Since that time false
telegrams about the entry of the Russian army into Constantinople have
been sent home to disturb, and paralyse, and reverse the deliberations
of Parliament, and have actually stopped these deliberations, and
led experienced statesmen to withhold their action because of this
intelligence, which was afterwards, and shortly afterwards, shown to
be wholly without ground. Who invented that false intelligence I
do not know, and I do not say. All I say is, that it was sent from
Constantinople. It was telegraphed in the usual manner; it was
published in the usual manner; it was available for a certain purpose.
I can no more say who invented it than I can say who invented the
telegram that came to Paris about the King of Prussia and the French
ambassador; but the intelligence came, and it was false intelligence.
That was not the only, nor was it the most important case. You
remember--I am now carrying your recollections back to the time of
the outbreak of the war with Afghanistan, and if you recollect the
circumstances of that outbreak, at the most critical moment we were
told that the Ameer of Afghanistan had refused to receive a British
Mission with insult and with outrage, and that insult and outrage were
represented as at once enlisting our honour and reputation in the
case, as making it necessary to administer immediate chastisement. I
do not hesitate to express my full belief that without that statement
the war with Afghanistan would not have been made, would not have
been tolerated, by the country; but it was difficult, considering the
nature of our Indian Empire, considering how it is dependent upon
opinion in Asia, and upon the repute of strength, it was difficult to
interfere strongly--indeed.
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