The Marquis of Salisbury was even less happy in his
ex- planations than Lord Cranbrook, and made a most jesuitical apology for a very successful jesuitical attempt to mislead the House of Lords as to the Afghan policy of the Government in 1877. He asserted that the whole question of the Duke of
Argyll on January 15th, 1877, turned upon the supposed attempt to force a resident Envoy on the Ameer at Cabul, which, as he truly enough said, the Government had never pro- posed to do. But as Lord Northbrook showed most triumphantly, that was not the chief point in debate. The chief point in debate was the Afghan policy generally,—whether it was or was not a new or the old policy ; Lord Salisbury gave the impression to the whole House that it was the old policy ; Lord Northbrook himself pinned him to that at the time in the House, stated that he bad understood his speech in that sense, and that in that sense he regarded it as satisfactory ; and Lord Salisbury remained silent and so far acquiescent, whereas, as he now admits, the whole Afghan policy of the Government bad been revolutionised in the interim. Lord Salisbury's explanation was, in fact, torn to rags and tatters by Lord Northbrook, and it will be hard ever to trust his Ministerial statements again.
