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noble friend (Lord Beaconsfield) once said, but I say distinctly there is not room for England and Russia in Afghanistan. The noble earl (Earl Grey) who, when a Russian mission is received at Cabul, can anticipate the lapse of 50 or 100 years bebefore the question of danger to India can arise, is indeed a consistent advocate of masterly inactivity. Were we to blind ourselves to facts as he does, we might hear, when it was too late, the warning cry in our very chambers, "The Philistines be upon you;" and although in our struggles we might then bring ruin upon others, we should also bring it certainly upon ourselves. (Cheers.) The Russian mission having been received at Cabul, the Viceroy sent a message to the Ameer demanding the admission of a friendly mission, coupling with it a letter of condolence couched in the most proper terms on the death of his Highness's heir Abdoolah Jan. My lords, there is in the East no greater insult than to delay an answer to a letter of condolence. But it was long before that letter was answered, and to the native mind in India the delay was an insult of a character which would in itself have justified hostilities. (Murmurs.) I say in the native mind of India. I do not mean to say it would have justified hostilities from the European point of view, nor was it so regarded by us. Anybody who has been connected with India, even so short a time as I have been, knows;how differently from ourselves the Eastern mind views transactions of this kind. Well, my lords, we demanded the admission of a friendly mission; we insisted upon it; and we have been told that this was an outrage to the Ameer. It so happens, however, that this is not the first time we have insisted upon things with the Ameer. The noble earl himself, on one occasion, thought proper to insist upon the admission of an envoy of his own to Afghanistan. A great deal has been said in this country about the "independence" of Afghanistan, but the word on English lips as applied to Afghanistan is absurd and misleading. Afghanistan has constantly been asking our protection. The noble earl himself has admitted that it is impossible to interpret neutrality in a strict sense in relation to Afghanistan. And how did he view the question of "insistance" when it arose? "When we had reason to suppose," he writes,
