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it would have given Lord Lytton the means of ascertaining what was going on in Afghanistan, what the feelings of the Ameer really were towards us, and of communicating to him what our feelings were towards him. The mission was rejected. Why was it rejected? There had been nothing in the conduct of Lord Lytton to cause the Ameer apprehension. He had taken no step to weaken the friendly feeling which had before existed between the Ameer and the Lidian Government. The only reference to affairs which the Ameer considered objectionable related to Khelat, but that referred to what had been done, and rightly done, not by Lord Lytton but by the noble earl, the previous Viceroy, with a view to get Beloochistan into something like good order. The Ameer states in his letter of the 19th of November, that a friendly mission is always received. But when Lord Lytton proposed it he rejected a friendly mission, and why? Because there was rankling in his mind all that had previously taken place and to which I have referred, and he said so. He was written to again and told how foolish he was to take such a course, and then he suggested that he should send to the Viceroy our own native envoy in order that he should state what was the real state of things in Cabul. My lords, I cannot conceive anything more conciliatory than Lord Lytton's reception of that message, of which it might be said that it was not very complimentary that the Ameer, who had refused to receive our mission, should suggest that he should send our own envoy to confer with the Viceroy. (Hear, hear.) But Lord Lytton did not object; he concurred in the suggestion in the most conciliatory manner. My lords, the noble earl (Lord Granville) the other night complained of the language of Lord Lytton, but that language was used to his own confidential officer—it was spoken in confidence, and was only an expression of his own feelings. Well, our native envoy came down. He was one of those gentlemen who were relied on for information from Cabul, but it was found very difficult to squeeze information out of him. It could only be obtained by degrees. It was manifest, however, from more than one circumstance, that nothing had been sent from Cabul but what the Ameer wished; that the native envoys were obliged to show
