“ WHAT SHALL WE DO 1 ” 69 These things being so, Gordon shall be relieved, this was now the deter¬ mination of the Government—a determination not hastily arrived at, nor blatantly announced. What was meant by the relief of Gordon must now occupy our attention.

It is only after the lapse of a comparatively long space of time that the facts of history can be viewed in their true light. To the foreign policy of a government this rule especially applies, and more particularly to the foreign policy of the Court of St. James. Little is known—nothing positively—out¬ side the cabinet of the intentions of the Government. Even blue-books give only facts, not motives, and refer only to particular parts of operation. We have not come to the end of the story yet ; and till the last chapter is finished the preface must remain unwritten. If we recognize this we shall exercise caution in dealing with, or forming opinions on, England’s present relations with Egypt and the Soudan. We are not far enough advanced in the history of the contention with the Mahdi and the pacification of the Soudan to be able to formulate accurately what is or has been the true end in view in the determination to despatch troops for the “ relief of General Gordon.” We must be careful also not to be led away by the superficial meaning which attaches to this phrase. We know that these were the words oftenest in the mouths of all speakers on the question ; we know they were used with great effect upon the occasion of the vote of censure ; and we know that the expe¬ dition the head-quarters of which are at this moment within easy reach of Khartoum, has been denominated the “relief expedition.” But we need not therefore necessarily suppose that the fitting out of 10,000 men, and the spending of some 63,000,000 had only for their object the extricating of one individual from the hands of an enemy. It must be remembered that Gordon represented at Khartoum the Egyptian Government ; that he also bore in his own person, as it were, the concrete embodiment of English supervision—to use no more definite language ; that the population and garrison of Khaitoum had been loyal to Gordon, and, through him, therefore, to the Khedive as against the Mahdi ; that promises of succour and support had been made this population and garrison ; that money had been borrowed from them with the Governor-General’s endorsement and the implied security of England ; that Khartoum was a town of unrivalled strategic importance ; that if it fell, the Soudan States would fall with it; that unless Egypt, or England through Egypt, held this commercial centre, no influence over slave traders could be exercised; that the abandoment of this place would virtually mean the aban¬ donment of the Soudanese to the new prophet ; and that such abandonment would draw in its train political, commercial, social, and religious eruptions the influence and ultimate outcome of which it is utterly impossible to con¬ jecture. If we bear these in mind, it will, I say, be with excessive c.ution