THE SUCCESSOR TO SIR L. CAVAGNARI.
THE Government of India has picked out from among all its competent servants an Irish Surgeon to accompany General Roberts as Political Agent to Cabul, and will, in all probability, make him the next Envoy to the Afghan Court, with full control over our relations with the country. That is a curious fact, even in India, where Surgeons have once or twice played great parts, and would deserve record, if only as an event in the history of the Empire which a Surgeon may be said to have founded. The Political Agent, moreover, with an expedition is always the most important person in it, and so much will depend on this one, that it may be worth while to occupy a page in explaining who he is and what his poli- tical opinions are. Mr. Bellew—or as he is styled, by an inveterate Anglo-Indian habit, Dr. Bellew—is, even in India, where men are so individual, a very remarkable person. The son of Brevet Major Bellew, who lost his life in the disastrous retreat from Cabul, in 1842, he displayed in boy- hood an unusual devotion to scientific pursuits, more especially geology and botany. After a course of study at St. George's Hospital in 1855, and when scarcely twenty-one years of age, he received his surgeon's diploma, and an appointment in the East India Company's medical service, then a close corporation. He was, however, so exceptionally young, that he could not legally take up his commission, and went out to Scutari, to the military hospital, there to pass the needful interval as
medical volunteer. At Scutari he made himself so useful, and received such testimonials from the surgeons in command, that on his arrival in India in 185G, Lord Canning placed in his hands the medical charge of the Guides, then, as now, the crack corps of the Irregular Service. While acting in this capacity in 1857, Sir H. Lumsden, who had raised the Guides, took him with him on his Mission to Candahar. There the young doctor, still hardly more than a lad, set up a dispensary, and acquired the reputation, which still adheres to him throughout Afghanistan and the frontier of, being the greatest among the English Hakims, the one whom a great native could most advantageously consult. He cured Shere Ali himself of a painful disease, and the Ameer in return actively assisted him with books and access to ancient MSS. in the studies of Afghan history and dialects to which he devoted himself, and in which he acquired
an extraordinary range of knowledge. lie is probably the second best Pashto() scholar alive, and when, in 1872, he was selected to accompany Sir R. Pollock to Seistan, to settle boundaries, he in six months acquired and reduced to a systematic grammar a previously unwritten language of the province, a feat declared, by the Saturday Review, if we remember aright, to be previously unexampled.
is impossible always to beard a Cabinet Minister in his own seat, and since this cannot conveniently be done now, Midlothian seems as good a place for a fair fight as Mr. Gladstone could have chosen.. By all moans, therefore, let the canvas bo on a scale commensurate with the accidental importance of the election. Mr. Gladstone will hardly leave his allies much to say after he has been over the ground, but they cannot be more usefully employed than in enabling the electors to listen more intelligently when the principal performer comes on the stage.
Mr. Childers makes a telling point with reference to an in- cident in Mr. Gladstone's Administration which has been very generally lost sight of. Turkey is not the only country whose " independence and integrity " have been thought of great im- portance to British interests. From the foundation of the kingdom of Belgium, it has been a cardinal feature of English foreign policy that Belgium should be protected against attack from any quarter. Before the late Government had been two years in office, it seemed probable that France or Germany might make Belgium the scene, if not the prize, of their mutual hostility. Now, what would the late Government have done, if its foreign policy had been what its enemies persistently represent it ? Plainly, Lord Granville would have written despatches, and Mr. Gladstone would have made speeches, all tending to show that under the changed circumstances of Europe the • smaller States had ceased to have the im- portance which they had formerly possessed, and that as far as England was concerned, Belgium might become French or German on the first opportunity. So com- pletely does this imaginary account jump with the view generally taken by Conservatives of the disposition of the Liberal Government, that if it were publicly asserted to be true, a largo number of persons would probably believe that some such statement had actually been made in the summer of 1870. Instead of this, Mr. Gladstone did the direct contrary. He tendered to each of the belligerents a treaty in which Great Britain pledged herself anew to help in maintaining the independence and integrity of Belgium, in the event of its being threatened by the other belligerent, and ho gave the best possible proof of being in earnest, by asking Parliament to vote the money needed for such an increase of the Army as might enable the country to meet its new engagements. Where is the evidence in all this of that pusillanimity which is so freely imputed by Conservatives to the late Government and to the Liberal party ? No doubt there was not the bounce about protecting British interests in Belgium that there has been. about protecting British interests in Turkey. But which of the two methods has been most profitable to the country to which it has been applied ? Mr. Childers had not much difficulty in answering this question. We heard, he said, a great deal of the integrity and independence of Turkey, just as "we had heard of the integrity and independence of Belgium. Another Government went to Parliament and
asked for a vote of credit to support British interests and where is Turkey now One-half of it has been snatched from its rulers and the other half is at this moment in a state of the most acute bankruptcy and wretched misgovernment." Let us suppose that the present Government had been in office in 1870, what, judging from their action in respect of Turkey, would probably have happened f There would have been an immense amount of "tall-talk;" Lord Beaconsfield would have proclaimed in his most sonorous sentences that the independ- ence and integrity of Belgium must be respected ; and then, when it was clear that Germany was going to win, we should have had Belgium "consolidated" as Turkey has been, and a secret agreement concluded with Count Munster by which Germany took what she wanted, and graciously left us the glory of protecting what she did not want. Belgium is not the only example Mr. Childers was able to ;bring forward of the superiority of the late Government over the present, on the very ground which the latter have specially ,sought to make their own. Both Governments have had their African difficulty. Both have had to deal with a barbarous sove- reign and a barbarous people. In the one case, Ashantee, the Go- vernment knew its own mind ; in the other, it waited on events until it found that they had left it hopelessly behind. In the one case the Government made its representative obey instruc- tions ; in the other, it allowed its representative to disregard its orders, and to prove by experience, that for the first time, per- haps, in English history, a Colonial Governor might defy his superior's commands, and yet not be recalled. In the one case, the force necessary for the work that had to be done was carefully prepared ; in the other case, the army had to be found after the war had begun, and to be trained under conditions moat disastrous to the English arms. And last of all, in the one case the war cost under a million ; in the other, it will probably cost five or six millions.
On the whole, we do not wonder that the Conservatives dislike electioneering speeches of this type. Lord Dalkeith and his friends will not find Mr. Childers's facts very easily disposed of. If they are wise, they will say that, as Mr. Glad- atone is coming into the county so soon, it is not worth while fighting his lieutenants. That will give them six weeks longer in which to cast about for an answer.
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