forward to tell us that what ought to be done is to make a railway from Suakin to Berber, the very thing which my gallant friend suggested in the first instance. The noble Lord says there was no indecision; but at the same time he tells us that they had been hoping from day to day that something might turn up, and therefore they had not come to any fixed resolution as to what should be done. And although General Gordon, in April, telegraphed stating the straits to which he was reduced, the Government were considering and consulting the Military Authorities from April to September before any step was taken for his relief. ["No."] Well, Lord Wolseley left this country on the 1st of September, and therefore I say it was from April to September that the Government were considering what was the best mode of acting in that country, and if that is not indecision then I do not know what the English language means. The conduct of the Government seems to be most inexplicable. With regard to the character of General Baker's Force which went to Suakin, I understand that they were taken in chains and compelled to go. The noble Lord says that if General Baker had had 500 able men he would have put down the rebellion; but the point is that he had 500 men who wished they were anywhere else than there. What would any military officer say if he had 500 men placed under his command who had been put under his authority by being taken up in chains? I wish now, my Lords, to go a little into the question of the general conduct of the Government since they have been in Office, and the want of decision they have shown not only in regard to Egyptian affairs, but in regard to the affairs of the whole Empire. It will be in your Lordship's recollection that the Prime Minister during the autumn made a vast number of speeches. He seems to take the
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opportunity of stopping at the various railway stations in the country to inform the people what his views are on every kind of subject. I find that in Edinburgh, on the 1st of September, he gave a description of the Government of the late Lord Beaconsfield, which I shall be able to show your Lordships before I sit down is much more applicable to the Government of which Mr. Gladstone himself is the Head. The right hon. Gentleman said—
"If I could have addressed the Government of Lord Beaconsfield, especially in its latest years, while Lord Salisbury was its Foreign Minister, I would truly have addressed it in the words of Tennyson—
'The children born of thee are fire and sword,
Red ruin and the breaking up of laws.'
Wherever their policy went spontaneous war, gratuitously provoked, waited on their footsteps, and law, on the other hand—I mean the highest of all law, European law—shrunk abased and despised."
Now, I think that the Members of Lord Beaconsfield's Government and those who supported his policy during the six years that that Cabinet existed have no reason to be ashamed of the comparison presented by that period with the period included in the present Government's tenure of power. My Lords, we left Europe in peace, and the country was honoured and respected by all the nations of the world. We steered the country through far greater difficulties and dangers than our Successors have had to deal with. We retained the friendship of all the Powers of Europe; we strengthened the position of this country in her Indian Empire. We were trusted by all the loyal Colonists in all parts of the globe, and, turning to domestic affairs, although I am bound to admit that there were some clouds which threatened in Ireland, yet we had the assurance of Mr. Gladstone that that country had not been in so satisfactory a condition for some years as when he took Office. What is the condition of the Empire now? When the present Ministry came into power one of their first acts was an apology to a great and friendly State for an insult offered, needlessly, as I thought, and as many thought, by the Prime Minister. A little later we had to deplore the humiliating defeat at Majuba Hill. We have found as time has gone on that Ireland, instead of being in a more satisfactory

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condition, is at the present moment on the verge of a rebellion. They have tried the patience, though they cannot diminish the loyalty, of our Colonies. They have jeopardized India both in its internal and its external relations, and they have deluged the Soudan with the blood of our brave soldiers and with that of our warlike enemies, who, according to the Prime Minister, are merely fighting for their liberties. I say that the country has been brought into this critical situation by the weak and vacillating conduct of the Government both at home and abroad. I do not rest my charge against them on the opinion of this country, or on the general condemnation of their policy throughout the civilized world. I call Ministers themselves as my witnesses. With all deference to the Foreign Secretary, for whom privately I entertain the greatest respect, I think there is scarcely anyone in the Government, except himself, who is altogether satisfied with the condition of foreign affairs, or of our relations with Foreign Powers. I was very much struck with a passage contained in the Papers recently presented to us, which show the position that this country holds in the opinion of a very eminent man on the Continent. In a letter from Mr. Meade an account is given of a conversation which that gentleman had with Prince Bismarck on Colonial subjects. Prince Bismarck, in the course of that interview, observed that up to within a few years ago he had done everything he could to facilitate English policy in Egypt and elsewhere; but that for some time past he had been treated in a different manner by England, "whose action," he said, "did not accord with her professions." Can there be anything more humiliating for an Englishman than that Mr. Meade, our Agent, in giving information to our Foreign Secretary, should be able to say that Prince Bismarck was of opinion that England did not act up to her professions?
EARL GRANVILLE: What has this to do with the Resolution now before us?
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON: I am trying to show that the Cabinet has no policy upon any subject. I doubt, my Lords, very much whether anyone in the Cabinet, except the Colonial Secretary, is altogether
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satisfied with our position as regards our Colonial Possessions. It was a strange thing to happen in Africa that it should be necessary to send a Force from this country, not of our soldiers, but of volunteers, to restore order and re-establish our prestige in that quarter. I doubt whether anyone in the Government, except the First Lord of the Admiralty, is altogether satisfied with the condition of the Navy; and what I say is, that the weak and vacillating conduct which has characterized the Government in every Department has produced the existing state of things in Egypt. My Lords, I want to say one word more. I do not think that I shall find any Member of the Cabinet, in this House at all events, endorsing the opinions—the revolutionary and socialistic opinions—which have been put forward by certain Members of the Cabinet in the other House. I say that the Cabinet is divided, that they have no policy, that they cannot agree upon a policy; and my point is this—that they were from April to September trying to find a policy, but that their indecision prevented them from doing so. That indecision was caused because they are a divided Cabinet, and because no two Members of the Cabinet agree upon the same thing. Will any Member of the Cabinet say what is the policy in Egypt? I listened to the noble Lord, and failed altogether to find that there was any. I do not think that they can be satisfied with what is going on in that country. The noble Lord admitted that it was a very lamentable state of things, and that the loss of blood and treasure was such as everyone must deplore. The noble Lord said that the references to the bombardment of Alexandria were in the nature of an elaborate exaggeration; but I cannot see what difference there is between the bombardment of these forts and the bombardment of a city, when no precautions are taken for the subsequent protection of the citizens. It is certain that from the bombardment of Alexandria down to the time of the death of General Gordon there was no consistent action taken by Her Majesty's Government. They have destroyed the existing Government in Egypt. I fail to see what Government has been supplied in its place. We are told that there will be one, but we are not told how that Go-

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vernment is to be maintained. They ordered the abandonment of the Soudan, but at the same time they took no steps to relieve the garrisons by which it was retained. General Gordon was sent to the Soudan positively without any assistance at all except his own unexampled faith and valour, and he was left in Khartoum with three Englishmen. General Graham was also sent, but he was sent when it was too late to relieve the fortresses in the Eastern Soudan. He attacked and destroyed Osman Digna; but instead of following up this action, which might have tended to the relief of Khartoum and General Gordon, he was stopped altogether, and the General, having failed to relieve those fortresses, and having gained a signal victory over Osman Digma, retired. I believe that Osman Digna at the present moment is in the same position as that in which he was when vanquished; the only difference being that he is in larger numbers and in greater force. The Government resisted the appeals of General Gordon as long as he was able to make them. He was listened to, but nothing came of it. The gallant dash of Sir Herbert Stewart across the desert cost great loss of life and great expenditure of treasure; but what is our position now? We have a small Force scattered over a large portion of the desert, trying to concentrate upon some point where we may oppose the advance and resist the attack of the Madhi. The Madhi is now reinforced by the fall of Khartoum, and we have now despatched to that country the flower of our Army to endeavour to vanquish him. But, the flower of our Army having been sent to smash the Madhi, I know not what will happen when that operation has been performed. I think that we ought to know what is to take place, and what protection is to be given to the tribes who, trusting the promises of this country, have deserted a heartless tyrant, and who should not be left to the will and pleasure of those from whom they have deserted. My Lords, we have now occupied Egypt for three years, and it appears to me that the condition of that country now is worse than when we went there first. Is there any indication on the part of Her Majesty's Government that they are going to adopt any consistent or decided policy? Is there any idea ex-
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pressed by them which would lead us to believe that they realize the great gravity of the situation, and that they have at last seen the impossibility of guiding the interests of this great country by the vacillating and weak counsels that have hitherto prevailed? I fear that we have no such intimation; and unless Her Majesty's Government rise above the paltry considerations of Party politics, whatever may be the fate of this Motion proposed by my noble Friend, whatever may be the successes which the Government may achieve by means of their mechanical majority in the other House of Parliament, I venture to predict that it will not be long before they are driven from the Offices they have discredited by the indignant voice of the nation they have betrayed.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYsaid, he was surprised to hear the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) say that the speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty (the Earl of Northbrook) had conclusively proved everything which the noble Marquess had brought forward. He listened attentively to the two speeches, and he thought the reasons which the noble Earl gave, and which induced the Government to select the Nile route as against the Suakin-Berber route, were conclusively put and ably argued. As he understood those arguments, they were that in the months of June and July it would have been impossible to send English troops to Suakin, that in the meantime British troops had been advanced up the Nile to the assistance of the Mudir of Dongola, and that it was desirable to protect them by conciliating the tribes and getting a friendly bulwark against the Mahdi's invasion. Those reasons were very conclusive to his mind, and did not bear upon the face of them the charge brought forward so recklessly against the Government that they had not done anything in this matter until September. The noble Duke remarked that he could not understand the difference between the bombardment of forts and the bombardment of a city. For his part, he considered that the bombardment of a town was an outrage against civilization, while the bombardment of forts was an act of war. The second part of the noble Marquess's Motion, which asserted that the policy of abandoning the whole of the Soudan after the conclusion of

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military operations would be dangerous to Egypt and inconsistent with the interests of the Empire, would, he thought, meet with a great deal of assent on the Ministerial side of the House. But the Government themselves appeared to be under somewhat of that impression, for British troops had during the whole of the past year occupied Suakin. He contended that the Government had been quite right in attempting, through General Gordon, to withdraw the garrisons from the Soudan by pacific means. It had, however, turned out a most unfortunate matter. A great deal had been said about the indecision of Her Majesty's Government; but the disasters were in great measure due to grievous bad luck. He should have been glad if pacific means had been adequate to quelling the Arab tribes; but he believed that they were not. This Arab movement was very widespread, and throughout all Mahommedan countries there were many prayers being offered up for the success of the Mahdi. It would, therefore, be very unwise to underrate the power of the Mahdi. He did not say that it was absolutely necessary to "smash" him, but it certainly was absolutely necessary to stop him. As a great nation ruling over a vast number of Mahommedans, we were bound to put down the Mahdi. The Government had been well advised in following the advice of General Gordon as to the Egyptian garrisons; but now that the insurrection had spread, they were wise in adopting the present military measures, which, he hoped, might lead to the establishment of such a Government in the Soudan as would secure order and give peace to the country. They were bound to defend those of the Mahommedans in Egypt who had stood by us throughout these operations, and they ought not to retire from the country until they had left there a Government which would protect those who had supported us in these difficult circumstances, and we ought not to hand these people over to a man who was nothing more than a barbarian and a cruel despot. The railway to Berber would bring incalculable advantages. If it were successfully completed, and Suakin held by this country, we should have an excellent opportunity of promoting the civilization and prosperity of the Soudan. He did not wish to defend everything that had been
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done; but it was very easy to prophesy disaster, and when disaster occurred to say, "I told you so." They must remember that, in dealing with these Oriental matters, they were dealing with a country which did not belong to them, and they were tied by arrangements with other Powers. There was no doubt that the circumstances of the time were very critical; but he believed that the policy of the country might be safely left in the hands of the present Government, and he intended to cordially support them.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsupported the Amendment, which, he said, meant the withdrawal of the British troops, and that no further military operations should be carried on beyond what were necessary to extricate our troops now in the Soudan. It had been objected to such a course, among other things, that the Indian Mussulmans would be excited by our retiring. But, in his opinion, there was no fear of that; they would be more excited by the continued purposeless slaughter of Arabs. The noble Lord who moved the Amendment had called it an unhallowed war, and the sole origin of it all was the bombardment of Alexandria, the authors of which ought to have been brought to judgment. It was said that we could not retire from the Soudan because of the consequences to those of its inhabitants who had been friendly to us. He thought the tribes were well able to take care of themselves; but he would take the case of the Mudir of Dongola, because that had been given as an instance by Sir Stafford Northcote. Whether the Mudir of Dongola could remain safely, or whether he should retire along with Lord Wolseley, was entirely a matter within the judgment and discretion of the Mudir of Dongola. He thought that he might have been compromised by the decoration delivered to him by Lord Wolseley, and, in his place, he would retire. As to military prestige, he thought that the credit of our troops had never stood higher than it did now; and our prestige had been amply maintained by Lord Charles Beresford's exploit in repairing his boiler under fire. He deprecated further military operations in the Soduan, on the ground of its climate; there was nothing like it in India. That afternoon, a writer professing to be a competent authority had made light of this

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deadly climate, and said that the unwholesome nature of the water could be remedied by boiling the water before drinking it. But how, he would ask, was it possible to boil the water for a whole army? As to the railway from Suakin to Berber, its construction had been advocated by many who would be glad to see it made by the Government, in order to buy it cheap when constructed. But its construction would lead to its protection by this country for an indefinite time. Those who knew what the climate of the Soudan was said that the rains would very shortly come, and, after that, the troops would all be down with fever. Then, again, it was said that the Government ought to establish a stable Government in the Soudan. How could they do so, when they had not yet been able to establish a Government in Egypt Proper? The Government could not point to a single reform that they had introduced into Egypt. He wished, before he sat down, to ask the Government why they had induced the Italian Government to occupy Massowah, or why they had not dissuaded them from doing so? In his opinion, by so doing they were alienating the Turks and violating the rights of the Sultan, and in abandoning our ancient alliance with the Ottoman Empire, they were acting like the dog of the fable who abandoned the substance for the shadow.
LORD BRABOURNEsaid, if everyone who was compromised in this matter were to retire he was afraid that the political life of Her Majesty's Government would be of short duration. Neither could he agree with the last speaker that the Italian soldiers could be of little use to us. No braver soldiers were to be found; and he heartily rejoiced that Italy, for whom England had so often felt warm sympathy, now, in the hour of England's necessity, returned that sympathy, and that the Italian soldiers, who had fought bravely by our side in the Crimean war, were again ready to become our loyal allies. He would frankly own that it was with very considerable regret that he recognized the necessity of the Motion made by the noble Marquess. At a time when the position of public affairs was very critical, he should, indeed, have rejoiced if it had been possible for Great Britain to have presented to the world the spectacle of a firm and strong Government
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and a united Parliament; and he ventured to think that the people of England and Scotland and the loyal population of Ireland cared little what political Party held the reins of power in comparison with the strong desire they had that the honour of their country should be maintained, and her obligations duly discharged. Therefore, he held it to be the paramount duty of every man to support the Queen's Government, as such, provided he could find reasonable cause for the belief that in giving that support he would be able to secure the objects which the country so ardently desired. He (Lord Brabourne), if he could cherish such a belief, would be ready to forego—or, at least, to postpone—criticism upon the past. He would deprecate attack in the present, and would look with renewed hope to the future. But, unhappily, whilst the conduct of Her Majesty's Government constantly tempted criticism and invited attack, their feeble utterances seemed to exclude that hope which alone could justify abstention from one or the other. He would not weary their Lordships with long extracts from Blue Books or Parliamentary Papers. The issues before them were not such as could be decided by references to this or that speech, to this mistake or that inconsistency. It seemed to him that the issues in the present debate were of a broader and simpler character. The question which he asked himself was this—Had Her Majesty's Government from first to last had any clear and definite policy with regard to Egyptian affairs; or, if so, had they taken wise, reasonable, fair, and adequate measures to insure the success of their policy? It was impossible to look back at the history of Egyptian affairs without seeing that from first to last their policy had been conspicuous by its absence. They had gone upon a policy of drift and dawdle; they had dawdled, on in the hope that something would turn up. The complaint he had to make was that, whereas they had adopted this drifting and dawdling course, the country had a right to expect that Her Majesty's Advisers would have shown some little foresight and sagacity, and an intelligible line of action in dealing with such a problem. The truth was, that when the present Government came into Office they had only one defined and

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certain principle upon which they were agreed—namely, that everything done by their Predecessors was wrong, and affairs both at home and abroad profoundly unsatisfactory. One exception, indeed, he must in justice make, and of that he had been reminded by the speech of the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon). Mr. Gladstone, in his famous Mid Lothian campaign, had certainly stated that the condition of Ireland was satisfactory. It must, however, be remembered that in his more recent campaign in Scotland, the Prime Minister had admitted that he had made this statement in contradiction to Lord Beaconsfield's announcement to the contrary—when, in fact, he knew nothing about it; for he had been so much occupied in picking holes in Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy, that he had been unable to pay any attention to Ireland. So far as Egypt was concerned, however, the Government had commenced their career by attributing everything that went wrong to their Predecessors, and especially to that "Dual Control," which was described as the child of the wicked Lord Salisbury. Here, however, an exception must also be made in the Prime Minister's favour; for, speaking at Leeds in October, 1881, he had stated that although there might be risks in the Dual Control, he wished to give the credit which was due to those who had gone before him, that the joint intervention of Prance and England had been beneficial to Egypt, and that he had not the least reason to doubt that they would be able to maintain a thoroughly united action. But for the rest of his Colleagues and supporters, they seemed to have "Dual Control" on the brain, and everything that went wrong was attributed to this act of their Predecessors. At last, however, the country grew sick of this excuse, for it was obvious to everyone that at some period or other in their existence a Government must itself be responsible for the consequences of its own acts. He (Lord Brabourne) had been wrong in saying that the Government had only been agreed upon one principle. They had been united upon another, and it was that of continually shifting their own responsibilities on to the shoulders of somebody else. They had deprived the Egyptian Government from the first of all power and responsibility,
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and yet they continually shifted responsibility on to the shoulders of the Egyptian Government, apparently desiring to keep for themselves the power without the responsibility, whilst they left to the Egyptian Government the responsibility without the power. In the same way they shifted responsibility on to Gordon; and after reading the recent Papers, and listening to the halting utterances of the Foreign Secretary on the first night of the Session, he could not help fancying that there was a latent intention that responsibility should be thrown on Lord Wolseley. It could not be too strictly laid down that whilst it was undoubtedly right and wise to leave to a General in command the widest discretion as to his strategical movements, it was the Government, and the Government alone, which must be held responsible for their policy. The excuse put forward by the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Huntly), that the Government had had grievous bad luck, was the poorest that had ever been offered to Parliament. It was the excuse of the ruined gamester. The complaint he made, and he ventured to say that it was a complaint which would be re-echoed throughout the country, was this—that instead of their having adopted a policy of drifting and dawdling, they ought, as public men, to have accepted the high responsibility which attached to Members of Her Majesty's Government, and should have exhibited some little foresight, some little sagacity, some clear and definite plan in dealing with Egyptian affairs. They had sacrificed many valuable lives, and had shed the blood not only of their enemies, but of their own countrymen. In a single sentence he dismissed the idea that they could withdraw from the Soudan in the way suggested by his noble Friend who moved the Amendment. If they withdrew, there would be, first, the destruction of all persons who had shown any friendliness towards ourselves, and in that attempt to promote peace they would probably produce and promote an amount of war and bloodshed which could hardly be contemplated by the noble Lord (Lord Wentworth). He could not hesitate to condemn the policy of the Government, not only for its results, but because he was afraid if it was not checked by the action of the British

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Parliament a similar policy might continue, and similar and even greater disasters might occur. And now let him (Lord Brabourne) say something of General Gordon and his mission. It had been alleged, as if it was some excuse for the Government, that General Gordon had volunteered his services. No doubt, General Gordon had done that which British soldiers had often done before, and would always be ready to do—he had expressed his readiness to be of service to his country. But General Gordon had actually started on his way to the Congo, on behalf of the King of the Belgians, when he was summoned to London by a telegram from the Government. Now, why was General Gordon sent out? Because our Government had forced the Egyptian Government to consent to the evacuation of the Soudan, and in honour they could do no less than send out a British officer of rank to assist in that evacuation. He blushed to think that any Minister could suggest that General Gordon had exceeded his instructions in endeavouring to obtain order and good government for the Soudan. He denied emphatically that Gordon had in one iota exceeded his instructions. The whole life of General Gordon was a life of obedience to orders and of self-devotion; and the suggestion would fall to the ground at once if reference was made to the instructions themselves. On the 14th of February, Mr. Gladstone, in answer to a Question put by Lord Randolph Churchill, said—
"The direct action and direct functions in which General Gordon was immediately connected with this Government are, I think, pretty much absorbed in the greater duties of the large mission which he has undertaken under the immediate authority of the Egyptian Government, with the full moral and political responsibility of the British Government."—(3 Hansard, [284] 893.)
And here are the instructions of the Egyptian Government—
"We trust that your Excellency will adopt the most effective measures for the accomplishment of your mission in this respect, and that after completing the evacuation you will take the necessary steps for establishing an organized government in the different provinces of the Soudan, for the maintenance of order and the cessation of all disasters and incitements to revolt."
But what did the Government do when they had got General Gordon in the
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Soudan? They refused him every request he made. Take his demand for Zebehr Pasha. It was not his (Lord Brabourne's) business to defend the noble Marquess for anything he might have said or left unsaid in this matter. But here were the facts. General Gordon asked that Zebehr Pasha should be sent as a necessity under the circumstances. Why? Because Zebehr was a native of the place, and had local influence which could be used against the Mahdi. It was said that he must not be sent because he was a slave-hunter, and the reputation of England would be compromised. General Gordon may have thought that this danger ought to be run in order to avert more serious and more real disasters. What reason did the Prime Minister give for having refused the request for Zebehr?—
"Because within 48 hours an Address to the Crown from Parliament would have paralyzed our efforts."
That was an unworthy reason. If the Government did not trust General Gordon, why did they employ him? If they employed him, why did they not trust him? His demand for Zebehr was either right or wrong, and if they trusted him and desired to grant his demand, they should have boldly done so and justified their conduct before Parliament, let its decision be what it might. Take another instance of the indecision of the Government. Referring to Lord Hartington's speech on 13th of May, Mr. Gladstone, upon the 5th of August, repeated the statement in that speech that—
"An Expedition for the relief of General Gordon would not be justified for the purpose of enabling General Gordon to smash or overpower the Mahdi, nor for the purpose of giving a satisfactory government to the inhabitants of the Soudan."—(3 Hansard, [291] 1758.)
So long ago as the 27th of February, General Gordon had telegraphed—"If Egypt is to be quiet, Mahdi must be smashed up," and had warned the Government that if this was not done, then they would have to do it later at a vastly increased sacrifice. And now, when their delay in taking General Gordon's advice had brought so much misfortune upon us, the Prime Minister, in this very week, speaks of the
"Resolution of the Government to employ the forces of Her Majesty's Government to overthrow the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum."

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They were going to do now, at an enormous cost, that which a little foresight and energy would have enabled them, a year ago, to do with comparative ease. It had been said, though not in their Lordships' House, that whatever offences of delay might have been committed by the Government had been known to the House of Commons last May, and had then been condoned by their rejection of a Vote of Censure. He (Lord Brabourne) protested against any such doctrine. Neither House was estopped or debarred from a Vote of Censure to-day by what had occurred last May. At that time many men, hoping against hope that the policy of the Government might still succeed, had been reluctant to sever political ties, and to displace the Government at a critical time. But it might well happen that such men might change their minds, when they found how their hopes had been disappointed and the policy of the Government had failed. Their Lordships must not be deceived by those who would have them to believe that we were fighting against a people struggling to be free; the people struggling to be free were those whom the Mahdi attacked and attempted to enslave. If they read General Gordon's despatches they would see that two-thirds of the Soudanese by no means desired the Mahdi; and the people were being slaughtered by the Mahdi owing to the negligence of the Government. All the expectations of the Government had been falsified by the result; and all the prophecies of the Opposition had become true. Nor was it the Opposition alone which condemned the Government policy. Let their Lordships listen to a friendly description—
"Mr. Gladstone wishes strongly, but wills feebly, and be allows himself to drift here and there at the mercy of circumstances. His Egyptian and Soudanese policy has always been to tide over difficulties by some temporary expedient, instead of meeting them boldly, and he mistakes a Parliamentary victory for statesmanship."
These were not the words of any Tory, nor even of one of the abhorred occupants of the Cross Benches, but they appeared in a newspaper of yesterday's date, the proprietor and editor of which was that notorious Radical, Mr. Labouchere, one of the great supporters of the Prime Minister. The question then arose, What course should they pursue?
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For his part he could not hesitate. He should vote for the Motion. He well knew what would be the result in their Lordships' House. They would return the same verdict which would be given by any other body of intelligent and impartial Englishmen. Possibly, indeed, a different verdict might be given in "another place." Their Lordships as yet did not tremble beneath the despotism of a political organization which visited independent thought and action with a ruthless ostracism. But behind their Lorships' House, and behind the House of Commons, there was another tribunal to whom the final appeal must be made. The final appeal would ere long be made to the people in their constituencies. He (Lord Brabourne) wondered with what cry Her Majesty's Ministers would face the constituencies. It could not be the good old Liberal cry of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." With regard to Reform, indeed, they would probably seek to monopolize the credit of that extended franchise which had been freely conceded by men of all political Parties. But Peace! Since their accession to Office they had given us nothing but war. And Retrenchment, and the reduction of taxation which we had been so boldly promised, had passed from us like an idle dream. He feared the Prime Minister would hardly venture upon another manifesto with a promise to repeal the Income Tax! Would they try to conjure once more with the name of Gladstone? Another name would be uppermost in the hearts of the people. The name of Gordon would not yet have been forgotten. The people of England would remember how the Government eagerly made use of his heroic qualities behind which to shelter themselves in their hour of political necessity—how they sent him forth into the wilderness with the burden of their sins and their failures upon him; how with empty phrases and hollow words here at home they praised his courage and sagacity at the very moment that they were rendering the one of no avail by refusing every request and every suggestion dictated by the other. Aye, and they would remember something more. They would remember how the Government sought to shift their responsibility on to the hero's shoulders by the miserable excuse that he had exceeded his instruc-

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tions; how they refused him succour, and drifted and dawdled until it was too late; and how, at last, they left that great patriot to perish, and to perish with the bitter reflection that he owed his death, not so much to the savage hordes by whom he was encompassed, as to the delay and neglect of those who governed his own country. And why was all this? Not because Her Majesty's Ministers were not as good patriots as any of us—not because they did not know what was necessary to be done, and were not willing to do it; but because, from first to last, they had been tied and bound by the exigencies of their political position—because it was a dire necessity to them to keep united that mixed multitude of politicians which sustained them in Office, and because they dared not, by prompt and vigorous action, offend and alienate that section of their Party who objected to any action at all. He said boldly that Gordon had been sacrificed to the political necessities of a feeble Government; and if Englishmen were Englishmen still, if there was any of the spirit of the old race still left, if virtue was not dead, and patriotism was not extinct among them, the result of an appeal to the constituencies would be to drive from Office and relegate to private life the men who for five weary years had misrepresented the people abroad and misgoverned them at home, without a policy and without a principle!
LORD THURLOWsaid, he had listened with great attention to every word that fell from the noble Marquess in moving his Resolutions, in a speech worthy of the occasion and of his great powers, but which it appeared to him might be all summed up in the trite remark that it was easy to be wise after the event. Let them examine for a moment the Resolutions of the noble Marquess. First of all, the noble Marquess attributed failure of the Soudan Expedition to the undecided counsels of the Government and to culpable delay in commencing military operations. Now, of all the charges in the world vacillation was the one that could least be substantiated against the Government. If they erred it was by too obstinate an adherence to the fixed policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of Egypt, and especially of the Soudan, so long as that could be actually
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avoided, and it was only when the absolute necessity arose that they departed from the prescribed line of action; but although they even then did so with reluctance, it was impossible to deny that they did so with vigour. Then as to the culpable delay in commencing military operations. Of course there was delay, and of course there were hopes entertained till the last moment that military measures would not be required. It was the custom of civilized nations to exhaust the resources of diplomacy before making appeal to the final arbitrament of the sword. Of course there was hesitation to send an army into the desert. Those who had seen the desolate shores of the Red Sea, the fever-smitten banks of the Nile, and the boundless, pitiless, and shifting sands of the desert, sympathized with hesitation in sending fair-haired armies of Anglo-Saxons into those inhospitable regions. The noble Marquess might not have hesitated, and especially in the cool shade and irresponsible freedom of Opposition he would not appear to have been a prey to any hesitation; but for those who were responsible for the decision and the result, who had to draw the route and sign the cheques, they naturally, and very properly, hesitated before committing the country to this vast expense and the regiments employed to such hardships and privation. Had they not hesitated they would have been unworthy to hold the reins of power. Secondly, the noble Marquess said the policy of abandoning the Soudan after military operations was dangerous to Egypt and inconsistent with the interests of the Empire. Did the noble Marquess see no danger to the Empire in our remaining in the Soudan after the close of military operations? A Government must consider many things—it must look beyond the geographical limits of any one country. It could not always only consider what it would like to do. It had to consider what it was possible for it to do in the circumstances; next it had to consider what was politic, and then it had to consider what was honest. The Foreign Office and the India Office knew how all the Powers of Europe and the two Americas watched our proceedings. They knew how infectious a thing a high-handed and annexationist policy was, and although he or many others

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might regret not founding after military operations a magnificent Colony in the Soudan to grow cotton and corn and oil and wine, and to become a first-class market for our home manufactures, yet they must remember what was possible, what was politic, and what was honest. Then let them consider for a moment the military position. The campaign was not yet over; it had, indeed, only just begun, and it was too early to judge it. When the campaign was first decided upon what did the Government do? Whom did they consult? They consulted the one man in England most competent to give them good advice—they consulted the same high authority, who, had he been in Office, the noble Marquess himself would probably have consulted—namely, Lord Wolseley. He gave them his advice. Others, it appeared, tendered different advice; the Government naturally followed Lord Wolseley's. Would the noble Marquess have done otherwise? It was true the first object of the campaign—the rescue of that heroic man, General Gordon—had not been attained, and all concurred that that was deplorable. He endorsed the word "deplorable" used by the noble Marquess in this connection—but the Papers presented to Parliament showed that this first object—the rescue of General Gordon—had been for a long time past impossible. They now knew that for a long time past the Mahdi had held Khartoum in the hollow of his hand—that he had played with it as a cat with a mouse. But the ultimate aim of the campaign was not jeopardized, nor for one moment doubtful. Let them calmly consider what had happened. They had lost two able Commanders and some brave men. They could not have campaigns without casualties—wars, like revolutions, were not made of rose-water. But if they had no campaigns they would have no Generals, and he was one of those who believed that the demand would always produce the supply both of able Commanders and of brave men in the ranks of the British Army. People forgot that peace had its victims as well as war—that the barrack square was reponsible for more deaths than the field of battle; only the former passed unheeded, while the latter, being more glorious, were telegraphed all over the world. Nothing was more remarkable, in his opinion,
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than the gross exaggeration that had become habitual with us in forming an estimate of current events. People compared this Expedition with the Crimean War and with the Indian Mutiny. To do so was to lose all sense of proportion. Then people conjured up theories of widespread revolt in India and elsewhere. Nothing could be more false. He knew India pretty well, and he knew there was no unrest in the Native mind there now. The Natives of India were loyal, from the Nizam, the Maharajahs Scindiah and Holkar, downwards to the poorest ryot of Bengal or rajpoot of Central India, and were occupied in following the arts of peace, in making railways and other things. Either the noble Marquess believed in the existence of a national crisis and in its gravity, or he did not. For his own part, he did not think that the noble Marquess did believe in its existence. The noble Marquess was made of sterner stuff than to be led away by all the sentimental nonsense of the day; he knew armies were not made only for the parade ground But still the noble Marquess was in a cleft stick. He either believed in the gravity of the crisis or he did not. If he did, he might do worse than follow the patriotic practice of former days, when Her Majesty's Opposition, in a national crisis, considered it a duty rather to strengthen than to weaken the hands of the Executive. The historian had told them of a time when "none was for a Party, but all were for the State." Unfortunately, that was a long time ago, and things had not improved since then. But possibly the noble Marquess did not believe in the gravity of the crisis after all; and in that case he would only say that the Resolutions were drawn with his accustomed skill and ingenuity, and proceeded on the well-known tactics of endeavouring to make others believe what he did not believe himself. He would say no more than to express his conviction that the end of the campaign would fully justify the course taken by the Government, and his belief that the country retained undiminished and unwavering confidence in the Government of Mr. Gladstone and in the generalship of Lord Wolseley.
THE EARL OF JERSEYsaid, he thought the noble Lord (Lord Thurlow) had made a new departure that

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night, and had hinted that there was another object for the Expedition besides the relief of General Gordon. In his (the Earl of Jersey's) opinion, if the Government were to retain the confidence of the country they would have to show a far more decided front than they had done. The language of the Motion did not criticize the conduct of the campaign, but the policy of Her Majesty's Government. They found fault with the Government that, having been warned in February last year of the great danger in which General Gordon was placed, they had taken no steps till August. It was high time that the policy of the Government should be tried by its results. In the past they had succeeded in nothing, and the future only seemed to point to a vindictive Expedition, followed by a hasty evacuation. History could show nothing that could equal the baseness and weakness with which General Gordon had been treated. In March, Sir Evelyn Baring had pointed out General Gordon's peril, and yet nothing was done till August. He wished to have an explanation from the Government as to how long a time the construction of the proposed railway from Suakin to Berber was likely to take, and what was to become of the line when the Soudan had been evacuated. He denied that a substantial beginning had been made in the introdution of representative institutions into Egypt, as alleged by the Prime Minister. The policy of the Government had, he urged, been one of waiting on events, and then of revenging themselves upon somebody whenever they had failed in consequence of their own indecision and vacillation. When they had failed to relieve Sinkat and Tokar, they revenged themselves upon Osman Digna; and now that they had failed to rescue General Gordon, they proposed to "smash" the Mahdi. If they were determined to evacuate Egypt, according to their repeated declarations, on what ground did the Government justify their interference there during the last three years? If, as he contended, England had important interests in Egypt, how were they to be secured by our abandoning that country? Four-fifths of the trade that passed through the Suez Canal was British; and it was of the greatest importance that the Canal should be so guarded that no
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other Power would be able to use it in a hostile manner towards us. Whoever was master in Egypt must be master of the Suez Canal; and it was our imperative duty to see that no other country had control of the latter. It was for that purpose we went to Egypt, and for it we must remain there. They really required to have what noble Lords opposite so much disliked, a scientific frontier; and whether the line was drawn at Khartoum, Berber, or any other place, they must fix that as the limit of Egypt which they would defend against the Mahdi or any other Arab invader. They must also direct and control the Government of Egypt, and, without any offence to other Powers, let it be clearly understood that they intended to remain in Egypt for good. The future of Egypt was in the hands of this country, and for that reason he was glad that this Resolution had been proposed. The Government were alienating the goodwill of that great German Empire with which they ought to be in friendly alliance; there was now also a gloomy shadow over the frontier of Afghanistan, which was not likely to be dispelled by such a half-hearted policy as that which had been pursued in Egypt; and he, therefore, thought that their Lordships' House would fail in its duty if it did not raise a warning voice against a system which had tarnished the honour and threatened to impair the strength of the Empire.
VISCOUNT BURYsaid, it appeared to him that the Government were not ready to vindicate their policy. He wished to call attention to the emptiness of the Benches on the Government side of the House. If the Government had a good cause there was reason to suppose that those Benches would not have presented that empty and ridiculous appearance which they now showed. One after another noble Lords on his own side of the House had risen to deliver their opinions as to what the Government had done in Egypt, their sins of omission and commission, but hardly a noble Lord rose from the Ministerial side to respond; and the question was going entirely by default. He hoped by-and-bye that their Lordships would have some light thrown on the question from the Ministerial side; at present he had nothing to do but thrice to slay the slain. Nothing which had been said by

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his noble Friends in the previous course of the debate had been contradicted by the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty in his defence of the Government. It seemed to him that the noble Lord spoke in very halting phrases, and made a very lame defence indeed. From the beginning of this Egyptian matter it seemed to him that the policy of Her Majesty's Government had been well described as a policy of alternate abandonment and hurry. Sometimes the Government were hurrying to action, and anon they were retracing their steps. After the bombardment of Alexandria, and even up to the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, they advanced gaily enough; but after that time the Government appeared to have thought that in handing over the crippled resources of Egypt to a Khedive, who was only nominally a Euler, they sheltered themselves from responsibility; by merely declaring that they had no responsibility, they thought that they avoided the reality of that responsibility. During all that time, however, the country had known well on whom the responsibility rested. When General Hicks went into the Southern Soudan, Her Majesty's Government would not give him even the semblance of advice. They said that they avoided even advice on the matter. General Hicks went forward and met his doom like a man and a British soldier; but his doom lay at the door of Her Majesty's Government, who could give no decided opinion. They had the power of preventing that Expedition if they had chosen, and if they really believed, as they said they did, that Egypt ought to give up the Soudan. But the fiction of Khedivial responsibility was kept up, and it was even now being maintained, although all Europe knew now that it was a great pretence and a farce. In January, 1884, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs made a great change of front, and said that the Bed Sea littoral was to be handed over to the Turkish troops. He also said that Khartoum not only ought to be surrendered, but that it must be surrendered. The Government threw off the flimsy disguise of Khedivial responsibility, and assumed for a moment the real responsibility which must be left on the shoulders of the Government. At this time General Gordon went out to the Soudan. And at this time the garrison of Sinkat
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fell. That massacre took place unavenged. It was not until too late that the Government awoke to their responsibility in this matter, and that they thought of sending out an Expedition. General Graham was ordered out to Suakin. Why was he ordered out? Was it not that the Government felt that the indignation of the English people was so great that unless something was done, not only the garrison of Sinkat, but the Government of Her Majesty, would be sacrificed? If that was not the reason, why did General Graham go out? It was true that General Graham won two great victories; but he was stopped in the mid career of victory; and those victories were changed from real victories for the British arms to unjustified massacres by the fact that they were utterly objectless. Gordon, having arrived at Khartoum, wrote on February 27 stating that the power of the Mahdi must be destroyed. "It is easy now," he said; "but it will be difficult hereafter." This warning of General Gordon was not followed up till August. The noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty tried to make out that there was no delay on the part of the Government. Mr. Gladstone said that the whole of the time between February 27 and when the Expedition went out at the end of August was employed in making preparations for the Expedition; but he left their Lordships to judge whether there was any solid foundation for such a statement as that. How could it be said that all the time between February and August was taken up in organizing an Expedition of the character that ultimately went out? The battle of El Teb was fought in February; and on the 3rd of March General Gordon wrote—
"If I could be mean enough to try to escape I should he unable to do so."
Yet it was even now asserted by Ministers that it was open to General Gordon to escape at any time if he had chosen to do so; and they insinuated that if he did not do so, it was because of his own obstinacy.
EARL GRANVILLE: Who said that?
VISCOUNT BURY: Mr. Gladstone.
EARL GRANVILLE: Certainly not.
VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he did not attribute the use of the word obstinacy to the Prime Minister; but that was

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the fair inference to be drawn from his observations. The telegram from General Gordon which he had just quoted showed that General Gordon could not have escaped even if he had wished to do so. On the 16th of March last Sir Evelyn Baring, telegraphing home, said that the Suakin-Berber road must be opened. That was the first mention made of this route. It was then fully discussed, and referred to the military advisers of the Cabinet. Sir Frederick Stephenson, one of the ablest and truest soldiers that ever served England, strongly advocated the Suakin-Berber route, and gave his reasons for preferring it to the Nile Valley route. He did not complain of the Government deciding on the Nile Valley route; but he did think that since General Stephenson was superseded on the avowed ground that he preferred the Suakin-Berber route and could not be asked to assist in carrying out the Expedition up the Nile Valley, it was at least due to that gallant officer, now that the Government had at last decided on opening up the Suakin-Berber route, that some mention should be made in the House of the fact that he was the first to propose it. On the 3rd of April Lord Hartington, in the face of repeated applications from General Gordon, stated that he did not know that General Gordon wished for any troops. Yet on the 4th of April General Gordon wrote that all was up with him; that he was surrounded, and that if God did not protect him there was no one else to do so. From that date to the 19th there was a veil over the state of affairs at Khartoum. But on that day a message came to a friend of General Gordon's in England saying he was "hemmed in." Two days after, when the matter came before Parliament, Mr. Gladstone proceeded to explain what he understood by being "hemmed in," and drew a distinction between that and the town being surrounded. It was a few days before this—on the 16th of April—that General Gordon wrote those memorable words in which he said he would leave to the Government the "indeliable disgrace" of deserting the garrisons. There were also two letters—one on the 19th and the other on the 16th—which showed the idea which he entertained of his cruel abandonment by Her Majesty's Government. On the 23rd of
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April the noble Earl opposite sent a despatch to Mr. Egerton for transmission, in which, referring to General Gordon, he said—
"We do not propose to supply him with Turkish or any other forces for the purpose of a military expedition, such being beyond the scope of the commission he holds and at variance with the pacific nature of his mission, and if with this knowledge he continues at Khartoum he should state the cause of his intention of so doing."
That was a distinct intimation that the Government intended to abandon General Gordon. On the 23rd of April Berber was closely invested, and on the 24th April Her Majesty's Government declared that there was no risk at Berber. That had been stated by the First Lord of the Treasury. He had said "Berber is in no danger." Soon afterwards Berber shared the fate of Sinkat, and 5,000 men were sacrificed, with the noble Commander of that place. Just at that time a debate took place in the House of Commons, in the course of which Sir Charles W. Dilke declared that the Government would send aid to General Gordon when they thought it advisable, and would not be hurried by any number of debates on Votes of Censure. They had been applied to in February for relief. They sent out in August. And this very fact showed that they had been culpably negligent. He did not for a moment say that the Relief Expedition was not hurried forward with all despatch; neither did he say that it was not successful so far as it had gone. Far be it from him, too, to say that the noble soldiers had not thoroughly well done their duty. One might find fault with the officials who planned the Expedition; but everyone who did so should make it distinct and clear that he did not include those who were under orders to go and so nobly went. The doings of Her Majesty's troops in the Expedition were beyond all praise, and demanded no praise from him, as their fame had been sung in one universal pœan. The fact, however, now remained that they were in a very dangerous position; but he would not go deeply into military details, but would merely point out that by the laches of Her Majesty's Government in not establishing in the early part of last year the Suakin-Berber road, the troops were now without any available base, far away to the North

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down the Nile. It must be difficult for them, in the present state of the Nile, to bring their provisions and supplies from their base to the forward position in which Lord Wolseley now found himself. The fact was that, like everything else that had been done, the Suakin-Berber road had been adopted too late. No greater authority on the subject of railway construction in the East existed than Sir Richard Temple, who, in February of last year, had drawn up a Memorandum on that road, in which he said that by taking an average of the time occupied in the construction of Indian military roads, it might easily be determined how long it would take to construct such a road and how much it would cost; and he said that if it were then begun—that was in February last year—and pushed on with full power and full command of money, it might be ready in nine months. The road was 280 miles in length, and the daily average of work could hardly be put down at more than a mile, and at that rate the road would be ready in nine months from this time. He even thought a few months might be added to that to allow for delay; and, therefore, if the railway, which was to be so long in construction, was only now begun, what good would it be for the base of operations for the troops during the next ensuing summer? They were told that the object of Her Majesty's Government was to chastise the Mahdi at Khartoum and to withdraw from the country. If they were to withdraw, of what use was it to make a railway, which would not be ready for nearly a year? The Government were not going to establish a stable Government at Khartoum or in the Soudan, as they had heard from the First Lord of the Admiralty.
EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that the noble Earl (the Earl of Northbrook) had made no such statement.
VISCOUNT BURYsaid, the statement of the First Lord was to the effect that the one thing the Government would not do was to keep troops at Khartoum to establish a stable Government in the Soudan.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he understood the noble Earl to state exactly the contrary.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYwas also understood to say that the noble Viscount had misapprehended the obser-
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vations of the First Lord of the Admiralty.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admirality said that the worst of all policies would be that our troops should remain for any time in Khartoum for the purpose of confirming the belief that a stable Government would be established in the Soudan.
VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he would call another witness as to the intention of Her Majesty's Government. On the 5th of August last year the Secretary for War stated that it was probable that General Gordon, before retiring from Khartoum, might desire to establish some stable form of government, "That, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, would be exceeding his instructions." That was very much what he understood the First Lord to say—namely, that it was not within the scope of the intentions of Her Majesty's Government to form anything like stable government in the Soudan. Part of General Gordon's instructions were to the following effect:—
"After the complete evacuation you will take the necessary steps for establishing an organized government in the different Provinces of the Soudan,"
and, therefore, he was bound to say that the Secretary for War was somewhat imperfectly informed of the intentions of Her Majesty's Government; and as the First Lord of the Admiralty displayed the same ignorance, he would leave the Government to settle the matter of their policy between them. This ignorance of their policy only showed that the Resolution proposed by his noble Friend was fully justifiable, and fully borne out by facts; and there being no settled opinion on the part of the Government on this very important question, it behoved that House to express an opinion as to what that policy should be. He would not enter into what that policy should be, as his noble Friend had gone into it in a most thorough manner. His noble Friend had given no uncertain sound, and he was persuaded that the House would fully agree with him in the policy he had enunciated. This policy of abandonment, of which General Gordon was so cruelly made the victim, had been adopted by a Minister who, only a few years ago, fell violently foul of the late

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lamented Leader of the Conservative Party, because, as he said, he did not fully appreciate the Bulgarian atrocities. Worse atrocities than those had been committed in the Soudan. Twenty thousand people, at the very least, had been murdered, all garrisons favourable to this country and who acted under its protection, and that had been done by the culpable apathy and negligence of Her Majesty's Government. If no settled Government were established in the Soudan, what would be the position of our allies? The people of the friendly tribes had been told by the Mahdi that he would come and "skin" them, as they expressed it there. The declaration of retirement had been the great difficulty of General Gordon and Lord Wolseley. If the Government had recognized their responsibilities in time, the journey up the Nile would have been, as General Gordon stated, a mere picnic. The friendly tribes now knew what they had to expect; and could it be wondered at that they had been made bitterly hostile? He thought that this Motion of Censure upon the Government was fully deserved, and he was quite sure that throughout the country one unanimous voice of condemnation would be heard against their policy.
THE EARL OF MORLEYobserved, that the noble Marquess opposite, in the earlier portion of the debate, referred to the preference given to the Nile route, and he wished to say a few words upon that subject. The noble Lord opposite had said that he hoped an apology would be given to Sir Frederick Stephenson by the War Office authorities for having first neglected his advice and then adopted it; but he could assure the House that General Stephenson would never claim such an apology for himself. It was perfectly true that they asked his advice, as, of course, they should ask the advice of a distinguished and gallant General who had local knowledge to give them; but the question of the adoption of the Suakin route as against the Nile route was one dependent upon time and other conditions. He was quite prepared to admit that if the railway had been completed, and Berber had been in their hands, it would have been the more certain and safe route for the troops to arrive at Khartoum than the route adopted. But let them just look at the character of the problem they
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had to solve, and the nature of the two routes. The Suakin-Berber route involved the crossing of 100 miles of desert with one single well. It was only in very small bodies, of not more than 300 or 400 each, that troops could have crossed the desert. But at this time Berber was not in friendly hands, both ends of the desert were in hostile hands; and, looking at these facts and the general character of the route, he ventured to think he was below the mark considerably when he said that they would have required 30,000 or 40,000 camels going backwards and forwards to support an army adequate to the occasion in the neighbourhood of Berber or Khartoum. At present, as the noble Lord said, they were adopting that route. He admitted it; but it was to be remembered that they were not now tied by time in the way they were last year, when that route was proposed. They had got the whole time before them to complete, at any rate, a great portion of the railroad before the cool weather arrived, when it would be possible to move large bodies of troops. The noble Lord doubted very much whether the railway would be open before nine months had passed. On that point he wished to give no over-sanguine estimate; he could only say that the gentlemen whom they had employed as constructors, and who had a vast amount of experience, gave them a much more favourable account of that; and they might fairly hope, before the summer was over, at any rate, a considerable portion of the road would be completed, and that that portion of the road which, though presenting the greatest difficulty for animals and men to cross, would be the easiest-made portion of the railway, would be finished at a comparatively rapid pace. It was on the distinct advice of Lord Wolseley that it was decided to adopt the Nile route. The advantages of that route were manifest for three reasons. In the first place, they had a very considerable portion of that route easily navigable. They had a base—although at a considerable distance from the sea, still it was a base—at Wady Halfa. There was also the great advantage that by following the river route each boat was able to carry supplies for its crew for 100 days. He thought that Lord Wolseley's plan, in spite of the difficulties he had had to undergo, had been perfectly justified by

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its success. But there was a third reason, and that was that, in addition to the military advantages, from a political point of view it was of great importance that the advance should be made along the Nile, because there was great danger of the spread of fanaticism among the tribes of Upper Egypt and Nubia, and it was eminently desirable that a Force should appear on the Nile, with a view to securing the allegiance of the wavering or disaffected tribes. They knew the great importance of Dongola, and of conciliating the allegiance of the Mudir of Dongola, and it was indispensable that a brigade should be prepared in order to advance as quickly as possible from Assouan and Wady Haifa to Dongola. Therefore, by going up the Nile, they combined with the military advantages the great political advantage of giving strength to the allegiance of the tribes among whom they passed. He wished again to assure his noble Friend that no one had the slightest idea of casting the slightest slur on his gallant friend, Sir Frederick Stephenson. But, while fully recognizing the great ability of Sir Frederick Stephenson, it was only fair to state that he had had none of the peculiar experience of the modes of passing cataracts which had fallen to the lot of Lord Wolseley, in the Rod River Expedition. The whole problem was changed, and it was of no use now underrating the difficulties and dangers of the Soudan Campaign. They must face them, or they would become more grave. He ventured to think that retirement, if possible, would be accompanied with the greatest dangers, and unless a check were now given to the barbarian fanaticism which was now flooding Khartoum, it would probably in future years cause far greater difficulties and dangers than at the present time.
THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORDsaid, the noble Earl had not yet explained why the Government had selected the Suakin-Berber route at the present time, if it were so impracticable last year.
THE EARL OF MORLEYsaid, the Suakin route was the best with the railway.
THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORDsaid, it was all very well to talk about the railway; but when were they to have the railway? This was the first time that a railway had been pushed forward
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into an enemy's country. As to the assertion that we were not tied for time, it seemed to him that we were very much tied for time. He failed to see any difference between March of last year and March of this year, except that last year we won two victories, and this year we had been obliged to retreat. Last year, however, everything was in readiness for an Expedition, but the vacillation of the Government prevented a start being made. The railway was sent out, and what had become of it he did not know; but he supposed that the taxpayers of England would have to pay for that railway, as well as the new one which was now to be laid down. He had listened to the speeches of noble Lords who were Members of the Government, and had heard them applauded by Members of the Government, but not by noble Lords behind them. The debate had been brought about by the deplorable loss which the country had sustained by the death of General Gordon. The people of this country had watched that hero's career with the keenest interest ever since he was first despatched to the Soudan now more than a year ago. Every telegram, every scrap of information had been read with an excitement growing more intense as the dangers to which he was exposed became more pressing and the wretched feebleness of the Government became more apparent. When he first heard that Her Majesty's Government had decided to send General Gordon single-handed into the Soudan, he thought that a more insane expedition never had been planned or one more likely to lead to the most disastrous complications for this country in the future. The difficulties which were in all conscience terrible enough to daunt anyone less courageous than General Gordon had been increased a hundredfold by the declaration forced from the Khedive's Government by our Ministers at home that Egypt was to abandon the Soudan. How was it possible that the garrisons which General Gordon was sent out to remove in safety could be so removed if every tribe in the Soudan was driven into the service of the Mahdi for self-preservation, acting under the impression that when the garrisons were removed, the Mahdi, being master of the situation, could deal with them at his pleasure? But there was just one chance

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that a man of such extraordinary resource and ability, having a knowledge of the Soudan far in advance of anyone who could possibly have been employed, might, if he was honestly supported by the authorities at home, with the prestige such support would give him, have been able to carry out the wishes of the Government and extricate the garrisons with safety from their perilous position. That chance might have been realized if the Government at home had been prepared to carry out as far as lay in their power the wishes of the agent they had employed, who being on the spot, and having information at his command, and a knowledge of the people he was dealing with, must have known better than anybody else what was best to be done. But how did the Government behave in this respect? Every single request which was transmitted to them by General Gordon from the first to the last had been either directly refused or the carrying out of it postponed until it was too late. It was needless for him to enumerate the requests which were made and which were refused. They had appeared in despatches, and in the public Press, and each succeeding demand, tardily published by the Government, with their reasons for its refusal, had excited among General Gordon's fellow-countrymen a feeling of irritation and disgust. The cruel, the disgraceful treatment of General Gordon would form for ever one of the blackest pages in English history. The Prime Minister the other night declared in feeling language that though General Gordon was dead, yet his example would remain as a benefit to future generations of Englishmen. But what was the use of feeling language or national monuments now that General Gordon was dead, when they would not hold out a finger in time to save him while he was alive? The Prime Minister did not say, however, what would be the effects of the example set by Her Majesty's Government in having sent this heroic Englishman to the Soudan, for the purpose of tiding themselves over a few months of Parliamentary criticism, and then having deserted him, without remorse, notwithstanding his pleadings for succour and assistance, and left him to his cruel fate. The Prime Minister the other night tried to show that, owing to the hot season, nothing could
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have been done to avert this terrible disaster. What was the difference between the climate of the Soudan in March, 1884, when the Government declared a Relief Expedition impossible, after having won two victories over the Arabs which would have assisted materially in opening up the route from Suakin to Berber, and the climate of the Soudan in March, 1885, when those victories of last year had been forgotten, when the Mahdi had obtained possession of Khartoum, and when the man we sought to rescue was no more? The other arguments which he had heard used by the Government had been that it was not their fault that Khartoum was lost, as it fell in consequence of treachery: and that the reason why General Wolseley's Expedition started so late last autumn was owing to the difficulty of deciding whether the Suakin or the Nile route was the better one to adopt. The latter was about the most ridiculous excuse that could well be brought forward. Did it take the Government six months to arrive at the determination that the Nile route was the best, and was it necessary to wait until the river began to fall? Then, as to the fact that Khartoum fell through treachery, and that it could not be avoided, he quite admitted that it fell through treachery—treachery of the blackest and most flagrant kind. But through what treachery? Was it alone the treachery of those cowardly Pashas who opened the gates to the Mahdi's troops? There was a worse treachery even than that. There was the treachery of the Government that deserted and deceived the man they themselves had sent into such deadly peril, refusing every request which he made, and betraying him and the town he had so gallantly defended by withholding the much-needed support which could easily have been sent in time. They were now entering upon a campaign in the Soudan which was likely to cost this country dearly. They had no information as to what they were fighting for. The Government had, according to their precedent, declared no policy. They were ruled by men who engaged in warlike operations without any definite aim, who sacrificed the blood and treasure of this country without giving a reason for so doing, who slaughtered thousands of unfortunate Arabs without

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any purpose, and who were at that very moment increasing the difficulties and dangers of our gallant troops in the Soudan by refusing to lay down a policy—a Government which, had it not been supported by an enormous majority in "another place," obtained on false issues by false promises and pledges, which had been broken, would long since have been discarded by the country, which they had so disgusted, misruled, and dishonoured, and thus saved this great Empire from disaster, discredit, and disgrace. A definite policy was now required; they had been too long without one. Englishmen were tired of this un-English Government, and the Party which would take up a decided line with regard to Egypt and the Soudan, who would not be afraid to take advantage of that position which our sacrifices had entitled us to, would be supported by the almost unanimous opinion of the people of these Realms.
THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, I do not think that any Member of the present Government will regret that this Motion has been brought forward; and we are very willing that the opinion of Parliament on the Egyptian policy of the Government during the last two or three years should be taken. For in cases of emergency, and no doubt this is one, the essential point is not who shall be Minister—the one thing all-important is that the Minister, whoever he may be, shall possess, and be known to possess, the confidence of Parliament. And I cannot conceive a situation more false, or in its results more fatal, than that which would be created by an Opposition who were able to say—"We could turn you out on a Vote of Confidence if we pleased; but we prefer, though having the majority on our side, to remain in the position of irresponsible critics." That would not be a Constitutional state of things, and it would be one under which no Government could either carry on war, or negotiate successfully. I think, therefore, that the Party represented by noble Lords opposite has done right in bringing this question to an issue; and I can assure them that we on our side ask no indulgence and no forbearance beyond that which we believe any set of men placed in circumstances of unprecedented perplexity and difficulty might claim, and are willing to bear the full re-
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sponsibility of whatever we have said or done, or left unsaid or undone, not claiming for ourselves infallibility, but willing to admit that we have made mistakes, if you can show us what those mistakes are. I have no criticism to offer on the terms of the Motion made against us by the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury). It is plain-spoken and uncompromising, and raises the question fairly; but I may observe that in "another place," where the fate of Ministers is more apt to be decided, the corresponding Motion does not seem to have been framed or supported in such a manner as to show any great desire to secure a victory. Things may have altered, and second thoughts may be best; but assuredly the appearance is that of a demonstration rather than of a battle. This Motion does not raise, in either of its branches—and I am glad it does not—the question whether it was wise, in the first instance, to go to Egypt at all. I can well understand that there may be, on that point, a reasonable difference of opinion among men who usually think alike. In my view, the strongest argument in favour of the course actually taken is the certainty that if we had not occupied the country and put an end to anarchy, some other Power would have stepped in and taken our place, and done so, and probably would have done it with much less concern for purely Egyptian interests, and with a much more exclusive desire of national advantage than we are ever likely to show. But that matter is settled, as I conceive, by many previous debates. There is no doubt that public opinion was at the time, and has been ever since, in favour of that occupation, and it is useless to go back to controversies which are now merely historical. I refer to it now only to say that, while I quite understand the language of those who think we ought, in 1882, to have left Egypt alone, I do not see any step that has been subsequently taken which did not follow almost necessarily from that first proceeding. And although the second part of the Motion of the noble Marquess opens a wide field of controversy, I do not gather that it is desired now to discuss the diplomatic history of the last two years as regards the annexation of Egypt. There are, no doubt, many persons who think that we ought at once, on occupying

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the country, to have taken the whole control into our own hands, and treated Egypt as being practically a Province of the British Empire. We have never accepted that view. In the first place, I conceive that we should have been doing what we had no right to do. In the next place, we should have utterly thrown away that good understanding with other Powers interested in Egypt which, on the whole, has been maintained during those transactions, and which, I believe, will still survive, uninjured, the present complications. And, lastly, we should have been giving the signal for a general scramble, which might very probably have ended in a European war. These reasons influenced us, and from the first—from Tel-el-Kebir, and even earlier, to the present day—we have steadily kept in view the fact that our occupation was temporary and provisional only, and that our object must be to put the Egyptian Administration in such a position that, guarded and guaranteed from external interference, it should be able to stand alone. I believe it is that determination which is the real cause of much, or most, of the opposition that we have met with. There may not be many persons who will say in so many words "annex Egypt;" but there are very many who wish matters so carried on that annexation, or something equivalent to it, shall be the inevitable end. Now, my Lords, accepting the view of our position which we took, assuming that it was our duty during our temporary occupation to do for the Egyptian Government what they would, if well advised and able, have done for themselves, what was to be our attitude in regard to the Soudan? The noble Marquess says its abandonment was a mistake—that we ought not to have pronounced in favour of its evacuation.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I said you ought not to have announced it.
THE EARL OF DERBY: I do not quite follow the noble Marquess, unless he means that, while it was right to do it, we ought to have kept the decision secret from all parties concerned, which, as far as I can see, would have been utterly impossible. At all events, we knew that the Soudan could not be held by Egypt, except at heavy cost; that ever since its acquisition it had been
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a dead loss to the revenues of that country; and that, even under such a zealous and capable Governor as General Gordon, order was very imperfectly maintained there. We knew that an increase of burdens on the Egyptian people meant not merely inconvenience, but starvation. In our view, after the failure of Hicks Pasha's Force, it would have been simple madness to attempt the reconquest of the Province. Therefore, all we had to do was to endeavour to save the garrisons; and we must remember that they were scattered all over the country, in places where we had nothing to do with sending them, and where it was most difficult to reach them. Then, as to the despatch of Hicks Pasha's Army, the noble Marquess complains that we allowed that Army to be sent. I quite agree that if it had been possible to have known at that time all that we know now of the state of the Soudan, that is a step which I think we should not have taken. But you must judge it, not by what we know now, but by what we knew then; and we must remember that hostilities had been going on for some years, and that the Egyptian Forces had generally been successful; and it would have been a high-handed and invidious act to interfere by force to prevent the actual Rulers of the country from attempting to suppress an insurrection in one of their own Provinces, which they were confident of being able to put down. I do not think there are many people who will contend that it is our duty to reconquer the Soudan for Egypt. It is, in our belief, a very worthless possession. To regain it at our own cost would have been imposing an unjustifiable burden on this country; to regain it at the cost of Egypt, which was already bankrupt, would have been cruelty to the Egyptian people. We determined, therefore, and I believe the great majority of the public here thought with us, to confine ourselves to the attempt to rescue the garrison at Khartoum. That was the policy of "Rescue and retire," which has been so much criticized, but which I believe to have been entirely sound. It simply meant this—that we would not endeavour to extend or to maintain Egyptian control over a country which, even if conquered, Egypt could not hold without ruin. But, my Lords, I will not

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attempt to deny that, in one respect, circumstances have undoubtedly altered since Tel-el-Kebir. We have learnt much—and by no possible means could we have known it beforehand—as to the position and as to the objects of that mysterious personage, the Mahdi. We were naturally inclined to believe, in the first instance, that he was a local Chief, desirous only of setting free his country from Egyptian rule, and who would be satisfied when that object was accomplished. In that view of his position, had he been disposed to allow the garrisons to withdraw peaceably, we were not disposed to quarrel with him. If it was a gain, as we do not doubt, to Egypt to be quit of the Soudan, and if the people of the Soudan wished to be free from Egypt, what ground of difference was there? And it was in that spirit that we sent out General Gordon on his mission. The objects with which he was sent out were fully set out last year. There have been various criticisms upon that mission by the noble Marquess and those who succeeded him. The noble Marquess called it a hopeless and impossible task; but, my Lords, that was not General Gordon's own view of it. He had been Governor General of the Soudan; and he knew the people better than anyone, and he himself volunteered to go. He certainly did not regard it as a forlorn hope; and we were encouraged to send him by his own description of what he was likely to be able to accomplish. We had fair ground for expecting that the insurgents at Khartoum would be content with the evacuation of their country; that they would be willing to make arrangements for the withdrawal of the garrisons; and that they would be satisfied, having got what they wanted, to remain on good terms with Egypt. I do not think that was an irrational or an unreasonable belief. Now, what has passed at Khartoum is very obscure, and I suppose will always remain so. But one thing has come out clearly. We are not dealing with a merely local disturbance. We are not fighting a Chief whose only object is to restore independence to his own tribe or country. The Mahdi is the head of a religious war—a Mahommedan crusade—and it does not follow that if we leave him alone he will leave us or Egypt alone, or even that the fire he has lighted will stop there, or be
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confined within the limits of Africa. The best proof is that when we were willing to withdraw from Khartoum, and when we might have reasonably supposed that he would have been glad to facilitate our retirement, he has not abated his hostility, and has not accepted any offers of peace. Well, that fact alters the situation completely. We are not bound either to defend or to attack Khartoum; but we are bound to protect Egypt from attack. We have assumed that duty as a result of our occupation; and while the occupation lasts we cannot withdraw from it. If, therefore, you ask what we are now trying to do, I say exactly the same as last year. We have not varied as to the object, though we have been compelled to change the means. We tried negotiation, while there seemed a chance that negotiation might succeed: it did not succeed, and then there was no alternative but to send out an Expedition. Surely that is the natural and ordinary course of things; and it is very idle to censure us, as some people do, for not sending out a vast and costly Expedition in the first instance, when there was fair ground to hope that the necessity for such an Expedition might have been averted. I do not think the question will be asked, whether we had a right to expose so valuable a life as that of General Gordon on an occasion of great public importance? All England applauded the courage and promptitude with which he accepted that perilous mission. But why did we applaud it? Because we knew, and all the world knew, that it was a mission that involved great personal risk. If it had been otherwise, the applause would not have been given. It is nothing new that English officers should be sent, and should volunteer to serve on hazardous missions; and, in this case, I think no one will deny that the object to be attained was worth the risk. You would undoubtedly have a right to blame us if it can be shown that we had failed in any way, or at any time, to give General Gordon that support which might have helped him. But I venture to affirm that you cannot show that. I have heard some very confident assertions that we have failed in this respect; but assertions are not arguments. ["Oh, oh!"] I want to know what request of his, if possible to be acted on, with a single exception, have

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we refused or declined to comply with? The exception which I make is his desire that Zebehr Pasha might be sent out to help him. That is the sole instance of a refusal. We may have been right or wrong in deciding not to send Zebehr—if we had been thinking only of our own responsibility we were undoubtedly wrong—but we were governed by considerations of a very different kind. We knew that General Gordon had seen but little of Zebehr since the time when they were opposed to one another in the Soudan. We knew that the very generosity of his nature might lead him to rely with undue confidence on assurances of reconciliation and promises of support. We could not shut our eyes to the fact that those who had far better opportunities of knowing Zebehr than General Gordon had believed him to be untrustworthy, and thought that if employed by us he would betray his employers, and in that single instance we overruled General Gordon's judgment; but it was in the interest of General Gordon's safety and success, and by the advice of those who had the best means of judging of the character of the man whom he proposed to us to employ. It is said that he at one time asked for Turkish troops to be sent to him. That is true; but, as a matter of fact, no Turkish troops were available, or could have been sent to him within such limits of time that they would have been of any use. It is natural that, with the public grief for General Gordon's death, there should have been mixed a desire—as there always is in such cases—to make somebody responsible for the disaster which we all lament. And the popular charge against us is—and it has been echoed in this House—that, by undue delay in sending out an Expedition to rescue him, we sacrificed General Gordon's life and the lives of the garrison whom he went to save. A graver offence, if you could prove it, it would be difficult to bring against any set of public men. If it were justified, I, for one, should regard a Vote of Censure and removal from power as an inadequate rather than excessive expiation. But where is the proof? We know generally, though not precisely, what it was that caused the fall of Khartoum. We know that it was the work of treachery in the garrison itself. We have no reason to doubt
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the authenticity of that telegram, of very recent date, in which General Gordon spoke of the length of time that he should be able to hold out. We know that, as regards ammunition, he was abundantly provided. We had a telegram from him, in September, stating that he had then provisions for four months; and, since that date, we heard of a very large capture of provisions and supplies which must have replenished his stores for a considerable time. So far as I know, there is not the shadow of a proof that the want of supplies had anything to do with the fall of Khartoum. Now, my Lords, as to the date of the Expedition, I need not point out that to send out a force of sufficient strength for the purpose during the hot weather was simply impossible. The river would not have been navigable, and the climate destructive. The sole question at issue, therefore, is, whether, supposing it had been in our power to send out the relieving force under Lord Wolseley a month earlier, that month would have made any difference in the result. Where is the evidence that it would? As far as it is possible to judge, the treachery of the garrison was an incident that might have occurred at any period of the siege. Probably—though I admit all is conjecture—it had been long planned; and, although the noble Marquess ridiculed and discredited the theory, I see nothing improbable in the idea that the final act was precipitated by the very knowledge that a relieving force was on its way and near to Khartoum. Reference has been made to telegrams from Gordon in which he assumes that he has been deserted. My answer is that the communications were often interrupted; and, in the absence of news, General Gordon at times may have thought so; but I deny, in the most unqualified manner, that anything was said or done, or left unsaid or undone, here that could point to the belief that he was not to be rescued if necessary. Naturally, we did not choose to launch out into an enterprize of that kind till we were assured of its necessity. Who would? But the idea that it might be necessary was never absent from our minds; and I say, with confidence, that the intention of leaving Gordon and his party to take their chance, making no effort to relieve them, was never at any moment entertained. It is hardly ne-

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cessary to make that assertion, because, obviously, no Government could have acted on a policy of that sort without insuring its own destruction—to say nothing of other motives. But I am asked—"Could you not have sent out a small force before the hot weather set in?" Of what use would a few hundred men have been? There was no large force to send; and the 200 or 300 men who have been referred to would, in all probability, never have reached him. Reference is made to that telegram, of the 14th of December, in which it is said—"This would not have happened if you had kept me better informed as to your intentions." I do not like to criticize a document so pathetic; but what does it refer to? Probably—it is only guesswork—to communications which failed to reach him, as we know they repeatedly did. And how that letter is to be reconciled with later documents in an opposite sense I do not see. I do not like to speak too confidently; but the absolutely conflicting character of the telegrams from Khartoum is obvious—it has long been a source of perplexity—and till we know the facts more accurately it is impossible to build upon them. Another question has been asked—why, after the defeat of Osman Digna near Suakin in the spring, did you not order an advance to Berber by that route? The reasons against taking that course seemed to us conclusive. Only a small force could have crossed the Desert owing to the want of water; the season was getting late; the feeling of the tribes was entirely unknown; and to send so small a force into a country where they were liable to attack, at any moment, by enemies of infinitely superior force, seemed to the Government to be too rash a proceeding to be justified as a military operation. We have been told to-night, in a sort of triumphant tone, that we could have used the Suakin-Berber route last year, and that this is shown by the fact that we propose to use that route now. I do not pretend to be a judge of military operations; but it seems to me there is all the difference in the world between sending out a small force into a country full of enemies whose strength is unknown—which would have been the case last year—and sending it out to meet another force, already on the spot, which will make a junction with
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it. If we are asked why we chose the Nile route in preference to that by Suakin, we answer that we acted after full deliberation, and after taking the opinion of the best military authorities; and we say further that, so far as the operation itself is concerned, the choice of that route has been justified by results. The doubt was whether Khartoum could be reached in the cold season. Well, Khartoum has been reached in the cold season, reached in ample time to have relieved the garrison if that garrison had not been betrayed, as it might have been at any moment since the siege began. I do not know whether it is necessary to go back to the question of General Baker's defeat, which we discussed last year, and for which, of course, the noble Marquess holds us responsible. The answer which I gave then I give now—that the defeat of a disciplined force of 3,000 or 4,000 men, though not very good troops—that is admitted by everyone—by 1,200 Arabs, half-armed, was not a contingency for which any man could be blamed for not having foreseen. We know now—we did not know then—the desperate fanaticism of these Arabs, and I do not think the Government should be charged with rashness, even though the Expedition was unsuccessful. As to the Expedition of General Graham, and the assertion that it was useless, and that, in making it, we were guilty of merely useless and vindictive slaughter, the answer is, we should probably have lost Suakin had it not been for the success gained by that force. Passing from what is done, and considering what remains to do, what is our object, and what is our policy? That is the question which is repeatedly put to us, and ingenious phrases have been invented to indicate that if we do not intend to make Khartoum and the Soudan permanently British, or place it under British protection, all that we are doing is mere objectless slaughter and massacre. I do not agree in that; and I think it is easy to define in general terms what we want, and what we intend, though details are not at present possible. We have taken on ourselves the duty of protecting Egypt from attack while we occupy it. We do not propose to occupy it permanently, though it is impossible now to fix a precise date for our withdrawal. On that point we are pledged to this country,

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and pledged to Europe; and if a contrary policy is adopted it will not be by us. But it is clear that, with a fanatical Army and Chief threatening it from Khartoum, Egypt cannot be safe; and we are bound to secure the Khedive from the danger of an irruption from that quarter. We do not say that Khartoum and Berber ought to be held by this or that Chief; but we do say that they must be held by some Power which will not be systematically and on principle opposed to the maintenance of peace, and the independence of Egypt. Khartoum in itself is not our concern; but Khartoum must be made incapable of doing mischief to its neighbours, and if in that process the civilization of the Northern Soudan is promoted, that is a result which we are glad of, though it is not primarily what we aim at. Whether we should have gone into Egypt three years ago, if all the results which have followed had been foreseen, is a question which may be reasonably asked; but we have done it—we have taken certain responsibilities on ourselves; and as, on the one hand, we will not unnecessarily enlarge them, so, on the other, we shall not shrink from any cost or any labour—and I do not believe the English nation desires us to do so—that maybe necessary to enable us to maintain our pledges, and to keep good faith with those who depend upon them. With regard to another point, it is a little premature, I think, to ask whether we will keep permanently a railway which is proposed to be laid down for military purposes, or what steps we shall take for its defence. Once let us restore order in the Northern Soudan, and I should have no fear as to the safety of the road if it continues. Nor do I believe that there is the slightest need for that policy of indefinite occupation which has been pressed upon the Government, and which we have always disclaimed. Once break the power of this military fanatical leader, and the local tribes and Chief's will want very little assistance and very little support, whether from England or Egypt, to enable them to hold their own. So much for the future; as for the present, though, no doubt, the situation is grave, is there anything to cause any despondency? We have lost distinguished officers and brave men, and that is a loss which we deeply deplore.
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We are involved in heavy expenses, and that is also matter of regret. But our arms have not been discredited; and no one can affirm that nothing has been done for Egyptian administration, except those who know nothing, or care to know nothing, as to what has really passed. As to this coming vote, I do not affect a doubt what it will be. It is a foregone conclusion. I regret to think that the present Government is in a minority in your Lordships' House; but we have the satisfaction of being well assured that the verdict of this House will not be the verdict of the other branch of the Legislature, and we believe it will not be that of the country.
THE EARL OF HARROWBY: My Lords, if any testimony were needed to prove the culpability of Her Majesty's Government in going to Egypt, the testimony of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) would suffice. I will not enter into any historical controversy, because I feel, by their conduct in the past, that they are not to be trusted with the very important issues which have at present to be decided. There can be but one conclusion gathered from what he has said, and that is that the Government had no right to go into Egypt, because they evidently had no idea whatever of what they would do when they got there. Just look at what the noble Earl has said as to the reason why the Government did not make greater improvements in Egypt. He said their position was so temporary, and that they had to be very careful not to give the impression to Foreign Powers that they were trying to make Egypt a Province of England. Then, again, as to the Mahdi, what was the excuse the noble Earl made in reference to their dealings with him? He said that if they had had any experience about the Mahdi, as they now have, they never would have got into that position. I venture to say that out of the noble Earl's own mouth the Government is condemned. What right had they to bring British Armies into Egypt if they had so little knowledge of what they would do when they got there? It seems to me that every word of the noble Earl's speech is only calculated to increase the apprehensions of the country. The country, my Lords, is sick of words, and is longing for something solid, and the noble Earl tells us that what they are doing now is only

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what they were doing last year, and the Prime Minister has stated that he would proceed upon the old principles upon which his Government is founded. Such are the words of which the country is so weary and so sick. The country sees with apprehension 20,000 of her sons shut up in the Deserts of the Soudan, and the country wants to have some assurance that these vague expressions and empty phrases may be explained. It is an easy matter to treat, in the light and jaunty way in which the noble Earl has treated it, the whole matter connected with the sad and grievous and distressing case of General Gordon; but I would ask your Lordships to go into that case a little more carefully, so that you may feel whether or not the Government is to be trusted with these greater obligations for the future. When the Government sent General Gordon on his mission, they ought to have felt that they were taking a step of the utmost gravity. When the Government sent Gordon on his perilous expedition it is only natural to suppose that they ought to have taken every conceivable precaution for his safety. There was at that time no praise too great for him. The Prime Minister said that he was the only man who understood the situation and the country, and other Ministers spoke of him in similar terms. But I cannot find in the Papers one trace of such careful provision. It seems never to have occurred to the Government that this Expedition might have failed, that Gordon might have been betrayed, or that Lord Wolseley might find himself in the Desert in the midst of hosts of treacherous foes. How could they show the honesty of their speech regarding him? When they refused the repeated requests of this man, who alone could be the judge of what was good and desirable for the safety of this distant part of the Soudan, one would have supposed that they would, at least, have suggested some counter-proposals. For this I look in vain through all the Papers. I can find no trace of any counter-proposal from the Government. Instead of affording him the assistance he requested, I do, indeed, find one single suggestion, and that is, that the Governor General of the Soudan, responsible for 30,000 lives scattered over this district, responsible to the English Government and to the Khedive to bring away his garrisons,
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that this gallant officer and high-minded gentleman should have run away. I believe the reason why no move was made by the Government was, that they were waiting for an answer to that unworthy suggestion; for it was not until three days after his telegram, stating the impossibility of such a proceeding, that an Expedition for his relief was proposed. He had given Her Majesty's Government every warning as to what was transpiring; but they shut their ears and eyes to all that was going on. Yet the Government professes to be surprised and astounded at the turn events have taken. But does the Government know nothing of the propagandism that has for some time been going on in the Mahommedan world, of the missionaries that have been going about in all directions in Mahommedan countries, of the ferment that has taken place within the last few years in the great cities of the East, resulting in the massacres of Jeddah and Cairo? Everyone who has studied the Eastern Question knows that this epoch is one at which Mahommedans have been expecting a great deliverer, who should restore to them their predominance over the Western nations. It was strange that the Government should be so blind to a movement of Mahommedan fanaticism coming from the centre of Africa at this time; but the fact is that by the blindness and madness evinced in their taking no notice of these warnings, they have gone the very best way to set up the Mahdi themselves. The more we look into the case, the more we see that the Government has been totally deficient in foresight and knowledge; and I cannot imagine anyone, having regard to their conduct in the past, looking with equanimity and a light heart upon the conduct of the grave operations in which we are now engaged in the Soudan being in their hands. With regard to the undertaking on which we were now embarked, our right policy would be to announce that we do not leave the Soudan until we have established quiet; that we shall not leave Egypt until the people are able to stand alone; and if they do it, we must make it quite clear that no other Power interferes there besides ourselves. A great deal has been said about the desert character of the Soudan. I cannot but think that great misrepresentation has got about

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on this subject. So far from its being a mere desert place, inhabited by wandering tribes, there are in it 15,000 Christians and 40,000 Egyptians, while there are a number of commercial houses, some in the hands of Natives and some of Europeans. It was a region where commerce was spreading, and likely to spread. Sir Samuel Baker had said that the Soudan will be the granary of the world, and that Khartoum will be the richest commercial city in Africa. He has also stated his opinion that if the Soudan were in the hands of England, she would be independent of America for her corn supply. In Sir Samuel Baker's opinion, the possibilities of that region were immense, when it passed into civilized hands. Would it not be a fit occupation for England to open up to civilization the great district which seemed to have drifted into our hands, and which would offer so rich a field for our commerce and manufactures? But behind the question of the policy to be pursued by this country in the Soudan is the more immediate question whether it is possible for a Government, vacillating, uncertain, and ignorant as they have shown themselves, to take up and carry out a new and vigorous policy. They are hampered by past engagements to Foreign Powers, by engagements at home, by distracting factions in their midst, and it is impossible for them to decide upon and to carry out any definite line of policy. I see dangers to our Colonies, dangers from Russia and other Powers, and dangers in South Africa; I see Ireland needing a firm and bold hand, and a distinct policy to be adopted for our Navy. I ask whether it is possible for a Government like this to carry the ship of State safely through these troubled waters? The only possible inducement for those who sit on this side of the House to dislodge the Government in a moment like this is the deepest and gravest sense of duty. No man in his senses could wish to take Office at this juncture; on the other hand, if no man can be found on those Benches to assume that responsibility, then I say that the Conservative Party would be false to its history and false to the country if they declined the grievous but most honourable task. Those who sit on the Conservative Benches must take their full share of responsibility;
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and if they are really called by the absolute demands of the country to take this heavy task upon them they will succeed on this one condition—that they tell the country plainly what their policy is, so that they do not let any ambiguity arise, such as exists at present, but proceed with firmness and honesty on their course, and then, I believe, they will be supported even by their opponents.
Moved, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(the Earl of Camperdown.)
Motion agreed to.
Debate adjourned till To-morrow.
House adjourned at Twelve o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Ten o'clock.