LIBERAL HEDGING.
AFL FAWCETT must, we think, have felt qualms about his 111. speech at Hackney on Tuesday, when he read the animated panegyric pronounced on it the next evening, in that journal, which, as Lord Hartington said, is "very seldom Liberal, and never moderate." And that panegyric ought, we think, to warn him of the dangerous uses to which his speech may be put. He will be regarded as having anticipated the necessity of annexing Afghanistan without reluctance or displeasure, on condition only that it is held at the expense of Great Britain, and not at the expense of India ; and his line will be generally quoted as a proof that if the Liberal statesmen—should they succeed to office—were to be what will be called " patriotic" enough to take up the thread of the Tory policy where Lord Salisbury drops it, and to develop, under the plea of the necessity of a continuous policy, the principles which in Opposition they had so gravely censured, they may yet count upon the support of an important section of the Radicals—of all at least who are influenced by the opinions of such men as Mr. Fawcett or Mr. Brassey. And everybody knows how much pressure, in case of a change of Government, would be applied to the Liberals, not to change the attitude which their predecessors had taken up. Of course, such a change is always inconvenient, and always resisted by the permanent staff, who very naturally object to abrupt changes and points of new departure. Of course, too, it is far more expedient, where it is equally right, not to reverse a policy initiated by your predecessors. It smooths the path of a new Government, to accept as far as possible
the assumptions of the old. It prevents virulent party - attacks. And what is more important,—it gives foreign Go vernments additional assurance that wherever it is possible, the policy deliberately adopted and pursued by one Govern- ment, will be accepted and carried out by another. It can never be anything but mischievous in itself, that sudden breaches of continuity should characterise the policy of any State, And for this very reason, there are a hundred in- fluences which will tend to recommend the more or less com- plete adoption by one Government of the policy of its pre- decessor, to every influence which tends in the contrary direction —though the latter may be grave enough to outweigh them all. But just because this is so, just because the Liberal leaders, should they succeed to office, will find it the most diffi- cult thing in the world to reverse in any important point the policy of their predecessors, we must say that we deprecate, and protest against, any attempt to render this difficulty greater in relation to such a policy as the policy of annexing
Afghanistan. If that policy should prove to be an accom- plished fact,—if the work of reorganisation under the British Government bad already proceeded far,—if it would be obviously and clearly an act like the abandonment of India, to withdraw once more from Afghanistan as we withdrew on the occasion of the last fatal invasion,—well and good. It is not we who would deny, what Mr. Fawcett so strongly insisted on, that you cannot often undo a great blunder by simply deserting the position in which it has placed you. But we do say that this is not the event which Liberals ought now to anticipate, and to prepare for. We do say that all sound Liberals should endeavour not to smooth the way for the ultimate adoption by the next Liberal Ministry of the policy of annexation, but rather to do all in their power to ensure that the great dangers and monstrous evils of that policy, should be weighed in the most anxious manner by the Liberal leaders, and that they should feel how great is their responsibility, if they ultimately decide, in Office, to sustain a policy of which they have been, in Opposition, the vehement antagonists. Of course, it will be said, and will be plausibly said, that after all, their objections were not very real,—that they vanished before the responsibility of official duty,—nay, that they were more than half duo to the necessity of fault-finding, and the jealous temper of competitors for power. And whether such accusa- tions were true or false, or partly true and partly false, num- bers of the people would think them wholly true. It is very difficult to believe in the complete singleness of purpose of men who, after condemning in the most effective way the policy of their opponents, tacitly adopt that policy, directly they possess the power of reversing it, solely on the ground that their predecessors had gone so far on the path that they could not wisely turn back. And finally, one consequence of their conduct, if the Liberals, when they return to power, quietly acquiesce in the annexation of Afghanistan, as Mr. Brassey ap- pears to propose, and Mr. Fawcett to anticipate without dis- pleasure' would be this,—that unless the Radicals were shown very good reason indeed for its real necessity, the Liberal rdgivie would certainly begin with a great split in the party ; for it is not to be supposed for a moment that so important and so dangerous an annexation, one so sure to involve us in many difficulties hitherto quite foreign to our Empire, and so little likely to be consistent with a peaceful and benefi- cent development of Indian resources,—should be accepted by the Radicals without a murmur.
All this we say simply to indicate the political results of this policy of hedging, for which some of the Liberals appear to be already prepared. But the main object we have in view is this, —to point out that what a thorough -going Liberal ought now to fight for, what he ought to render as easy as possible, not more difficult,—is the direct reversal of this disastrous Afghan policy by the next Liberal Administration, in case it should appear that such a reversal is still possible without any breach of principle, or any shrinking from plain duty. Mr. Fawcett talks as if it were perfectly plain that, having once occupied Afghanistan, we should be guilty of moral cowardice in evacuating a country whose government we had upset, and must leave it to mere
anarchy. But, in the first place, what he calls anarchy may be a condition by no means inferior in its moral aspects for the inhabitants to that of occupation by an armed enemy,—nay, it may be much superior to it. No one, we think, would con- tend that after the old war, the evacuation of Afghani-
stan was a great calamity to the Afghans. On the con- trary, as matters then stood, probably no greater good- fortune could have happened to them. The blessings of a military occupation have suddenly become very great in the eyes of Mr. Fawcett,—much greater than he would think them, if any other people than the English were to furnish the garrison, —otherwise he would hardly deem them so very far superior to the conditions of that modified anarchy which would suc- ceed our departure. There is nothing to show that the Sirdars do not still retain a considerable portion of authority, nor that some one among the pretenders would not very soon make his authority felt, as Shore All himself did, after a considerable struggle, over that of his rivals. When we left Shore Ali to win his own way in a country broken up by civil war, no one thought of reproaching us with moral cowardice for not putting an end to that civil war. So far as we can at present see, the preseet situation, in case of our departure, would not be widely different. It might, indeed, be a little worse, but not so much worse as to make it at all clear that we positively owe the Afghan people the blessing of our armed presence. At any rate, unquestionably the priind facie view would be the other way. We ought to have very clear evidence indeed to assure those who have hitherto held the annexation of Afghanistan to be a great crime and a great blunder, that solely because we succeeded in upsetting Yakoob Khan,—.who, by the way, was never very firm in his seat,—we are bound to rule there in his place. We do not say, and do not think, that evidence might not be producible, showing us that we ought not to retire. But we do say that for Liberals, the prima facie duty would be to retire from Afghanistan, and that we have much more reason to fear that our leaders may be induced too easily to turn their backs on their old con- clusions, than we have to fear that they will be too much inclined to hold fast, if they come back to power, to the principles they held in Opposition. At all events, we submit that Mr. Fawcett and Mr. Brassey are preparing to hedge much too soon ; and in doing so, are deserting without any adequate reason the cause which they, and the whole party to which they belong, have hitherto upheld.
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