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New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6149, 2 August 1881, Page 4

Mr. Gladstone is an instance of how splendid talents, a spotless character, and great oratorial gifts, will enable their possessor to triumph over difficulties -which -would destroy the reputation of an inferior man. When the great political chieftain . who now enthrals his countrymen has passed away it will be a matter of great astonishment that a Ministry known chiefly for its failures should have succeeded in retaining the reins of office. Whatever the aims ol: tha Premier of England his external policy seems one consolidated ignominy. In the Transvaal an ignorant, besotted race has had but to raise a cry of nationality to succeed in obscuring all the evils which caused its deprivation of independence, and wash out its brutal usage of the natives and of that thing most distasteful to all but the most debased slavery. The Boers have murdered British officers, Boer juries have found them not guilty, everywhere the Boer has been an oppressor where he had the power, and so they have been restored' an independence which they only abused when they possessed it. And now we have a tale from South Afghanistan which is a further reflection on the policy of the Gladstone Government. The British placed Abdurrahman Khan on the throne of Kabul. To enable him to unite under his sceptre all the portions of his kingdom, the Uritish troops -were ordered to abandon. Kandahar, which was handed over to the Ameer's representatives. The Indian Government remonstrated, begged at least for delay. It had to yield to imperative instructions, and the Indian troops are scarcely within their own frontier when a telegram—that which we published yesterday—announces the defeat of the Ameer's troops, the success of Ayoub Khan, who defeated General Burrows, and was defeated by General Roberts. Against this Ayoub Khan the Indian troops held Kandahar, by this time he has probably gained possession of it, and shortly may follow the intelligence that he is marching on Kabul. The whole of British policy in Afghanistan has gone by the board, because statesmanship has been superseded by political fanaticism. The Indian troops have scarcely settled down in their cantonments, and already a great portion of them are ordered back to the frontier. It may not matter much who rules in Afghanistan, Abdurrahman or Ayoub Khan, but the British people must hare strangely changed of late if it can regard with complacency the success of a chief who defeated one of its armies, and the waste of all that was achieved by the successes of Generals Roberts and Stewart, and the expenditure of some nineteen millions of money. Had the British troops remained at Kandahar Abdurrahman Khan could have taken over the place when his power was established. As it is only half established at Kabul he has had to fight for Kandahar, and lost it. So long as Mr. Gladstone lives the Liberals may tolerate the disastrous consequences of his policy, but the party will have greatly changed in character if the result of that policy be not to greatly ■weaken its cohesion.