5 JUNE 1880, Page 3

Colonel Gordon, Lord. Ripon's private secretary, has resigned. In a

remarkable letter to the Bombay journals, telegraphed in .setenso to the Standard, Colonel Gordon declares that "God has blessed India and England in giving Lord Ripon the Viceroyalty," and "India will be blessed in his rule" in spite of all obstacles, and that he "has never met any one with whom he could have felt greater sympathy in the arduous task he has undertaken." But for himself, he acknowledges that he made a mistake in accepting the private secretaryship, and that he richly deserves blame for not acting at first on his own inner conviction, formed as soon as he had received his appointment. No further explanation is given, but it seems clear that the Colonel had discerned the unfitness which his friends suspected in him for any post in which he must entirely subordinate his own views to those of his official chief. He will be a loss to India, but a gain to her Majesty's Government, which will now have in him an agent who can be employed in very great work. Colonel Gordon would very soon clear Armenia of Kurds, and organise an effective fighting militia.