There is nothing new about the Ashantee war this week,
except a most spirited defence of it from the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen. We have analysed his argument elsewhere, but must add here that he prefaced his defence of his own department by a rattling apology for the Government, going a good deal over Mr. Lowe's ground, but condensing his statement into rememberable sentences like this. "The Gladstone Government had inherited a bill of /9,000,000 for the Abyssinian war, had been in office five years, and had paid not only this balance, not only the large expenditure arising out of the military expenditure necessitated by the Great European *ar, but the expense attending the abolition of Purchase in the Army, and other heavy expenditure, including /10,000,000 for the purchase of the telegraphs, in order that they might be under the control of the Government, and the Alabama indemnity. Not only had all these payments been made, but £12,000,000 of taxation had been taken from the shoulders of the people, and the National Debt reduced by /28,000,000, while the Income- tax had been brought down to 3d. in the pound, the lowest sum at which it had ever stood since its first introduction."
Previous page
