"… I am made very melancholy these two days by the news from Afghanistan, not that anything comes to me as new: I have dreaded it all along, ever since I discerned that the Gladstone ministry would not_ act on the moral principles which Mr. Grant Duff definitely professed, which, indeed, Mr. Gladstone so emphatically avowed in his book on Church and State, and in every grave utterance. Ever since Sir Stafford Northcote so boldly taunted the (then) Opposition, in the words: 'You call our policy crime; but will you dare to pledge yourselves to reverse it if you come into power? No, you will not dare.' And none of the Opposition said frankly, 'We will reverse it'; it was clear to me that they had not the moral courage. Accordingly I warned friends who asked my judgment, that it is in the Russo-Turkish affairs the Liberals (so called) would reverse the policy, but in Afghanistan and S. Africa they would act precisely as Lord Beaconsfield would act; would accept the positions which they had condemned; would appear to the natives as continuing the same course of wicked aggression; would do justice only so far as compelled, and no sooner; which is exactly what Lord Beaconsfield was sure to do…. We now see that a new war opens upon us both in Afghanistan and, it is to be feared, from the Basutos with the Liberal party in power, and their great leader to bear the main responsibility!! It is a frightful outlook…. We had only to say frankly to the Afghan chiefs: 'We always opposed the war as unjust: we bitterly lament it: we cannot restore the dead or heal the crippled, but we will repay you whatever sum of money a Russian arbitrator may award to you against us. (!) We will withdraw from your country in peace as fast as we can, and leave you masters in your own land.'"
It will be remembered that so far back as 1838, Sir James Outram [Footnote: Named by his great friend, George Giberne (later on Judge in the Bombay Presidency), the "Bayard of India.">[ did great services in the first Afghan War. It was thought by many that had he remained in the Ghilzee country many of our disasters might not have occurred. But Lord Ellenborough—one of the many mistakes placed by our Government in authority in India during a critical time—never recognized in any way his services.
"It is certain they would have seen this to be sincere, and would have been delighted to get rid of us without more bloodshed…. It is pretended that it would be cruel to leave Afghanistan without first securing to it a stable government, when obviously we are without moral power there to add stability. Our presence makes enmity among them…. Alas! once more I find Mr. Gladstone fail of daring to act according to his own moral principles. He ought not to have accepted office…. It makes me very sad for what must come upon England, and perhaps on all English settlers in S. Africa, to say nothing of India and Anglo-Indians.
"I am, yours ever affectionately,
"F. W. N."
The next letter is dated 31st Dec., 1880, and treats mostly of agriculture in the fens, in connection with a writer on the subject in some current paper.
"He" (the writer) "says that if a general move were made in the fens to stamp out the weeds (which would require an immense expenditure of money in wages), 'very different results would be obtained from what we now see.' No doubt they would. But what then? The landlord would raise the rent, and the farmers would have spent their capital without remuneration. Nothing but a security against the rise of rent can encourage the farmers to make sacrifices. He justly says … that fruit might be more profitable. But if a farmer plant a fruit tree, it becomes his landlord's property at once, though it may need thirteen or thirty years to come to its fullest value…. The writer treats a lowering of rent as out of the question. Yet from 1847 up to about 1876 it was constantly rising. Now, forsooth! to go back is impossible!!! And why, because recent buyers have bought at so high a price that they only get three per cent. They are to be protected from losing, and that, though many have bought at a fancy price to indulge other tastes than properly agricultural. Mr. Pennington [Footnote: An old friend of Newman's.] told me he had farms under his own management and despaired of not losing by them, unless he could drive down the need of paying wages. This is what the farmers find. Up to 1875 rents kept rising, and wages rose too, yet prices rising, the peasants were not much better off. In 1873 the peasants claimed more still, and the farmers could not give it. They are ground between two millstones—higher rents and higher wages. This seems to me a fundamental refutation of the peculiarly English system. Fixity of rent is the first necessity. The landlord must not pocket the fruit of the tenants' labour."
The following letter has to do almost entirely with politics, and with
English misrule of Ireland.
It will be remembered that from 1880, when Gladstone came into office, until 1885, when his Prime Ministership ended, wars were the order of the day constantly—wars in the Transvaal; war in Afghanistan; war in Egypt, and General Gordon left to die in Khartoum. Besides all these, that which came upon us constantly, the care of countries nearer at hand over which we tried experiments.
"Weston-super-Mare.
"Sunday night, 20th Feb., 1881.