Lord Northbrook made on Friday week a very decided speech
at Winchester. He utterly contemned the idea that Russia could be dangerous to our dominion in India. It had fallen to his lot in 1852, when we were at war with Russia, to be one of those who were directed to inquire whether Russia could injure us in India, or• we could injure Russia in Central Asia. They came to the con- clusion that the idea of a Russian attack on India was " utterly futile." The danger was " a mere bugbear." If this was true in• 1853, it was much more true now, for we were much stronger in India than in 1853, the European Army having been tripled, and the triangular Railway completed. The extension of Russia in Central Asia, said Lord Northbrook, was a natural process, like our own extension in India, and attended, on the whole, with benefit, a point he illustrated by the suppression, under Russian pressure, of the atrocious slave•trade carried on by the Turkoman- tribes. Lord Northbrook, it will be remembered, as responsible Viceroy, based his policy in India upon this belief, which is also- that persistently maintained by Lord Lawrence, certainly not the- meekest representative this country ever had.
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