Our impression that the despatch of Lord Cranbrook was far
from candid in its dealings with the history of the Afghan quarrel, has been much more than confirmed by the papers published and the facts elicited since its publication. In the first place, it appeared, from a short correspondence between Lord Northbrook and Lord Cranbrook, published in the papers of Monday, that Lord Northbrook was surprised and thoroughly dissatisfied by the references to his own Afghan policy between 1873 and his departure from India in 1876. On Wed- nesday it came out in the Daily News that he bad good reason to be so, since, so far from its being true that his recommendations with regard to Afghanistan were over-ruled by Mr. Gladstone's Government in 187+;,—the implied, though not expressed assertion of Lord Cranbrook's despatch,—his recommendations were, in every respect, approved, and not only approved, but acted upon. On Thursday the history of the Indian policy of the Liberal Government was elaborately explained, both in the report of a very able speech of Mr. Childers to his constituents at Pontefract, and in a letter of the Duke of Argyll to the daily papers ; and on Friday the despatches themselves, or such of them as the Government chooses to give, were issued. It is now com- pletely demonstrated that Lord Cranbrook's despatch suggested a purely fictitious origin for the Afghan quarrel, in a condition of feeling on the part of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet which had no existence, and suppressed the true cause, namely, a new and de- liberate policy of menace, adopted from the beginning of 1876 to the outbreak of the war. The despatch is more than uncandid, —it is verbally accurate, while its drift is dexterously and dis- criminatingly misleading.
