Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1885 — RUSSO-BRITISH WAR QUESTION. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RUSSO-BRITISH WAR QUESTION.

The statement of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons shows that the question ofwar between England and Russia hangs upon the accuracy of Gen. Komaroff s official report of his recent encountei with the Afghans. That the reader may have a clear understanding of the point at issue it is necessary to rdfer to the Russian statement In his dispatch to the Government Gen. Komaroff states that the 2-sth oi March as he approached Dashkapri he came upon an Afghan intrenchment, and to avoid a conflict stationed his forces three miles away from their position. The next day he commenced negotiations with the English officers who,Fere with the Afghans. The latter, finding that they were not attacked, daily drew nearer to the Russians, until the 2fith Gen. Komaroff notified them

to evacuate the left bank of the Kooshk, which they were occupying contrary to agreement. This they refused to do, upon the advice, as they averred, of the English officers. Gen. Komaroff then moved toward them, hoping that they wonld retire, but instead of that they opened fire on him and compelled him to accept combat, the result of which is known. It is sufficient to say that the Afghans went back in a hurry. If this statement is correct the Russians were clearly in the right and were justified in driving the Afghans back; and it is on the correctness of this statement that the war question now hangs. The reports thus far received from the Engish and Russian officers are ' conflicting. In order to get at the facts from an official k source the English Government has telegraphed Gen, KomarofFs statement to Sir Peter Lumsden, with instructions to make his report as early as possible and to inform the Government as to the correctness of the Russian General’s statement. Pending the receipt of an answer, of course, no action wifi be taken. Don’t try to do too much., A Milwaukee mam undertook to make his wife leant to eat with her fork the other,4ay, and 'now he wears a beefsteak on his eye. The pathway of the reformer has always been a good deal like Jordan. ’ The last three Lord Chancellors of England have all been Sunday-school teachers. ~ Blessed is the bachelor pastor, for donation parties troubleth him not. A contented mind is better thwq money in a savings bank.

Union Soldiers and Office. The News of this city has a very unkind and nnjust criticism on the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Veteran Association, and kindred army organizations. It inveighs against these associations because they ask a fair and proper recognition of the military services of their members in the matter of official patronage. A few years ago it was very properly conceded by all parties in the North that, other things being equal, the fact that a candidate for office had been a Union soldier was to be taken to his advantage over a candidate who had not been a soldier. This.was right and proper then, and it is right and proper now. The man who volunteered in the service of his country as a soldier had. and has, a superior claim to recognition at the hands of the people, in the bestowal of benefits, to the man who remained at home. The man who volunteered to serve his country at sl3 or sl6 a month, leaving behind him the comforts and qniet of home, encountering the perils of the march, the camp, and of battle, has certainly a superior claim to favor over the mm who sat by his fireside and read of these things in the daHy papers. Few, if any, men went into the army to make money. They entered the service from patriotic motives, and to them should be accorded all proper benefits the people have the power to grant as favors. The New# says: “ The generation twenty years ago took their lives in their hands and went to the front because it was duty, not because of what there was to be made out of it. But this demand of offices in recognition of what ‘we ’ have done, and because ‘we ’ did it, is a bid for the judgment that patriotism is beginning to have a market price attached to it.” It is true the men went into the army as a matter of patriotism, “or duty,” but the duty was alike to all, the man who went as to the man who did not go. Therefore the man who wept for the welfare of bis country has a superior claim to the man who did not go. But it is not true that they claim a price for their patriotism. They only ask the recognition that every man was willing to grant them at the time of their enlistment. It very ill becomes the man who remained at home in the r>eace and quiet of his fireside, or who, being too young to go, or who for any other reason did not go, to say that the soldier has no superior claim for official recognition on the country. The soldier has a superior claim, and it should be recognized by a'l men and by all parties. Those army associations are not party associations; hut if they were, why might they not be so in the North as they are in the South? No man in the South, or of the South, can get an office unless he was a Confederate soldier. The Southern man who was not only a secessionist, but a Confederate soldier as well, could not, since the war, have received the vote of the lords of the South. Service in the Confederate army has been a prerequisite for all candidates. The troth is, the soldiers of the Union have been self-denying in their demand for office. There has not been an election in the North since the war closed at which Federal soldiers have not voted for men who were not in the army. How times have changed since the close of the war! Mr. Lamar, the present Secretary of the Interior, who has the final decision of all questions relating to the granting of pensions to Union soldiers, was not only a Confederate soldier, but he resigned his place in tie Congress of the United Stales to become a Confederate officer; and he has,within the past few weeks, been not only the apologist for Jefferson Davis, bat his eulogist and champion. More than fifty Confederate brigadier-gen-erals were members of the last House of Representatives, and every member of the United States Senate from the States lately in rebellion was either in the rebel army or the rebel Congress. These are the men who, with the doughfaces of the North, make the laws for the loyal soldiers of the Nation, and who pass upon their pensions and the bills in which they have an interest. It ill becomes any man in the North, or of the North, to complain that Union soldiers hold their camp-fires, have their army organizations and their reunions. It is, the most natural thing in the world that they should have them. Has the time alretdy come when the Union soldier mast apologize for the part he took in the war?— Indianapolis Journal.

GEN. KOMAEOFF.