The Afghan War had been more skilfully managed. The British invaders overcame all resistance, and when Parliament assembled General Stewart was in possession of Candahar, and Shere Ali had fled from Cabul. Soon afterwards he died, and his heir, Yakoob, came with his submission to the British camp at Gundamuk. There, on the 25th of May, he signed a Treaty which bound the Indian Government to give him a subsidy of £60,000 a year and defend him against his enemies, in return for which he ceded the “scientific frontier,” and agreed to manage his foreign policy in accordance with the advice of a British Resident who was to be received in Cabul. This gleam of success neutralised the effect of the reverses in South Africa, and both Houses voted their thanks to the Indian Viceroy and to the Generals who had carried out the expedition. The Government had no difficulty in persuading Parliament to sanction a loan of £2,000,000 without interest to India, to enable her to pay the expenses of the campaign. In fact, when the Session closed Ministers were jubilant at having upset the predictions of the experienced Anglo-Indians, who had declared that it was impossible to keep a British Resident at Cabul. They assured the nation not only that the British Resident was there, but that the Cabulees were delighted to receive him. The severe winter of 1879 aggravated the distress which had settled like a blight on the labouring and trading classes, and the existence of which Ministers attempted to ignore. They were, indeed, so ill-advised as to propose a grant of money for the relief of the Turks, who were enduring great sufferings in the Rhodope district. But some of the Tory borough Members threatened to rebel if this project were persisted in, and it was withdrawn. The programme of domestic legislation was long and ambitious, and Ministers very properly began the Session by an attempt to guard against obstruction. They carried a rule which prevented any amendment from being made to the motion that the Speaker of the House of Commons leave the Chair on going into Committee of Supply on Monday nights. This enabled a Minister who came to explain his Estimates to do so at once, because it prevented private Members from interposing, between him and the Committee, with long and irrelevant debates on real and imaginary grievances. The chief measure of the Session was a Bill to consolidate the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War--a measure which still further extended the Parliamentary control of the Army by incorporating these Articles into an Act of Parliament. It was read a second time on the 7th of April; but when it went into Committee it attracted the attention of Mr. Parnell and his followers. Mr. Parnell now appeared in the character of a British patriot and philanthropist who took an absorbing interest in perfecting the discipline of the Army and in ameliorating the condition of the private soldier. As in [Illustration: BAVENO, ON LAGO MAGGIORE.]