Mr. Cardwell proves in a letter to Mr. Gladstone, published
in the Times of Thursday, that he did not make the blunder attri- buted to him by Lord Elcbo, in asserting that the country had in store 300,000 Snider rifles, of which the greater part subsequently turned out to be in store in Canada, and not in England. He shows that there were 231,240 Snider rifles really in store in home stations on the 8th August last, and 53,039 were at foreign stations, excluding India ; and more important still, that he was not deluded by his own subordinates into a false impression on the subject. Why Mr. Cardwell did not sooner contradict Lord Elcho's signed statement that he (Mr. Cardwell) had confessed to Lord Elcho that the Sniders supposed to be in store were not really available, because most of them were in Canada, it is quite impossible to say. But as we have no belief at all in Mr. Cardwell as a War Minister,—indeed, the store of breech-loading rifles now proved to exist is ludicrously insufficient, —we are the more anxious to give him no discredit that he does not deserve, and it was a great discredit to lie under the imputation of having been himself deceived by his own subordinates on a matter so important, and of having credu- lously led Parliament and the country into the same fool's, paradise.
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