The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 48
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I have this day been favoured with a letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, containing explanations as to the reconstruction of the Civil Service Commission, and the appointment of Lord Hampton, which have not heretofore been made known to the world. They do not in any way affect my opinion of the proceedings in point of policy or of economy. But they satisfy me that the transaction need not, and therefore should not, be interpreted so as to carry the moral taint implied in the word "job." I therefore at once, and with pleasure, withdraw that word.
I observe with less satisfaction that a correspondent of the Globe newspaper, writing from Bath on the 9th, has been so unkind to Lord John Manners as to charge me with having wilfully misquoted him at Glasgow. I quoted him as having stated, in contradiction to Lord Cairns, that we made war upon the Ameer of Affghanistan because he refused to receive our mission. The statement was, says the correspondent, that he refused it "with insult and violence." But that statement is grossly and absolutely untrue as is now known from the Parliamentary papers. It was reserved for the champion of the Ministry, in his uninstructed eagerness, to exhibit him to the world as the author of such a statement, which, of course, greatly aggravates the case.
W. E. Gladstone.
Hawarden,Dec. 12, 1879.