Sir Stafford Northcote explained on Friday week, during the little
debate which followed the motion for the adjournment over the Whitsuntide holidays, the famous statement made by him on April 16th, 1878—before the three weeks' Easter holiday which the House, in that year of all others, indulged in—that he expected no event of importance during the Easter recess. He says that though it had been decided in principle in the Cabinet that Indian troops should be brought to Europe, in the event of a collision taking place, "no decision had been arrived at as to the time or manner of their coming ;" and he had no reason to believe that any order had been given, and was just then persuaded that, in consequence of an arrangement made between Great Britain and Russia, no such order would be necessary. That hardly explains how it happened that, at the very time Sir Stafford made this explanation, the order must already have been given, since it was telegraphed back on the following day from India, and the news ap- peared in the English morning papers of April 18th. Sir Stafford. Northcote must have been deliberately kept in the dark by his colleagues.
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