=Source.=--_Hansard_, Third Series, vol. 294, col. 1311. (House of
Lords debate on Egypt, February 26, 1885.)
THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY: ... The conduct of Her Majesty's
Government has been an alternation of periods of slumber and
periods of rush, and the rush, however vehement, has always been
too unprepared and too unintelligent to repair the damage which
the period of slumber has effected.... The case of the bombardment
of Alexandria, the case of the abandonment of the Soudan, the
case of the mission of General Graham's force--they are all on
the same plan, and all show you that remarkable characteristic
of torpor during the time when action was needed, and hasty,
impulsive, ill-considered action when the time for action had
passed by. Their further conduct was modelled on their action in
the past. So far was it modelled that we were able to put it to the
test which establishes a scientific law. I should like to quote
what I said on the 4th of April, when discussing the prospect of
the relief of General Gordon. What I said was this: "Are these
circumstances encouraging to us when we are asked to trust that,
on the inspiration of the moment, when the danger comes, Her
Majesty's Government will find some means of relieving General
Gordon? I fear that the history of the past will be repeated in
the future; and just again, when it is too late, the critical
resolution will be taken; some terrible news will come that the
position of Gordon is absolutely a forlorn and hopeless one, and
then, under the pressure of public wrath and Parliamentary censure,
some desperate resolution of sending an expedition will be formed
too late to achieve the object which it is desired to gain." I
quote these words to show that by that time we had ascertained
the laws of motion and the orbits of those erratic comets who sit
on the Treasury Bench. Now the terrible responsibility and shame
rests upon the Government, because they were warned in March and
April of the danger to General Gordon, because they received every
intimation which men could reasonably look for that his danger
would be extreme, and because they delayed from March and April
right down to the 15th of August before they took a single measure
to relieve him. What were they doing all that time? It is very
difficult to conceive. What happened during those eventful months?
I suppose some day the memoirs will tell our grandchildren, but
we shall never know. Some people think there were divisions in
the Cabinet, and that after division on division a decision was
put off, lest the Cabinet be broken up. I am rather inclined to
think it was due to the peculiar position of the Prime Minister.
He came in as the apostle of the Midlothian campaign, loaded with
all the doctrines and all the follies of that pilgrimage. We have
seen on each occasion, after one of these mishaps, when he has been
forced by events and by the common sense of the nation to take some
active steps--we have seen his extreme supporters falling foul
of him, and reproaching him with having deserted their opinions
and disappointed the ardent hopes which they had formed of him as
the apostle of absolute negation in foreign affairs. I think he
has always felt the danger of that reproach. He always felt the
debt he had incurred to those supporters. He always felt a dread
lest they should break away; and he put off again and again to
the last practical moment any action which might bring him into
open conflict with the doctrine by which his present eminence was
gained. At all events, this is clear--that throughout those six
months the Government knew perfectly well the danger in which
General Gordon was placed. It has been said that General Gordon
did not ask for troops. I am surprised at that defence. One of
the characteristics of General Gordon was the extreme abnegation
of his nature. It was not to be expected that he should send
home a telegram to say, "I am in great danger, therefore send me
troops"--he would probably have cut off his right hand before
he would have sent a telegram of that sort. But he sent home
telegrams through Mr. Power, telegrams saying that the people of
Khartoum were in great danger; that the Mahdi would succeed unless
military succour was sent forward; urging at one time the sending
forward of Sir Evelyn Wood and his Egyptians, and at another the
landing of Indians at Suakin and the establishment of the Berber
route, and distinctly telling the Government--and this is the main
point--that unless they would consent to his views the supremacy of
the Mahdi was assured.... Well, now, my Lords, is it conceivable
that after two months, in May, the Prime Minister should have
said that they were waiting to have reasonable proof that Gordon
was in danger? By that time Khartoum was surrounded, the Governor
of Berber had announced that his case was hopeless, which was too
surely proved by the massacre which took place in June; and yet
in May Mr. Gladstone was still waiting for "reasonable proof"
that the men who were surrounded, who had announced that they had
only five months' food, were in danger.... It was the business
of the Government not to interpret General Gordon's telegrams
as if they had been statutory declarations, but to judge for
themselves of the circumstances of the case, and to see that those
who were surrounded, who were only three Englishmen among such a
vast body of Mohammedans, and who were already cut off from all
communications with the civilized world by the occupation of every
important town upon the river, were really in danger, and that if
they meant to answer their responsibilities they were bound to
relieve them. I cannot tell what blindness fell over the eyes of
some members of Her Majesty's Government....