I do not doubt that we can take and hold Khartoum, but would that overthrow the Mahdi? He will probably retire south. Are we going to follow him further still into the heart of Africa?

Can the Government give us any idea what this new policy is to cost us?

Mr. Cross, the Under-Secretary of State for India, has told us that while the ordinary expense of an Indian soldier is about £4 per man per month, the extraordinary expenses of the Indian contingent in the Egyptian expedition of 1882 were £66 per man per month, while in the Abyssinian expedition they were over £70 per man per month. In the present case our troops will be still further from their basis of operations, and it is probable that the expense will be still greater. Even, however, if they only cost us as much as in the Abyssinian expedition, it comes to this, that every man we send to the Soudan will be costing us at the rate of £800 a year!

Again, we read every day of hundreds of camels here and hundreds there; and every one who has been in the East can imagine what a frightful expenditure this must involve. Mr. Brand, speaking on behalf of the War Office, told us officially on March 9, that "it would be impossible for General Graham to advance in the absence of railway transport without a huge army of camels. He had had a camel estimate made, and he found that from 50,000 to 70,000 camels would be required to maintain such an army for a year, and it would cost £3,350,000." Three million three hundred and fifty thousand pounds for camels! and that only for one section of our expedition, and for one year!

To avoid a recurrence of this expenditure it is proposed to construct the railway from Suakin to Berber, a distance of 280 miles, through a hostile country, and with gradients, as pointed out by Sir J. Pease, rising to 3,000 feet, or 1,000 feet higher than any railway in the United Kingdom. No estimate has been obtained. No one, however, would put the cost at much less than £10,000 a mile, and probably £20,000 would be nearer the mark. Moreover, it would require to be constantly guarded. Mr. Slagg has well observed that "the tribes who inhabited the country were very largely interested in the carrying trade between Khartoum and the sea-coast, and for that reason alone would be sure to present the most strenuous opposition to a project which would absolutely doom to destruction their greatest industry. He believed there were insuperable difficulties in the way, and he hoped the Government would abandon the project."

Altogether we cannot possibly hope that the Soudan expedition will cost us less than £10,000,000; a sum sum more than twice as large as the nation spends on the education of our children; more than half as much, indeed, as the whole of the Civil Service

estimates.

To spend money in making enemies is surely little short of madness. Let any one think how much good £10,000,000 might do if judiciously spent at home, instead of being squandered abroad. And what are the circumstances under which we are going to engage the nation in this ruinous enterprise? Our national expenditure already amounts to nearly £100,000,000 a year; we are told that we must spend several millions on our navy if we are to maintain our supremacy at sea; and our army having already as much as it can accomplish, must be increased.

Meanwhile, France is jealous and irritated, Germany is angry, and although we may feel that this arises from a misunderstanding, and hope that mutual explanations may restore that cordial feeling which ought to exist between two nations who have so much in common, still no one can have read the Blue Books and not seen how serious the present state of things is; with Russia our relations are most critical, and it is perhaps not uncharitable to suspect that the complications in the Soudan will not tend to promote the success of our negotiations with reference to Central Asia.

Surely, then, this is not a moment when we should send our troops away to the far south, and squander our resources in a fruitless war.

But then it is sometimes said that our troops are in such a position that it is easier to advance than to retreat. Of that, however, we have no evidence whatever. Lord Wolseley has never expressed any such opinion. I have already (ante, p. 562) quoted Mr. Gladstone's statement on this point. Lord Wolseley, he told us, telegraphed home to inquire the intentions of Her Majesty's Government-whether they determined to go to Khartoum and overthrow the Mahdi or not-so that he might act accordingly. That conclusively proves that if we do go to Khartoum it is not from military considerations, but in order to overthrow the Mahdi. Nor can it be maintained that we must attack the Mahdi to prevent the Mahdi from attacking us.

What did the Prime Minister himself tell us, when that very argument was used last May by Sir M. Hicks Beach? He said that the right hon. baronet used the argument, that unless the army of the Mahdi is "put down in the Soudan it will advance on Egypt. To keep it out of Egypt it is necessary to put it down in the Soudan, and that is the task that the right hon. gentleman desires to saddle upon England. Now I tell hon. gentlemen this, that that task means the reconquest of the Soudan. I put aside for the moment all questions of climate, of distance, of difficulties, of the enormous charges, and all the frightful loss of life. There is something worse than that involved in the plan of the right hon. gentleman. It

They amount this year, including the charges on the Consolidated Fund, to something less than £19,000,000.

would be a war of conquest against a people struggling to be free, and rightly struggling to be free."*

In a later portion of the same speech, Mr. Gladstone still further emphasized this argument. Speaking still of Sir M. Hicks Beach, he said: "The right hon. gentleman declared that the movement of the Mahdi must be put down by England sooner or later; and, as I understand him-and I do not think he will deny it-he has said that the sooner it was put down the easier would it be to do so. In other words, the right. hon. gentleman advises us to carry the line of conquest by British or Christian arms among the Mahometan people struggling for their liberty in the Soudan." This argument seemed to me conclusive at the time, and seems so still.

It has been argued by one high Indian authority, that we ought at any cost to overthrow the Mahdi, in order to maintain our prestige in India; but against that view we may quote another high Indian authority, who has taken exactly the opposite line, and considers, as it seems to me with great probability, that in this attempt to crush a Mahometan people we shall run a great risk of alienating our Mahometan fellow-countrymen in India. "In regard to the first objection," Sir W. Gregory says, "I am of opinion that a prolonged war with a Mahometan spiritual conqueror is calculated to produce in India the very effect so properly deprecated. At this moment, wherever the muezzin calls to prayer, the career of the Mahdi is the talk of men, and Allah is invoked to strengthen his arm against the Christians. The longer this state of things continues the more dangerous it becomes, and eight months at the least must elapse before the siege of Khartoum can be commenced."

We have, then, on this point a conflict of opinion. But even suppose the first view is correct, will our prestige suffer less if we evacuate Khartoum next year or the year after? Moreover, can any one calmly and on reflection justify such a policy? To carry fire and bloodshed through the Soudan, to burn the villages, to ravage the crops, to fill up the wells, to destroy the humble homes, to reduce women and children to beggary and starvation, to slaughter thousands of miserable natives in the heart of Africa in order to produce an impression in India, is a policy too heartless, too cynical-I might say too wicked-to contemplate. That this should be done in the name of England is almost incredible, and I feel satisfied it is a policy which the heart and conscience of England will indignantly repudiate.

For my own part, I believe that unless we are prepared to stay in the country permanently, it is hopeless for us to attempt to give the Soudanese a better Government than they can give themselves. Nor do I see that we have under such circumstances any right, still less that it is any part of our duty, to impose on them any Government, whether it be good or bad, against their will.

*Hansard, May 12, 1884, p. 54.

One object which we have had greatly at heart, has been the suppression of the slave trade. For this, no doubt, the country would be willing to make great sacrifices. To effect this permanently would justify the infliction of much immediate suffering. But a mere temporary occupation of Khartoum would not be sufficient. To attain this object we must not only reconquer the Soudan, but stay there permanently. Why have these unfortunate people risen to arms? Had they no cause-have they had nothing to complain of? I admit that our earnest wishes have been for their welfare; our desire has been to assist them in securing a good Government. But as things are now, the best way to do that is to let them alone. Why should we overthrow the ruler they have chosen, and put up some one else in his place? I should have thought we had by now felt the folly-I might say the impossibility-of imposing puppet rulers on unwilling subjects.

General Gordon we know had a warm attachment to the Soudanese, and was sincerely anxious to promote their welfare. But war involves stern necessities. For instance, a merchant of Khartoum writes:

"I left Khartoum forty-eight days ago, and Omdurman three days later. Gordon had established a post with about 500 Shaggiyeh troops at Halfiyeh. I saw Hasm-el-Moas, one of Gordon's generals, with four armed steamers full of troops. He was steaming up and down the river between Shendy and Omdurman, shelling the villages and natives on the islands, and on both banks of the river. The rebels he shelled were composed chiefly of Jaalin Arabs, with a few Shaggiyehs and others. Gordon's troops used to destroy the sakiyehs, and use the wood for the steamers."*

This is surely sad reading, and one cannot but sympathize with these poor villagers.

Throughout the Egyptian papers the Soudanese are spoken of as rebels. Yet Lord Hartington himself last year expressed the opinion, which he said was that "of almost every one who had written on the Soudan," that "the revolt of the Mahdi and the tribes who have adhered to him was justified by the oppression which they had suffered from Egytian officials-was justified by the corruption and misgovernment of Egyptian officials and by the oppression of Egyptian troops. I do not say," he adds, with his usual fairness, "that the misgovernment of the Soudan by the Egyptian Government was wilful or intended."

Mr. Gladstone again, in a passage to which I have already referred said that, to send a British army into the Soudan " would be a war of conquest against a people struggling to be free." Yes, he said, "these are people struggling to be free, and struggling rightly to be free."†

Surely the Government are not really going to involve us in this terrible and ruinous undertaking, to squander millions of English money, and sacrifice hundreds, if not thousands, of English lives with no adequate object or definite policy?

We are now increasing our army; are we going to "commit it to * Egypt, No. 1, 1885, p. 127. † Hansard, 1884, p. 1438.

a struggle in a tropical country with a people courageous by birth, and reckless by fanaticism," for an object which cannot be secured "without an inordinate expenditure of men and money," and which, indeed, may be said to be impracticable at any cost:+" are we about to carry the line of conquest by British and Italian arms among the Mahometan people, struggling for their liberty in the Soudan; "‡ in a country where "there are no British interests, at least no adequate interests which would justify the employment of British forces, or the expenditure of British resources; "§ the natives of which owe us no allegiance, whose revolt was "justified by the oppression which they had suffered;" are we really going to use the strength of England at a terrible sacrifice of men and money, to overthrow a people struggling, and rightly struggling, to be free?"¶

It seems to me almost incredible that we should be entering on such a course, and that too under a Liberal Government.

So far, indeed, the national conscience is clear. To have sent General Gordon to Khartoum may have been a mistake, but if so it was a generous error; it was a policy which has entailed on us heavy sacrifices, but of which as a nation we have at least no cause to be ashamed. But what is our policy now? According to the instructions communicated to Lord Wolseley, "the primary object of the expedition up the Valley of the Nile is to bring away General Gordon and Colonel Stewart from Khartoum. When that object has been secured no further offensive operations of any kind are to be undertaken." Now, why should we not adhere to the policy thus laid down? If we now undertake offensive operations, will it not be said, and said naturally, that the safety of General Gordon and Colonel Stewart cannot really have been our primary object?

Would not the most consistent and dignified course be that, the main object of the expedition having been to save General Gordon and Colonel Stewart, and that being now unfortunately impossible, we should confine ourselves to the protection of the peaceful inhabitants of the Nile Valley against any attack from the south; to decide at once on the limits which are to constitute the permanent frontiers of Egypt; to announce this by proclamation, stating at the same time that while we had no desire to attack the tribes beyond that limit, or to interfere with their right of self-government, any attack by them would be resisted by the whole powers of England?

If, however, we are going to interfere with the Soudanese at all, let us at least be sure that the sacrifices we make, are likely to benefit them; whereas, I fear, that the course on which we seem to be now entering is one which will entail severe suffering on both countries— alike on England and on the Soudan. JOHN LUBBOCK.

*Mr. Gladstone in reply to Sir S. Northcote, February, 1885. + General Gordon. Blue Book, Egypt, No. 7, 1884. Mr. Gladstone, May, 1884. § Lord Hartington, February, 1884. Ibid., February, 1884.

¶ Mr. Gladstone, February, 1884.