On Tuesday night, Lord Grey insisted that the policy of
the war was wrong constitutionally, politically, and morally. He declared that it wai a policy which would aid rather than hinder Russia in any ambitious designs, and that our annexation of terri- tory would add greatly to the dangers of our position in India. The Lord Chancellor replied to him in a very elaborate speech, in which he pointed out all the difficulties of consulting Parlia- ment about foreign policy, but ignored the fact that this was just one of the occasions on which there would have been no such diffi- culties at all,—in which Parliament had long ago asked for informa- tion, and been deceived ; and concluded by grandiosely professing that he did not care what became of this or any other Govern- ment, so long as our Empire was maintained. Lord Set- borne replied to Lord Cairns, describing the policy as one of bullying and of blundering, a policy of injustice and of peril ; Lord Houghton, as usual, though professedly a Liberal, took up arms for Lord Beaconsfield, declaring that while the former Afghan war was a case of suspicion, this was a case of certainty against Russia,—wherefore we ought to kill the Afghans. Lord Bath dwelt eloquently on the duplicity with which Parliament had been treated ; Lord Ripon, in a speech of much eloquence, denounced the war ; and Lord Northbrook, going through the history of all the negotiations, pointed out how deliberately the new Government had approved that part of his own policy which they now professed to condemn. Lord Salisbury, in a speech of more wrath than vigour, described the new policy as one tending to open a window on the relations between Russia and Afghanistan ; while Lord Beaconsfield con- cluded the debate, in a speech of very great ability, to which we have elsewhere referred at length, the purpose of which seemed to be to minimise as much as possible the object of the war, the intended rectification of the frontier, and the punishment of the Ameer. The Ameer, he said, had been treated "like a spoiled child." Lord Beaconsfield must have meant a despoiled child. Spoiled children are sometimes killed by over-indulgence, but are not usually attacked and stripped of their possessions, and perhaps of their life.
