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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6998, 22 April 1884, Page 4

Generai Gobdox ia evidently disgusted with, the action, or lather inaction, of the British Government. According to our telegrams to-day he has telegraphed to the authorities in Downing-street that henceforth he will act on his own responsibility in the affairs of the Soudan. In the case of any other officer of the British Government such. a communication would be regarded as a piece of unwarrantable presumption, and would unquestionably lead "to his immediate recall.- "Wβ do not anticipate that it will lead to any such result in General Gordon's case. Hβ is not a man to-be judged by ordinary rules, and in sending him to Khartoum the Government no doubt reckoned on having to put. up with many things that in other men they would not have tolerated. Nevertheless, it is evident -they cannot altogether acquiesce in the independent, stand which he has taken up. He is their accredited agent, and so long as he continues to be so they must accept responsibility for his actions. No one will dispute : —no one can dispute—that he is incomparably the beet Judge of what ought to be done in the Soudan. The "ill-informed Europe," of which he once spoke, is scarcely the most competent authority to control his actions. But it is something altogether new for an officer of the British Government to claim independence of action irrespective of the policy or instructions of hie Government, j \Ye confess, however, to a good deal of sympathy with General Gordon. His position calls for independent action ; and his instructions while not going the length of giving him absolute carte blanche, left him with considerable discretionary powers. But his repudiation of extraneous control is somewhat startling all the same. Read in connection with his letter ,to Sir Samuel Baker his action is not.altogether inexcusable. His position at Khartoum is precarious in the - extreme.- .Ho has -only-five hundred reliable troops. The city is surrounded by the rebels, far outnumbering his scanty force. Hβ has applied for assistance, but his appeals have beea unheeded. He went to the Soudan to secure the safety of the Egyptian garrisons in that country, and to devise the best means of effecting their retreat. But he can do nothing without an army ; and those who sent him to Khartoum refuse to provide him with an army. He now appeals to private .individuals possessing wealth to enable him to carry out the mission on which Her Majesty's Government despatched him. We know nothing more humiliating in the history of England ths>n this.. •