known that there was one rule, the violation of which any one acquainted with the government of India knew nothing could justify, and that was, the employment of the Company’s European troops in the collection of the revenue.  That rule is invariably laid down, and is invariably observed.  That, as your lordships must plainly see, is one of the errors that has been committed.  There is another point to which I wish to call your attention; it is this, that the country never had been occupied by an army as it ought to have been occupied.  With the north no practicable communication was maintained—­no practicable communications were kept up between Shikarpore, Candahar, and Ghuznee.  The passes were held only through the agency of banditti.  I do not blame the noble lord, but I blame the gentleman to whom the army was entrusted.  He seemed never to have looked at what had been done by former commanders in similar circumstances.  Any officer who has the command of an army ought to feel it to be his first duty to keep up a communication with his own country.  If such communication had been maintained, those disasters never would have befallen us—­they could not have happened.  This was one of the errors committed; but I do not say that the noble lord opposite is answerable for that error.  Not only was no communication kept up with the north, but none was kept up with the south.  Neither the Kojuck nor the Bolan pass was kept open.  Can that, my lords, be called a military communication?  Could such a state of things exist?  Why, was not this another error—­a gross error?  The noble lord opposite (Lord Auckland) had no more to do with this than I have.  Sir W. Macnaghten, the gentleman who perished, could not have been ignorant of what was done in other places.  He must have read the history of the Spanish war, and he must have recollected how the French conducted themselves in a similar situation; how they fortified the passes, and secured their communications.  But he was not an officer; the gentleman at the head of the army in Affghanistan was not an officer—­that was another error.”

That such errors existed is undeniable.  Lord Auckland says there were errors:—­

“With regard to the errors of the campaign, he conceived they rested with the military commanders, not with Sir W. Macnaghten; and if errors had been committed by Sir William, they must be shared between him and the more direct military commanders.”

Lord John Russell said,—­

“I have heard causes given, and upon very high authority, for these disasters; I have heard it stated that very great errors were committed—­that those errors consisted partly in not keeping up a communication by the straightest road between Cabul and Peshawar.  This may be just; these may be errors, but they are errors not necessary or in any way connected with the policy of entering into Affghanistan.  I may mention another circumstance—­that the expedition into Affghanistan was undertaken under