16 AUGUST 1873, Page 2

Lord Kimberley has done a sensible act. He has induced

Sir Garnet Wolseley to go out to the Gold Coast as Dictator, with supreme civil and military command ; and aided, as he will be, by Captain Glover, who has a genius for forming Negro armies, he may succeed, if his chief can rise to his duties, in the true object of our policy—the final extinction of the Ashantee kingdom. We trust, however, Lord Kimberley will provide against a repetition of the blunder which has just occurred. As Wel- lington was superseded in the very hour of victory by Sir H. Barnard, so has Colonel Festing been superseded by the accidental arrival of an officer of longer standing in the Himalaya. It can't be helped ? Nonsense, it has been helped for a hundred years in India. What stops the Crown from giving local rank to any officer it pleases to confide in ? General Nicholson was a mere Captain when he fell before Delhi, and Sir Henry Lawrence never was anything but a Lieutenant, or at most a Captain in the Artillery. There is no reason, either constitutional or customary, why Sir G. Wolseley should not be on the Gold Coast a local Captain-General