Sir Charles Dilke answered for the Government, in a speech
of singular brilliancy. He made the important announcement. that the first act of the new Czar had been to recall General Skobeleffi and abandon further operations beyond the Caspian, and then proceeded with his argument. He rejected Anglo- Indian opinion, because it was always for war; and as to native opinion, out of the sixty-seven vernacular newspapers in India,. with an aggregate circulation of 27,000, forty-three newspapers, with a circulation of 21,000, were against remaining in Canda- har. As to prestige, did the late- Government lose prestige when it left Cabul, or Russia when she quitted Kuldja after thir- teen years' occupation, or when she gave up so much of Khiva and Bokhara ? As to pledges to the Candaharees, seven-eighths of them only wished us gone, and after Maiwand fired upon our people, and had to be expelled the city. The Tories were full of dis- trust of Abdurralimau, but he was their nominee ; they had trusted him with Cabul, and why not trust him with Candahar The cost of the retention of the province would be at least. £1,500,000 a your, probably more, for estimates were always exceeded, as the Tories knew. They understood finance as spendthrifts understood extravagance. In impoverishing our- selves in Candahar—a district as large as Great Britain—we were playing our enemy's game ; while so far from the city being a point of information, during the whole occupation we had known nothing of what was going on in Cabul. He firmly believed that if unexhausted India was stronger than Russia, and that our best defence, if we were attacked, would be " the content of the people, marshalled by the courage of the English race, who, lighting for civilisation and with right on their side, would overwhelm their foes."
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