Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1885-06-05
Gordon's ApneaIs

ror, rage, are the feelings which invol-
unfairly crowd upon each other upon
first reading these pitiful appeals and
indignant remonstranccs. They seem
at first sight like a voice from the
dead taxing false friendship with
treachery that has produced murder;
they seem TO imply the giving up of
hope, and to convict the Government
of all the indecision, weakness and
dishonest Indifference that its enemies
nave charged against it, And if no
sober second thought comes TO alter
judgment, the Liberal Ministry of Eng
land Will go down under crushing
weight OF public odium, however it
may be bolstered up for time by
party prejudice and political interests
in Parliament.
1t is not safe TO predict, however,
that the second thought will not alter
judgment. 1t is probable that the
worst has now been published, Glad
stone seems, in lofty defiance of his
opponents, TO have given them on the
eve of their assault upon him the
weapon that might damage him most
all the more dangerous because Cor
Con's words are taken from their con-
text, and are TO be read without any
regard to the circumstances of the
time, to GordOn's instructions, to his
peculiar temperament. or TO the then
purposes aud preparations of his Gov
eminent.
A great deal of the criticism of the
Gladstone ministry in this matter. is
based on the false assumption that the
NJ IN lat, 10
everything Gordon asked that the
promise of support meant that he was
to be encouraged to do what it Whs
expressly ordered should not be done.
1t ought to he well understood by this
time that Gordon WAS sent TO the Sou
dan to get out the garrisons if he
could, and TO return il he could not
The peaceful object of his mission was
so well understood by him that he even
felt it necessary to suggest that If the
garrisons were attacked il might be
prudent to do more than simply re-
sist. But Gordon had more trouble
than he anticipated, and though he
succeeded in sending out some 5000
soldiers and non-combatants, his mis-
sion was a virtual failure. The Brit
sh government had intended TO as
sumo no further responsibility than
this, and it was blunder TO assume
even that The subsequent entangle-
ments have been brought about by
Gordon's own stubbornness. The
simple fact is that when he found he
could not relieve Khartoum' peacefully,
", he endeavored to force the nation
to do it with violence, througlrhis
chivalric devotion 20 a crowd of falla-
heen and Nubians, who, as one of the
governments harshest military critics
has said, and as events has since
shown, would as soon remain in the
Soudan with the Mahdi as return 10
Egypt. Gordon failed to establish
government in the Soudan, independ-
ent of both Egypt and the Mahdi. but
instead of coming away rs he was or
dered to do, and as he might have
done even as late as the last of July,
he stuck stubbornly TO his determine
ton to "smash the Mahdi.
These were the circumstances under
which these dispatches of Gordon's
were sent. and which led the British
Government into a war which IL had
resolved to avoid. Read in the light
of these facts, it will be seen that Cor
don's bitterness Is not caused by any
feeling of personal desertion. On the
contrary, he emphatically refuses TO
admit-what all the world knows
that Wolseley's expedition was sent to
rescue him especially. In his view it
was to suppress this rebellion's evil
consequences" it was always TO
"smash the Mahdi," whom England
had no particular reason for smashing.
These dispatches, on the whole, then,
do not convict the British Government
of insincerity. Their dates indicate
that when tnev were written the troops
were already in Africa or being pre-
pared for the journey, though Gordon
did not know it. Moreover they re-
lieve Wolseley from the sharp criti-
cism of his action in choosing the Nile
route, since it seems he followed Cor
don's advice in this respect. They
pile odium upon him, however, if it
was he who changed Gordon's last
piteous wall into an expression of
buoyant confidence; and they will
more strongly than ever convince the
world of his self-complacent stupidity
in dividing his forces in the face of adj
vice and appeal from the man who
alone knew the strength of the enemy
TO be encountered. st Louis Globe
Democrat.