MUCH has been made of an alleged contrast in tone between the remarkable speech of April 27 and that in which, on the following Monday, Mr. Gladstone announced the agreement "between the two Governments to refer the Penjdeh question to arbitration, and it has been contended that the terms of the reference to arbitration, so far as they could be gathered from his second speech, were very different from what his first speech had led the country to suppose that he and his colleagues meant to insist on. That a statesman should adopt a different tone at a moment when he believes that the imminent peril of war has passed away from that which he used when he believed that there was hardly any chance of averting that peril, is not very remarkable. But with respect to the exact nature of the question on which a friendly Sovereign is to be asked to pronounce judgment, fairness to Her Majesty's Government demands that it should be observed that so far back as April 23 Lord Granville had informed Sir Edward Thornton that the desire of the British Government "was not for an inquiry into General Komaroffs conduct, but to ascertain whether what took place was in accordance with the Agreement of March 16." In disclaiming, therefore, any desire to "put gallant officers on their trial," Mr. Gladstone, on May 4, was not really indicating any retreat from the position which in their language to the Russian Government the British Cabinet had held on and prior to April 27. We should all have been glad if certain officers -- Colonel Alikhanoff, for example, as well as General Komaroff -- could have been put on their trial. The Blue Books place the conduct of that person in a light as unfavourable as that which they shed upon the proceedings of Sir Peter Lumsden and his colleagues in their most arduous mission, is favourable. But when all is said, it will remain to the credit of Her Majesty's Government that they have secured the acquiescence of the Russian Emperor in an impartial inquiry into the interpretation which he placed upon a solemn international covenant, and for that they deserve, and will receive, the frank acknowledgments of a fair-judging country.
Leeds Mercury, June 3.
Central Asia 1885
Central Asia 1885
Table of Contents
Miracles of healing - Christian Miracles or Healing
History of Russia: Christian Versus Barbarian
History of Japan: Early Christian Martyrs
The Jesus of History
The Assyrian Origin of Devil Worshippers
The Christ Of Dogma
The early history of Constantinople
