THE MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
THERE is very little to be said about the opening of the Session, except that it has been opened, and that the Majority manifest a certain indefinable but unmistakable change of tone. The disaster in South Africa has impressed them, and they have ceased to be exultant. For the rest, the Ministry were apologetic rather than aggressive, and the Opposition inclined to condole rather than attack. Neither Lord Beaconsfield nor Sir Stafford Northcote attempted to ex- tenuate the calamity in Zululand, the Premier speaking of it as "a great military disaster," and the Chancellor of the Exchequer describing it as " a serious military misfortune ;" and neither attempted to conceal that the emergency would call for great effort and considerable expense. Sir Stafford Northcote, indeed, intimated that he must shortly have a War Budget. Lord Carnarvon, though not agreeing with Sir Bartle Frere as to the opportuneness of the invasion, indeed disagreeing with him, generously defended the Ministry he had left, by stating that eighteen months since Cetewayo's attitude was such that he himself had been compelled to consider the propriety of war, and to make some preparations for it ; while the Oppo- sition recognised fully that Sir Bartle Frere had invaded Zululand very much on his own responsibility, for reasons not yet known, and in opposition to distinct warnings and even orders from the Colonial Office. The attack, so far as there was one, was directed to the insufficiency of the forces originally despatched to Lord Chelmsford; and upon this point the explanation was halting, the Under-Secretary for War, Lord Cadogan, producing formal despatches, and not stating clearly whether more urgent private requests for cavalry had or had not been forwarded. The Ministry stated that reinforcements would be forwarded at once, many of them siiling next week, and both parties appeared satisfied with their extent-8,000 men of all arms—and with the energy dis- played by the Departments. Parliament, in fact, avoided the discussion of the causes of the disaster, to hear and approve deci- sive measures for the restoration of British authority and prestige.
There was much that was satisfactory, but little that was exciting, in this attitude ; and on all questions but Natal the Ministry and their opponents were alike a little dull. Lord Beaconsfield, of course, declared that the Treaty of Berlin was working itself out,—though he knows that neither Austria, nor the Southern Bulgarians, nor the Greeks, nor the Ar- menians are contented with the fulfilment of the clauses which affect them ; and defended the Sultan for not securing order, on the extraordinary plea that he had to maintain 300,000 troops, with whom, one would think, order might be sufficiently maintained. He passed a high eulogium on Sir Henry Layard, who, being his own special agent, he of course described as " a political opponent ;" and lamented the illness which called Sir Henry away from functions in which, in his judg- ment, he had so splendidly succeeded, but in which, in other judgments, he has failed at every possible point. He then diverged to Afghanistan, and uttered a sentence evidently carefully arranged, for it was repeated by Sir Stafford North- cote in the other House, in which he stated that " her Majesty's Government have the satisfaction of feeling that the object of their interference in Afghanistan has been completely accom- plished. We are now in possession of the three great high- ways which connect Afghanistan with India, and it is our hope
that those highways will always remain in our possession. We have secured the object for which the expedition was under- taken, and we have obtained that frontier which I hope and be- lieve will render our empire invulnerable ; and we have attained that object in a manner which will trench as little as possible on the self-government and independence of Afghanistan." Considering that we hold the key of the Afghan capital, Jellalabad, and the nearest Pass, that of the Peiwar, and the most fertile province, Candahar ; that no peace has been made ; and that the Ameer's lieutenant, Yakoob Khan, still formally defies us,—this announcement is, to say the least of it, enigmatical. It may mean that the Indian Government is not going further, but will remain on the defensive, or it may mean that we shall retain only the Passes ; but in either case, its accuracy must be dependent upon the action of the Afghans, who have as yet neither fought, nor yielded, nor commenced negotiation. The Opposition might well ask, as Lord Hartington did, for definite information as to how much territory the Government intended to keep ; and remark, as Lord Hartington also did, that the invasion had been a little too successful, for it had " annihilated " the State. Real debate on this subject was, however, postponed by consent ; and on home subjects the discussion was of the most languid kind, the most notable point being the repudiation on all hands of any design to introduce any measure of Reciprocity, and the formal abandonment of the rumoured project, of settling the Catholic University question, an abandonment which the Liberal Leader regretted, as the Conservatives had so many advantages in proposing a settlement of the dispute. The Government has no new or great measure of home politics to propose, and no administrative measure greater than a reform of the Mutiny Act,—which will not, however, interfere, as the Times alleged, with the control of Parliament over the troops ; a Bankruptcy Bill, a County Board Bill, and a Criminal Law Consolidation Bill, which will be almost as valuable as a Code. The Session, in fact, opens quietly, and though it will present many burning subjects of debate, will do little for legislation, and nothing to change the position of Ministers before the country. Their reputation depends, as before, upon the principles, the progress, and the results of their unsuc- cessful anti-Russian policy in Europe and Asia.
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