A Committee has been formed, with Lord Lawrence as chairman,
and including many Members of Parliament, to protest against a declaration of war with Afghanistan, before Parliament has been consulted. This Committee, which sits at the Palace Hotel, Westminster, has drawn up a strong memorial, exposing the fallacy of the story of insult, and declaring that the " rectification of the frontier," as promised by the Prime Minister in his speech at the Guildhall, is condemned by a majority of the ablest Indian civilians and soldiers, and " appears to be inconsistent with the ordinary principles of justice." The memorialists protest decidedly against any further steps being taken until all papers have been pub- lished, and until the consent of the nation has been given through its representatives. The memorial will be presented to Lord Beaconsfield by an important deputation, and the Premier will thus be afforded a last chance of avoiding an imprudent and unjust enterprise. It is right that he should have it, but we fear the memorialists are too late. The Premier will reply that the matter has passed out of his own control, and that the decision must now be made by the Government on the spot, which alone has the needful information. That Government is acting on every side as if it held war to be inevitable.
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