Parliament was prorogued on the 16th of August, and, amidst optimist anticipations of peace, an end was put to a Session in which the House of Commons, for the first time in the century, had permitted itself to be treated by the Ministry like a Bonapartist _Corps Législatif_. When it adjourned many people wondered why it had been summoned. In the stirring crises of the year the Government had on every momentous occasion carried out their policy without consulting it. The legislative work that it was allowed to do might have been deferred for another year without serious inconvenience. It had been converted into a court of registration for the decisions of a Minister who treated it as an ornamental appendage to a new system in which the Monarch and the Multitude, under his guidance, were the only real governing forces. Ministers, however, when they went down to their constituents in the autumn, and told them to hope for peace, plenty, and
[Illustration: SHERE ALI, AMEER OF CABUL.]
reduced taxation, did not apparently know that a cunning trap had been set for them by Russia. Before Parliament rose there were rumours afloat that the policy of the Indian Government was becoming restless and disquieting. Lord Lytton had put the vernacular Press under a harsh censorship. The native Princes were threatened, or they expected to be threatened, with a demand for the reduction of their armies. A frontier policy of perilous adventure was mooted, greatly to the alarm of experienced Indian officials like Lord Lawrence.