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At a Meeting of the Afghan Committee, held at the Westminster Palace Hotel on Wednesday, November 27, 1878-Lord LAWRENCE in the Chair; Mr. FAWCETT, M.P., Vice-Chairman, being also present-the following resolution was unanimously adopted :

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'That a Sub-Committee be appointed to prepare an abstract of the Papers on the Afghan and Central Asian Questions which are about to be presented to Parliament.'

The following work is the result of the labours of the Sub-Committee, most of whom it may be stated are gentlemen of extensive Indian experience, official and otherwise.

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PREFACE.

THE object of this publication is to help our countrymen to understand by what steps they have been involved in war with the Afghan nation, and what grounds are assigned for that war by its authors. Under ordinary circumstances such a Work would hardly be necessary after debates in Parliament upon the official papers. But the circumstances are not ordinary. The war was sprung upon us with great suddenness. Not only was there no consultation of Parliament by our Government, no communication to that body of any change of policy tending to involve us in a quarrel, but, when questions were asked on the subject, the answers given were calculated to mislead, and did mislead, the most skilled officials and experts, and, through them, the whole nation. In August 1878 Parliament was prorogued with no suspicion that war was impending. Some papers respecting Central Asian affairs had been promised, to be ready in a few days; but the important dealings with Afghanistan had been so effectually concealed, that no motion had been made for papers on that subject. In the midst of the autumn recess we heard that we were on the brink of war; not by official

notification, not by any proposal to summon Parliament, but through newspaper correspondents. For some weeks the only official utterances which reached the nation were veiled, though hardly veiled, under the guise of telegrams from the Indian Correspondent of the Times, breathing an ardent spirit for war; though whether these telegrams represented only the views of the Viceroy of India, or those of the Home Government also, was not then known. To the same Ministerial paper there was also communicated an official Memorandum by Sir Bartle Frere, by whom and Sir Henry Rawlinson the new policy has apparently been suggested; and this led to some further publications of the same kind. But of official notification by the Government to the public, there was for a long while none; even the promised Central Asian papers were withheld; we knew that we were about to be dragged into war, but for what cause, whether to avenge an insult, or to repel aggressions of the Russians, or to enlarge our boundaries, we were left in ignorance.

The earliest utterance on the subject which openly bore any official character was a speech by the Prime Minister at the Guildhall, on November 9, which treated the subject very briefly and lightly, and spoke only of the improvement of our frontier as being the purpose of the war. Under these grave circumstances the Afghan Committee was formed and supported, entirely irrespective of party politics, and by persons belonging to different parties or unconnected with party. They addressed the Government on November 18, for two objects; one being the production of papers, and the other the assemblage of the representatives of the nation at a time when they might exercise a substantial, and not a

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