The Friend of India and Statesman Friday May 10th 1878

The grounds for hoping that the present negotiations may be successful are the real reluctance of the Russian Government to engage iu a second war and the consciousness of the English Government that the beet public opinion of the nation is opposed to war. [...] There is no Parliament in India in which the reprsentatives of the people may challenge the conduct of the Executive Government and in which the Govermnent may reply to the satisfaction of the country. [...] In the middle of October last Colonel Fraser the Secretary to the Government of the North-West in the Public Works Department made the second tour that Sir George Cooper speaks of to all the Commissionerships in the provinces. [...] The calling out of the Reserves simultaneously with the publcation of the despatch gave to the whole proceeding the appeaance of a threat which rendered doubly difficult a concession on the part of Russia and therefore indefinitely enhanced the chances of a collision. [...] What General Strachey and his colleagues have to do it seems is to ascertain the precise mortality that has attended the famines of the last two years and to find out whether the people died on the relief-works or in their villages ! What the Commission really has to do is to ascertain the causes of the abject poverty of the people under our rule and to point out torus the means of their red