Fawcett denounced at Bethnal Green, and again at Hackney, the underhand conduct of the Indian Government towards the Amir, and demanded that Parliament should be summoned. He argued from the opinions of high authorities that an occupation of the capital city, Cabul, would involve an intolerable burden upon Indian finances. When Parliament met to approve the expenditure incurred in Afghanistan, Fawcett, seconded by Mr. Gladstone, proposed that the cost of the war should not be thrown upon India. Once more he was defending the Indian tax-payer. He complained that when it was a question of declaring war, the Government had boasted that they were carrying out a great Imperial policy; when it was a question of paying for the war, they represented it as a mere border squabble. The course adopted by Government was unpopular, because it was marked by meanness and ‘entire absence of generosity.’ He declared that his constituents at Hackney would prefer to pay their fair share of the expense. His motion was rejected by 235 to 125. Fawcett returned to the charge in the next session, when a financial arrangement was proposed for apportioning the burden between England and India. Fawcett, in criticising, showed that India would have to pay twice as much as England. He was again seconded by Gladstone, but was again unsuccessful. [Sidenote: Gladstone’s Faith in Fawcett’s knowledge.] A story told of Fawcett at this time shows how real was the respect for his knowledge and exactness. He was staying at a week-end house-party in the country. Gladstone was there, and said to him, ‘What do you think of the news of Afghanistan? I have not read the papers and I have a speech to make on the subject. I have been at the Corpus Christi library, looking at the Parker manuscripts, comparing the 39 Articles, so that I have had no time.’ Fawcett told him about the Afghanistan conditions so fully and accurately that Gladstone, without having any further information, made a long and most telling speech about them in Parliament. The importance to Gladstone of the Parker manuscript as compared with the Afghanistan complications is highly characteristic; we can imagine Fawcett’s amusement that Gladstone should become absorbed in an academic question of theological punctilio, for such it would seem to him, when there was such really vital matters at issue. Before Parliament met again, Fawcett had accepted his appointment as Postmaster-General on condition that he would be free ‘to take part in Indian debates.’ But the great demands made on his time left little energy for other matters. [Sidenote: A Mistake of Nine Million Pounds, no one to blame.]