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862 lency himself shuffled out of the country, leaving behind to his successor, Lord Lytton, a newly-brewed quarrel with the Ameer, and Russian influences in full play in the Cabul durbar. No one can read Lord Salisbury's secret despatches, Nos. 19 and 34 of 1875, without an assured conviction that if Lord Northbrook had loyally carried out the orders contained in these, the Afghan war would have been avoided, the Russian advance checked before it reached Merv, and all our present troubles consequently obviated.

The dealings of her Majesty's Ministers direct with the Court of St Petersburg concerning Central Asian aggression show the same party features, – Liberal statesmen minimising each successive encroachment, and implicitly accepting Russia's assurances that she had been driven onward against her will; that extension of territory was to her extension of weakness, and that under no conceivable circumstances would she be induced to further extend her dominions; Conservative Ministers sharply criticising every forward move, and striving to exact guarantees as to the ultimate limits Russia had in contemplation. Conservative tenure of power was thus made to coincide with a season of secret preparation among the Russians in Central Asia; the advent to office of the Liberals was the signal for the actual spring. While Lord Granville was at the Foreign Office during Mr Gladstone's first Government, the impression which his despatches to St Petersburg, and his conversations with Count Brunnow, must have left upon the Russian Government was, that his party took no more than a mere diplomatic interest in the advance towards Khiva, and that all they wanted was to be kept informed as to the course of events. And yet the seizure of Khiva, Colonel Llamakin's circular to the tribes of the Attrek and Goorgan, informing them that the Czar had appointed him to exercise supreme authority over them, and the pioneer work of those surveys which carried Russia up to the confines of her present position, were all incidents of that time which came more or less distinctly under the cognisance of the Liberal Foreign Secretary. When the Conservatives assumed office, all these events were reviewed in a sharper tone, which left the Russian Ministers under no doubt that their proceedings were now viewed with more distrust, and in a less friendly spirit, by the English Government. It must, however, be admitted that the decided, although moderate, opinions of Mr Disraeli, and the strong representations of the Marquis of Salisbury, the head of the India Office, met with an inadequate response from Lord Derby, who was all along the weak joint in the Conservative Cabinet. Yet even Lord Derby foresaw that a movement by the Attrek must ultimately lead as far as Merv; and he warned the Russian ambassador that England would regard an encroachment in that direction as menacing to her interests. On the 12th March 1875, the Foreign Secretary had a long conversation with Count Schouvaloff on this subject, and cautioned him that "an advance of British troops westward was probable in the event of any Russian movement tending to the occupation of Merv." "He," says Lord Derby, "quite saw the danger that might arise if the two Powers were brought face to face in the neighbourhood of Herat. 'Was he justified,' he asked, 'in assuming that our action in this matter would depend on that