TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GOVERNMENT WINDING-UP. .
WE are not quite so anxious as Lord Kimberley showed himself on Tuesday to learn what Government intends to do in Zululand, if it succeeds in defeating Cetewayo. At least, though we may be apprehensive of a muddle, we are not frightened lest the Cabinet should determine to do anything very big. The Government is still singing "Rule, Britannia," but there is a husky cough in its throat. The Ministry is winding-up everywhere, previous to the elections. On all sides evidence accumulates that her Majesty's Ministers, seeing that the country is weary of fruitless expeditions, and ultimatums which produce expensive little wars, and quarrels with Russia which lead only to secret agreements easily arranged without the quarrelling, and Budgets which only renew bills, are shuffling as fast as possible out of everything on hand. They have receded from Egypt like a schoolmaster before a big boy, with an assumption of didactic dignity that is quite delicious.
The Khedive having told them rather curtly to mind their own business and leave him alone, they have replied in a note, solemnly prearranged with France, and written with all their chins in the air, that they will mind their own business, and will leave him alone, and that he must "take the responsibility;" whereat the Khedive, though he never heard of President Jack- son or Major Dowling's letters, gives an assenting chuckle. He will take the responsibility and the Daira Estates too, with all the pleasure in life. Still the Government is out of that scrape, which might have been endless, and has not to send troops to Egypt, or to convince the Queen that she can stand safely side by side with M. Grevy on a foot square of fertile marsh ; and so, at whatever cost to humanity or to the prestige of the West, there is one complication the less. Bondholders sigh, but Whips and wire-pullers rejoice. Then there is Afghanistan. The Government is backing in the loftiest manner out of Afghanistan. Originally we were to invade that large and dreary plateau, with mountains scattered over it as if it had been the battle-field of Milton's heavenly host, in order to drive back Russia. As Russia was not going there, that pretext became a little too thin, and on the 9th of November, 1878, Lord Beaconsfield discovered that an invasion of India, except by the Euphrates, was " im- practicable," and that the British Empire was on the wander into Central Asia in search of "a scientific frontier,"—that is, of a frontier only useful in case of an invasion. The scientific frontier was reached, and by dint of bribing Afree- dees—whom we have just mortally affronted by an order for- bidding their enlistment, an order which our Pathan non- commissioned officers declare a breach of faith—and fighting some second-rate skirmishes, we obtained possession of it. Can- dahar, the Shuturgardan, Jellalaba.d, are all ours, and the hill range which, as Lord Beaconsfield said, prevents our looking over into Central Asia, is at our disposition,—or rather, the Government and its organs say it is at our disposition, the Hill clans being of a different opinion. The Government, however, finds that even this annexation is too much, that it will occupy 10,000 men and cost a million a year, and is, there- fore, asking Yakoob Khan for a treaty, and is ready to give up anything. With an imprudence which would drive a decent diplomatist frantic, General Roberts, who the other day annexed the Kurum Valley, "off his own bat," and as Mr. Stanhope said, without instructions from home, has now announced publicly to the Chiefs that the British Government has no intention of taking "Herat, or Balkh, or Candahar, or Cabul, or Ghuznee, or Jellalabad," or, in fact, any city any Afghan ever heard of. That must be pleas- ant for Lord Lytton, who has now nothing to bargain with when he asks permission to place "English eyes" throughout Afghanistan, and whose cards have, in fact, been shown before they are played. Peace, however, must be made, so Yakoob Khan is invited half-way, and is met at Gundamuck by Major Cavagnari, a shrewd, active "Political" of the second rank— we are not objecting to that fact, the recognised Envoy of Great Britain is a king's equal—who is to patch up a peace somehow. We dare say he will do it, being a clever, resourceful, shifty man. Indeed, he certainly will, if he only gives up enough, for Yakoob Khan wants to execute a few domestic foes, and does not care one straw how many bare rocks we get, or how many Khugiani priests we hang, in return for the offence of preaching resistance to the invader. [Did we hang six Moollahs recently, or not / per- haps Sir George Campbell would ask.] Yakoob will let us have the Khyber, we dare say, and the Kurum Valley too, if only we will give him a subsidy, and say he is our man, and guarantee- his throne, and so involve ourselves for ever in that detestable. cesspool, the politics of Central Asia, where some day a Mussulman who can rule, and who has taught his cavalry to- use revolvers, will try conclusions at once with white faces and Chinese. He will, in fact, permit us to buy a couple of Passes. That is not a pleasant termination to the grand campaign which, according to the Times, has "turned India into an island," and made it impregnable—as if the people inside could not smother us with sand, if they chose— but still it will enable Government to talk of peace, to make- Lord Lytton an Earl, and to send out a decently strong ad- ministrator to cope with the financial trouble, and with the year of heartrending calamity which, by every mail received, is described as impending over the whole peninsula. If the meteorologists are not all alarmists—and no doubt recent experience has made them over-nervous—a famine is at hand, such as even Asia never saw, a famine extending from Jellala- bad to Tuticorin. May God avert it, for man will be as powerless in its presence as the animal world, which dies of drought and hunger without even the solace of pity.
And now we are shuffling at the quickest of paces out of the quarrel with Russia. That quarrel, though chronic, has recently been serious, for this reason. If the Turks occupy the Balkans, Bulgaria will fight, and there will be the Eastern Question open again. Or further, if the Rournelians rise, the Turks will massacre them, and then also the Eastern Ques- tion is open again. In either case the Emperor Alexander ceases to be a free agent, his army and his people alike insisting that the raison d'être of a Russian Czar is to beat Turkey, and not to retire before Turks without firing a shot. As Russia desires no war, she is anxious to avoid both contingencies, and consequently has proposed that the Balkans shall not be occupied "for a year," and that the Russian battalions, bound by the Treaty of Berlin to retire on May 3rd—words never were more clear, even if Ministers had not emphasised them over and over again—shall remain a little longer,—" till this swell of the public mind abate some- what." And Lord Salisbury, it is clear, from his speech of Monday, has assented to both arrangements. It was a most sensible thing to do, in the interests of Europe, and be deserves every credit for doing it ; but he had to reconcile his self- restrained action to his unrestrained bombast about "every jot and tittle of the Berlin Treaty being executed," and so a moderate bit of common-sense statesmanship is made to look like a tottery shuffle to the rear. Some trans- parent nonsense has to be talked about the delimitation of the Balkans, the effect of which, if it were serious—which it is not —would be to perch Turkish cantonments on waterless ridges where the Asiatic soldiery would die like flies of the cold ; and an astounding explanation has to be offered to the Peers that it was always expected Russia would stop till August 3rd, whereat those experienced old gentlemen smiled, and were compas- sionately silent. Far be it from us to doubt that this was the understanding. It is probably literally true. There alwayshas been in all this struggle, which has cost millions in cash and tens of millions in commercial profits, a secret agreement which rendered actual collision improbable, unless, indeed, the two peoples, excited by their trainers' language and their own snarls, had sprung at each other's throats. The idea has always been to wave the banner furiously, and quietly chat under it. But still this arrangement, prearranged or not, this alarm at the reopening of the Eastern Question, this loudly paraded hope that Batuk and Philippopolis, whose sufferings were once jeered at, will be the centre of "the happiest and freest populations in Europe," show that the Government is eager to get out of an untenable or unpopular position. The Christians of the East are to have their own way, provided they do not say so, and the concession of three months to the Russian Army and the snub to the Ron- meli an Delegates serve with the British populace to neutralise one another. Moderation is now the watchword—a most sensible and praiseworthy watchword—and so we are to go back, having acquired in Afghanistan Lundi Kotel, a site for a particularly disagreeable cantonment, and perhaps Pisheen ; and in Turkey, what ?—a right of worrying about reforms without effect, and the Khediveship of Cyprus. We really cannot feel fear about the action of this Govern- ment in Zululand. It will not act. It is true, Lord Cadogan and Sir S. Northcote are at cross-purposes about non-existecit despatches, and do not like to say out that the Government has only told Sir Bartle Frere to refer home before he does anything,—which, without any cable to the Cape, will be simply impossible, unless, indeed, the Zulu army will stand at ease for two months on end ; but there can be no moral doubt that Government would be delighted to be out of this scrape also. It says that Cetewayo's army must be disbanded, but it is sick of the whole business, and would, we doubt not, accept a dispersion for the summer as equivalent to disbandment, and the admission of an Envoy as submission, or indeed make any terms which the Telegraph could say brought "peace with honour." It does not want anything much in Zululand, or anywhere else, except to go to the country with a report of universal peace secured by Ministerial energy, and not to be paid for till convenient ; and the only question is whether its wishes matter in South Africa, whether so weak a Cabinet can hold in so headstrong a man as Sir Bartle Frere. We should say not, and that he will go his own way, which is annexation, or put the Government in perplexity by a resignation. That, however, is not the fault of the Adminis- tration, which would gladly retreat, if only it had the strength to make its agents respect its decisions. Unfortunately it has not ; but still it is only fair to allow that weakness is not vice.
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