The Budget was introduced on the 4th of April. But for the money spent under the Vote of Credit, Sir Stafford Northcote would have had a balance in hand of £859,000. As it was he had a deficit on the accounts of 1877-78 of £2,640,000. Supposing that no change either in taxation or ordinary expenditure occurred in the coming year, he admitted that he would also have a deficit in the accounts of the coming year of £1,559,000. But besides this, Sir Stafford Northcote contended that he must make provision for an “extraordinary expenditure” of £1,000,000, or perhaps £1,500,000, in addition to what appeared in the regular estimates for the Army and Navy for 1878-79. The ordinary income and expenditure he estimated at £79,640,000, but his attempt to introduce the vicious system of bankrupt or half-bankrupt States, whose Governments confuse their accounts by mixing up ordinary and extraordinary expenditure could not conceal one fact. Adding his extraordinary expenditure to his past and estimated deficits, the existing taxation of the country would fail to meet the expenditure of 1878-79 by at least £5,300,000. Hence it was necessary to impose new taxes. Sir Stafford Northcote therefore added 2d. to the income-tax, and 4d. per pound to the duty on tobacco, but even then he estimated a deficit of about £1,500,000, which he added to the floating debt.
Parliament was prorogued on the 16th of August, and, amidst optimist anticipations of peace, an end was put to a Session in which the House of Commons, for the first time in the century, had permitted itself to be treated by the Ministry like a Bonapartist Corps Législatif. When it adjourned many people wondered why it had been summoned. In the stirring crises of the year the Government had on every momentous occasion carried out their policy without consulting it. The legislative work that it was allowed to do might have been deferred for another year without serious inconvenience. It had been converted into a court of registration for the decisions of a Minister who treated it as an ornamental appendage to a new system in which the Monarch and the Multitude, under his guidance, were the only real governing forces. Ministers, however, when they went down to their constituents in the autumn, and told them to hope for peace, plenty, and
SHERE ALI, AMEER OF CABUL.
reduced taxation, did not apparently know that a cunning trap had been set for them by Russia. Before Parliament rose there were rumours afloat that the policy of the Indian Government was becoming restless and disquieting. Lord Lytton had put the vernacular Press under a harsh censorship. The native Princes were threatened, or they expected to be threatened, with a demand for the reduction of their armies. A frontier policy of perilous adventure was mooted, greatly to the alarm of experienced Indian officials like Lord Lawrence.
It has been already stated that Lord Salisbury, when Secretary of State for India, had a scheme in view for covering Afghanistan with European residents, and that Lord Northbrook resigned office rather than further it. In 1878 Lord Lytton found an opportunity made for him by Russia for developing this scheme, and he hastened to seize it. He had already estranged Shere Ali, the Afghan Ameer, by his menaces, and this prince was perhaps not indisposed to intrigue with a rival Power. When Lord Beaconsfield brought the Indian troops to Malta, Russia not only made secret preparations for the invasion of India, but sent a Mission to Cabul for the purpose of securing the co-operation of the Afghans. It does not appear that Shere Ali entered into any bargain with the Russian Envoys, whom he sent away as soon as he could, because whilst they were in Cabul he seems to have been very nervous about their safety. But the Indian Government, hearing of what was going on, demanded that they too should send an Embassy to Cabul, urging that the reception of the Russian Mission showed that Shere Ali’s apprehensions as to the safety of Europeans in his capital were groundless. A Mahometan official of rank, the Nawab Gholeim Hasan Khan, was entrusted with the task of conveying the demand to Shere Ali, and he did his work honestly, and with great tact and skill. The Nawab, on the 30th of August, left Peshawur, where the British Envoy, Sir Neville Chamberlain, and his escort of a thousand troops were waiting for the Ameer’s reply. The Nawab apparently did not see Shere Ali till the 12th of September, who told him that he did not like the idea of the Mission being forced on him. The advice of the Nawab, who appears in these transactions as the only diplomatist who correctly appreciated the situation, was to delay the Mission, “otherwise some harm will come.” By “some harm” Gholeim Hasan Khan meant an Afghan war, at all times a dire calamity for India, whether it ended in victory or defeat. The Nawab, as the result of further negotiations, reported that Shere Ali was willing to send for the British Mission, and clear up any misunderstanding that might have arisen about his reception of the Russian Envoys, if the Indian Government would give him time. The Russians had come to Cabul uninvited, and they had all been sent away, save some who were ill, and who were to be sent back whenever they recovered. As the Nawab sensibly said, Shere Ali did not want his people to suspect that the British Mission was thrust on him. “If Mission,” said the Nawab, “will await Ameer’s permission, everything will be arranged, God willing, in the best manner, and no room will be left for complaint in future.”[136] But during September all these details—afterwards revealed in the Blue-books—were concealed from the British people. The Indian Government primed the correspondents of the Press with mendacious accounts of Shere Ali’s insulting refusal to receive a British Envoy, whereas he had not only invited a Russian Mission to Cabul in violation of his pledges to us, but was loading them with attentions, whilst Sir Neville Chamberlain was kept ignominiously waiting his pleasure at Peshawur. British prestige, it was said, rendered it necessary to coerce the Ameer, and so Sir Neville Chamberlain was ordered to enter Afghan territory without the Ameer’s permission, with a force “too large,” as Lord Carnarvon said, “for a mission, and too small for an army.” When the advance guard of the Mission came to the fort of Ali Musjid the Commandant stopped it. At the time the country was told in the inspired telegrams in the newspapers that the Commandant, Faiz Muhammed Khan, was violent and insulting, and threatened to shoot Major Cavagnari. When the Blue-book appeared with Major Cavagnari’s account of the affair it showed that the Khan behaved with the greatest courtesy, and though he said he must, in obedience to orders, oppose the advance of the Mission, he had actually prevented his troops from firing on Cavagnari and his men. What need to expand the story? The Mission returned. A pretext for a quarrel with Shere Ali, which Lord Salisbury had instructed Lord Lytton to find, was at last discovered. War was declared on Afghanistan, and Parliament was summoned on the 5th of December to hear the news.
Of course Parliament was called into consultation too late. The Viceroy of India had deliberately put himself into a position to invite and receive a blow in the face from a semi-barbarous Asiatic prince. The Government were therefore compelled either to recall Lord Lytton, and treat the whole affair as a blunder, or avenge the rebuff which he had received by war. They chose the latter alternative, and the hearts of Liberal wirepullers were lifted up, because manifestly even Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration could not survive such an escapade as a third Afghan war. The debates on the policy of the Government were dismal reading for those who knew what Afghan campaigns meant. The Government shrank from resting their case on the transactions which caused the war. It could not be concealed that on the 19th of August Lord Salisbury asked Russia to withdraw her mission from Cabul, and that on the 18th of September he received a scoffing reply informing him that the Mission was only a temporary one of courtesy. As Sir Charles Dilke put it, Lord Salisbury was naturally dissatisfied with this reply, but being “afraid to hit Russia, yet determined to hit somebody,” he “hit Shere Ali.” Ministers, however, took up a broader ground of defence. They said that the Russian advances in Asia rendered it necessary for England to secure the independence of Afghanistan. All Indian statesmen were agreed that this could be done by guaranteeing his throne to Shere Ali, he on his side giving the Indian Government control over his policy. Shere Ali had been always willing to accept the guarantee and the pledge to defend him against foreign and domestic foes. But he would never consent to pay for it by putting his country under a diplomatic or military protectorate. On no consideration would he permit European agents to be stationed at Cabul, though he had no objection to receive Mussulman agents, and neither Lord Mayo nor Lord Northbrook thought it wise to press him on the point. They confined themselves to a promise of aid, reserving to themselves the right of determining when they should give it. Shere Ali was not satisfied with this arrangement, but he had to make the best of it. In 1875 Lord Salisbury urged Lord Northbrook to find some pretext for forcing European residents on the Ameer. Lord Northbrook refused and resigned. Lord Lytton took his place. Lord Lytton roused Shere Ali’s suspicions at the outset by occupying Quetta. At a conference at Peshawur in 1876, between Sir Lewis Pelly and Shere Ali’s representative, Mir Akbor, menaces were exchanged for persuasion, and even the conditional promise of support given by Lord Mayo and Lord Northbrook to Shere Ali was withdrawn. This aggravated Shere Ali’s suspicions, and it was while he was in this frame of mind that Lord Lytton attempted to force a British Mission upon him. The theory of the Government was that as diplomacy had failed to make the Ameer accept our protectorate, resort must be had to coercion. This had led to war, it was true. But war must end in victory, and victory in the occupation of the southern part of Afghanistan, which, as Lord Beaconsfield said, would give India a “scientific frontier.” The objection to his idea was that to push our outposts farther north was to put ourselves at a disadvantage in defending India. Not only would the occupation of Afghanistan be ruinously costly, but it would lengthen and attenuate the line of our communications with our base—a line, moreover, which would run through the lands of wild and fanatical hill-tribes. The debates in both Houses perhaps served to render the war unpopular. But it had begun, and it was absurd to refuse supplies to carry it on, because such a refusal merely exposed British troops to disaster in the field. However, it was notorious that in the majorities who supported the Government were many who, like Lord Derby, felt forced to support in action a policy which in opinion they disapproved.
During the Session of 1878 only one matter personally affecting the interests of the Queen came up for discussion. On the 25th she sent to both Houses a Message announcing the approaching marriage of the Duke of Connaught with the Princess Louise, third daughter of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, the celebrated cavalry leader, popularly known as “The Red Prince.” He was a man of large private fortune, and his daughter was described by Lord Beaconsfield as “distinguished for her intelligence and accomplishments, and her winning simplicity of thought and manner.” As for the Duke of Connaught, Lord Napier of Magdala bore testimony to his efficiency as a soldier. In the House of Commons an addition of £10,000 a year was voted to the Duke’s income, thus raising it to £25,000, of which £6,000 a year was to be settled on his wife in the event of her surviving him. The vote was passed without a division, the only protest made coming from Sir Charles Dilke, who asserted that no good precedent could be cited for such a provision for a Prince, when it was not manifestly a provision for succession to the Crown.
The only great public function of the year in which the Queen took part