General Phayre's force-7,000 men in all, a completely organised little
army—rendered General Roberts no help, being paralysed by want of forage and transport. We would urgently ask Members of Parliament to demand an inquiry into the causes of this shocking fiasco, but that we know Par- liament can do nothing. The discussion would instantly sink into bitter and useless attacks on individuals, and defences of them. It is more to the purpose to ask Lord Hartington to insist that the Indian Government shall at once, and without oceans of letters to England, devise and execute a reform in the Transport Department. The immobility of our legions is not only a disgrace, but will some day produce a horrible cata- strophe. There can be no excuse for it. Every dirty little Afghan chief who can raise an" army," carries it about as if ho had a portable railway, and we cannot move fifteen miles a day without months of costly preparation. Must we make some Traffic Manager Commander-in-Chief, or is the fault with the Government, which will not provide in peace for the commonest necessities of an army ? We had better have five legions like General Roberts's in all India, than twenty like General Phayre's.
