that may lead to war."(119)

It is also, if not one of the necessities, at least one of the natural
probabilities of our imperfect condition, that when a nation has its
forces engaged in war, that is the moment when other nations may press
inconvenient questions of their own. Accordingly, as I have already
mentioned, when Egyptian distractions were at their height, a dangerous
controversy arose with Russia in regard to the frontier of Afghanistan.
The question had been first raised a dozen years before without effect,
but it was now sharpened into actuality by recent advances of Russia in
Central Asia, bringing her into close proximity to the territory of the
Ameer. The British and Russian governments appointed a commission to lay
down the precise line of division between the Turcoman territory recently
annexed by Russia and Afghanistan. The question of instructions to the
commission led to infinite discussion, of which no sane man not a
biographer is now likely to read one word. While the diplomatists were
thus teasing one another, Russian posts and Afghan pickets came closer
together, and one day (March 30, 1885) the Russians broke in upon the
Afghans at Penjdeh. The Afghans fought gallantly, their losses were heavy,
and Penjdeh was occupied by the Russians. "Whose was the provocation," as
Mr. Gladstone said later, "is a matter of the utmost consequence. We only
know that the attack was a Russian attack. We know that the Afghans
suffered in life, in spirit, and in repute. We know that a blow was struck
at the credit and the authority of a sovereign--our protected ally--who had
committed no offence. All I say is, we cannot in that state of things
close this book and say, 'We will look into it no more.' We must do our
best to have right done in the matter."

Here those who were most adverse to the Soudan policy stood firmly with
their leader, and when Mr. Gladstone proposed a vote of credit for eleven
millions, of which six and a half were demanded to meet "the case for
preparation," raised by the collision at Penjdeh, he was supported with
much more than a mechanical loyalty, alike by the regular opposition and
by independent adherents below his own gangway. The speech in which he
moved this vote of a war supply (April 27) was an admirable example both
of sustained force and lucidity in exposition, and of a combined firmness,
dignity, reserve, and right human feeling, worthy of a great minister
dealing with an interna