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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8970, 30 August 1892, Page 4

There is every likelihood that the first important question of foreign policy that Mr. Gladstone's new Ministry will be called upon to decide will be the relations of England to Afghanistan. The Russian advance on the western boundary of his country has naturally alarmed the Ameer, and he has appealed to the Indian Viceroy for assistance and advice, while the news of the aggressive action of General Yanofi's force has caused great ex citement throughout Afghanistan, and, indeed, the whole of the East. All eyes are now turned to the British Power, and it will depend upon the course pursued by the Gladstone Government whether our prestige is to be maintained in the eyes of our Mahommedan subjects or disastrously shattered. What should be done at once is to despatch Lord .Roberts with a sufficiently imposing military force to meet the Ameer in his own country if not in his own capital, and to make it clear to his subjects that England has no intention of allowing the integrity of Afghanistan to be threatened by Russia or any other power. Mr. Gladstone's previous policy in relation to Afghanistan does not, however, justify the hope that he will be found equal to the emergency that now presents itself. On the contrary there is cause to fear that he will permit things to drift, and that in consequence Abdurrahman will be driven into taking up a position of hostility towards the British in the same way that Shere Ali was, and with a similar result.