4 NOVEMBER 1876, Page 3

Mr. Gladstone has published an article in the Contemporary, -defending

Russia from the charge of extreme cruelty in Turkestan, where General Kaufmann is declared by Mr. Schuyler to have ordered the extirpation of a predatory tribe,—men, women, and children. Mr. Gladstone succeeds, we think, in showing that more evidence is required, but in the course of his remarks attacks the Pall Mall Gazette with great severity, accus- ing that journal of deliberate falsification of the evidence in order to increase English hostility to Russia. The Pall Mall Gazette retorts in a style much more violent—because Mr. Glad- stone assailed an impersonal entity, and is himself assailed by name—and declares Mr. Gladstone himself guilty of fraudulent falsification. We have not yet studied the evidence sufficiently to forma clear opinion on the facts of the Yomud case, but the incident is another illustration of the necessity of the old House-of-Commons rule that motives should not be imputed in debate. If they are, the discussion is sure to degenerate into abuse. Mr. Gladstone -will, moreover, pardon us for saying that it is not the business of a party leader to be setting individual journals right on foreign policy. If they are habitually wrong, the English public, which, with all its stupidity, has political instinct, will very soon administer the only effective chastisement,—quiet disregard.