WAR RUMORS - RUSSIA IS ATTACKING THE UKRANIAN'S ? RUSSIA WE WERE TOLD WAS EXTENDING HER CONQUESTS IN CENTRAL EUROPE ...HAD WE MADE NO CONQUESTS IN EUROPA?

IT WAS TRUE THAT THE WARS ARE MADE BY RADICALS AND RADICALS

 KILL THOUSANDS OF POOR CREATURES FOR THE SAKE OF POWER ...

ELECTRIC POWER OR POLITIC POWER IT'S THE SAME POWER...

people clamoured for ministers, on both sides, having ceased 
to regard themselves as more than the instruments of the 
people's wishes. 

It was true that they were Radicals, and 
that the Radicals, till their turn of power came, had professed 
to hate war ; that they had denounced Lord Beaconsfield, and 
turned him out of office, for the jingoism which they were now 
adopting. But after we had seen them reddening the sands of 
Africa with the blood of tens of thousands of poor creatures 
who had been killed without a scruple to escape an adverse 
vote in the House of Commons, one could not deny that even 
they, or at least the politicians among them, might be willing, 
for the same object, to kill as many more in Asia. 

But why were the people themselves so eager ? Not one 
in a thousand of them could pretend that he had studied the 
question, and was satisfied that only a war could save our 
Indian Empire. Danger to the empire might be the excuse ; 

it could not be the motive. I began to think that Lord 

must have been right when he said to me : ' The reason why 
the English wish to fight Russia is that they enjoy fighting, 
and Russia is the only one of the Great Powers with whom 
they could fight with the slightest hope of a favourable result.' 
Prudent persons, before they undertake any important enter- 
prise, balance the result to be gained with the cost of gaining 
it. A war set going with Russia under the existing conditions 
would continue either till Russia was exhausted and fell to 
pieces in revolution ; or, if we were the unsuccessful party 
as it was at least possible that we might be till there was 
another rebellion in India. Either alternative promised in- 
calculable misery to millions of the human race ; yet we, who 
could not manage our own South Africa, who were letting 
Ireland slip from us, as wanting strength or wanting courage 
to hold it, were preparing with a light heart to carry fire and 
sword into the ends of the earth. 

Russia, we were told, was extending her conquests in Central 
Asia. Had we made no conquests in Asia ?

 Russia's Asiatic 
subjects, counted altogether, do not exceed thirty millions. 
The Empress of India has two hundred and fifty millions. 
Russia was attacking the Afghans.

 Had we never attacked the Afghans ?

 Russia was a danger to the Indian Empire. 
She might encourage disaffection there, and if she could she 
would. How could we know that she would ? and if she did, 
might she not plead our own example : only seven years ago 
we had formed a deliberate plan to stir up a revolt in Turkestan 1 
We satisfy ourselves that when we do these things it is for the 
good of mankind, but that when others do them it is wicked 
and not to be permitted. Such a plea as this will hardly pass 
current in the intercourse of nations. For myself, I thought 
that the war now so clamoured for would be a wicked war, 
and I clung to my conviction that our better genius would 
somehow keep us out of it. The greatest fool in the House 
of Commons, if left to himself and to his own small under- 
standing, would steer the ship of the State better than the 
galaxy of genius had done which formed Mr. Gladstone's Ad- 
ministration ; but even they, I trusted, would still keep us clear 
of this fresh disaster.