Lord Cranbrook made a speech at Berkhampstead on Thurs- day,
in which he proclaimed his party's intention of showing a moderation in Opposition such as the Liberal party, by its unexampled violence in Opposition, had by no means deserved. We fear that each party measures violence by so subjective a standard, that neither Liberal nor Tory evidence as to the violence of an opponent is worth much, and certainly we should not have supposed that the Liberals were ever so violent when in Opposition as Lord Salisbury was at Taunton and Lord Randolph Churchill at Portsmouth. However, that, too, may be subjective illusion. Lord Cranbrook, at all events, was not violent. He gave the statesmen on both sides credit for having the interests of this country truly at heart, used very different language from the late Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Bourke) about the Treaty of Berlin (which he treated as representing a real concert, not, as Mr. Bourke did, as a bad Treaty, though the best which it was possible at a critical moment to extract from Russia), and complained bitterly of the Government for not having given the country more information as to the progress of affairs in Afghanistan. Lord Cranbrook was greatly excited at the idea of abandoning Candahar and the railway on which so much had been spent, and the prospect of "opening a gate of traffic" between India and Afghanistan, and hoped the people of this country would fix their minds steadily on that pro- posal to abandon Caudahar. We hope they will, and will support it with all their hearts. Lord Cranbrook boasted of having spilled no English blood in Europe. But he did not boast of how much he had spilled in Afghanistan, and how much he had spilled there, not merely in vain, but for results of evil, nearly, if not quite, unalloyed.
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