Mr. Gladstone on Wednesday brought forward the vote in aid
of the Indian Treasury for the Afghan war. He proposed to remit the loan already granted of £2,000,000, and to grant six annual payments of £500,000 more, making £5,000,000 in all. He made rather a thin speech, not explaining at all why he fixed on that figure, avoiding any reference to the policy of the war, and giving as his principal reason for the grant the good-feeling it would excite in India. The Tories opposed the vote, through Mr. Stanhope, who
sensibly, and Sir S. Northcote—who had somehow got his figures muddled, and could not divide £3,000,000 by six— on the ground that the war was entirely Indian, which is abaci:- lately false ; that India does not require the money, which is an assumption true only because Lord Lytton annexed the taxes he had pledged himself to reserve for famines ; and that the precedent is bad, which would be true, but that the Afghan war was a crime, and not a political act at all. Crimes do not create precedents, and the money is given to quiet English con- sciences. The vote, however, passed without a division, or any hearty opposition. Anglo-Indians should note that Mr. Glad- stone thinks the " balances," supposed by Indian financiers to be indispensable, are probably needless.
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