The Press. — London, England, 1857-03-07 00:00:00

224 was responsible. But it was unjust, he added, to make at Hong Kong a scapegoat in the controversy. The aggressive policy which he had somewhat clumsily carried out was neither unknown to nor disapproved by the Government, who must be made answerable for transactions which had in his opinion tarnished the honour of England. Upon the high ground of natural justice, he considered the policy of England utterly indefensible. We had broken our treaty obligations, organised a fleet ot smugglers, and crowned our misdeeds by burning and bombarding a city in order to secure entrance for our envoy. It was maintained that there was no war with China, but what was there?— There is hostility. There is bloodshed. There is a trampling down of the weak by the strong. There is the terrible and abominable retaliation of the weak upon the strong. You are now occupied in this house by revolting and harrowing details about a Chinese baker who poisoned bread, by proclamations for the capture of British heads, and the waylaying of a postal steamer. And these things you think strengthen your case. Why, they deepen your guilt. (Loud cheers.) War taken at the best is a fright ful scourge to the human race, but because it is so the wisdom of ages has surrounded it with strict laws and usages, and has required formalities to be observed which shall act us a curb upon the wild passions of man, to prevent thatscourge from being let loose unless under circumstances of full deliberation and from absolute necessity. You have dispense,' with all these precautions. You have turned a consul into a diplomatist, and that metamorphosed consul is forsooth to be at liberty to direct the whole might of England against the head of a defenceless people. (Cheers.) While war is a scourge and curse to man it is yet attended with certain compensations. It is attended with acts of heroic self-sacrifice and of unbounded daring. It is ennobled by a consciousness that you are meeting equals in the field,and that while you challenge the issue of life or death you at least enter into a fair encounter. liut you go to China and make war upon those who stand be. fore you as women or children. (Cheers.) They try to resist you ; they call together their troops; they load their guns; they kill one and wound another in action, but while they are doing so you perhaps slay thousands. They are unable to meet you in the field. You have no equality of ground on which to meet them. You can earn no glory in such warfare. ( Loud cheers.) And it is those who put the British flag to such uses that stain it. (Cheers.) He denounced the argument that, having embarked in an unrighteous course, we should persevere rather than incur the risk of appearing afraid. No one, lie observed, had ventured to express an unqualified ap proval or the wrongs committed at Canton, and for what, he asked, were we at war with the Ch;nese ? The Government had not stated what we were asking from them. Were we afraid of the moral effect upon the Chinese if the acts of the Government were dis avowed? But consider, he said, the moral impres• sion which must now be produced, and never could be avoided. If the house had the courage to assert its prerogative and adopted this resolution, it would pursue a course consistent at once with sound policy and the principles of eternal justice. Lord PALMERSTON said acts could only be judged by the animus that inspired them, and of this, from a detail of the circumstances in question, he argued that there could be no doubt whatever. We had a treaty with the Chinese stipulating that British vessels should not be boarded without a pre vious application to the British Consul, and the question was, what did the Chinese know or believe as to the nationality of the Arrow? Did they con sider her a British vessel? He said they did, and if they knowingly violated the treaty, it was immaterial whether, according to the technicalities of the law, the register had expired. It was the animus of the insult—the wiiful violation of the treaty—that en titled us to demand reparation for the wrong and an assurance of future security. lie insisted that, after the refusal of reparation—only one of many viola tions of treaty rights by the Chinese—hostilities were amply justified, and that our proceedings were marked by extreme forbearance compared with the proceedings of the Americans when their flag was insulted. The outrage committed upon the lorcha was only part of a deliberat9 system on the part of the Chinese officials to wrest from us a right essen tial to our commerce in those waters. It had been observed that reprisals should have been first re sorrel to, and so they were, but without effect. The exeouti)n of the ulterior operations rested with Admiral Seymour, who, if of opinion that they were excessive, would not have permitted them. To the question what the future policy ot the Government would be, ho replied that this must depend in a great measure upon the courss of events; their first duty would be to protect British subjects in China. Rut for these events a friendly diplomatic mission, in covjunction with France and America, would pro. bably havo been sent to Pekin in order to obtain pu extegeion of our ooraraerolol ***Wiwi or for THE PRESS. placing our existing relations upon a more satisfac tory footing. The noble lord then alluded to the tendency of the debate to mark the motion as a vote of censure on the Government. What were the Govern ment wanted to do ? Tell Yell that he was right, and sacrifice the interests and safety of our fellow sub jects in China? Such a proceeding would be dis graceful to the country as well as dangerous to those whom we were bound to defend. He maintained that an outrage had been committed which demanded an apology, and an assurance that the like would not be repeated. The treaty had been deliberately and offensively violated, and the appeals made to humanity, to justice, and to the Christian religion in behalf of the Chinese were appeals made in behalf of flagitious falsehood, inhumanity, and atrocious crime. If the house listened to these appeals and adopted the motion then before the house, the world would say that England had descended from her high station at the beck of the basest, meanest, and most degraded beings in the civilised world, and, for fear of the expenses and efforts necessary to protect their countrymen, had abandoned a large commu nity of British subjects at the extreme end of the globe to a set of barbarians—" a set of kidnapping, murdering, poisoning barbarians." Those who looked below the surface and investigated causes would at once proclaim this to be the result of an accidental condition of things in the British Parlia ment, *hereby a secret combination of men of opposite opinions sought, by an artful appeal to the sympathies of members, to oust a Government pos aes.ing the confidence and support of the British nation:— Foreign nations will say that this coalition, practising upon the good feelings of certain persons, and uniting themselves with those from whom they have been hitherto long and widely separated, have—if the result should be so—succeeded in ( 1 will use no uncivil term) extracting from the house a vote the effect of which is diff.rent from that which it would have been had they manfully and boldly stated their object. (Cheers.) Foreign nations will say," Don't trust the English Government. Look at the result of this debate and division. There are some members of the Legislature who raise the nicest legal quibbles, who endeavour to excuse the most atrocious crimes, who take part with any foreigner against an Englishman, and who—like the hon member for the West Riding—almost repudiate their country. This result may have arisen from a combination of accidental circumstances, but beware how you imagine that you can venture to deal with the British Government upon the as. gumption that they represent the feelings and intentions of the nation." He trusted that every member would view the question in its true light, as bearing upon the interests of the country, and give their votes in such a manner as to maintain the honour and dignity of the nation. (Lou.l cheers.) Mr. DISRIELI wished to recal the attention of the house to the real issue about to be decided. Lord Palmerston had characterised the motion as indefi- nite, and as virtually a vote of censure upon the Government. He (Mr. Disraeli) would accept it as a vote of censure upon the Government, and he thought it more for the honour of the House of Com mons that it should be so considered than that it should be regarded as a mere censure upon absent officials. He had no wish to enter into the legal arguments of the question of the Arrow. The question really had been throughout one of policy, not of law, and be trusted the house would not be diverted from the real issue by the tone of Lord Palmerston's speech : The noble lord made use of a regular let quoque argu ment. ( Hear.) Some gentlemen have found fault with what they have described as a disregard for truth on the part of Sir .J. Bowring ; to that the noble lord replies that Yeh is a liar. (" Hear, hear," and a laugh.) Some gentlemen have spoken with more freedom than perhaps I should have allowed myself to use of the conduct of British merchants abroad; to that the noble lord replies that we who are going to vote for this resolution are influ enced by a lust for gold. Hear, hear.) But to come to the question of policy : It is an attempt by force to increase our commercial relations with the East. ( Hear, hear.) I agree with my hon. friend the member for Liverpool and my lion. friend the member for Hastings that it is most desirable to have our commercial relations with China increased ; and I should look forward with great interest to the new treaty for that object to which the nohle lord has referred ; but I cannot reconcile such ..a policy with the course that has recently been pursued by the Government. There is one idea too prevalent with regard to China,—viz., that all England has to do is to set with energyin order to produce the same results as in India. Fifty years ago Lord Has. tines offered to conquer China if he were only allowed 50,000 men. So great a captain as the Marquis of Hastings might have conquered that empire, but since the time when our Clives and Hastings founded our great Indian empire the position of affairs in the East has greatly changed. Gzeat powers have been brought into contact with us in the East. We have the Russian empire and the American republic there, and a political compromise developing itself like the balance of power in Europe; and, if you are not cautious and careful in your con luot now in dealing with China, you will find that you are likely not to establish commerce, but to excite the jealousy of powerful SATURDAY, States, and to involve yourselves in hostilities with nations not inferior to yourselves. Look at the position in which you have placed yourselves within these two months with the two countries of Persia and China. I hope we may have peace with Persia, and that in a few days that peace will be announced, having probably accepted the very terms we some months ago refused. But if you have peace with Persia you will probably have succeeded in establish. ing Russian ascendancy iu that country by your violent conduct, while in China, where also you may soon have peace, you will have established the ascendancy of the United States. (Hear, hear.) Now, if that was the true state of affairs, England should and must dismiss from its mind the idea of dealing as it has done with barbarous States with which powers civilised like ourselves have great sym pathies, and must habituate itself to the idea of extending to countriei like China the same diplo matic intercourse that we have with other nations : You cannot do that in a moment : but I maintain that we have made great. advances in our relations with China already, and that the policy which the Government has adopted is one which will deprive my hon. friends the members for Liverpool and Hastings of those very results which they desire to obtain. (Hear, hear.) You are dealing with a country of immense antiquity. You have been reminded in this debate that China enjoys a civilisa tion of twenty-five centuries. Why, sir, the civilisation of Europe is nothing to that. But the result of those ancient habits and customs is the existence of great ceremony and etiquette, and you expect that a country of that kind should not be outraged by the frank and sometimes the brutal freedom of European manners. With the policy which has been indicated by the noble lord—the policy of combina tion with other powtrful European States in attempting to influence the conduct of the Chinese by negotiations and treaties—it is my firm hope and belief that ultimately, slowly but surely, we may attain our end; but it is because the actual policy of the Government—the policy approved and vindicated by the noble lord—seems to me inconsistent with the policy of combination with other European States, that I think the time has arrived for the House of Com mons to express an opinion upon events so startling and upon behaviour so inconsiderate. How had the house been called upon to express its opinion ? We have been told to-night of factious combinations and concerted movements. Let us see whether the facts justify such broad accusations on the part of the noble lord. Why, sir, one thing is quite clear. Here is a motion of which notice was given by a gentleman sho acts certainly in no political connection with hon. members on this side of the house, and with not many on the other side. ( A laugh.) It is evident that the motion could not have been seen before it was placed in your hands, sir, by any great number of members, because—the objection was, I admit, almost a technical one—it was drawn up in such a manner, with what we call the annexe of a proposed com mittee, that many hon. gentlemen on this side of the house at once declared that they could not support it in that form. (Hear, hear.) We have been told, sir, of party moves. I really think the time has come when both sides of the house should cease indulging in these plati tudes. (Cheers and laughter.) Why, sir, everything is a party move in a house which ought to be ruled by party, and which, if not ruled by party, would soon lose all its significance. What is a party but a body of men who have a policy which they recommend, and who do not shrink from the responsibility of putting that policy into practice ? But I maintain that there has b !en no party move on the present occasion. A resolution has been brought forward by the hon. member for the West Riding. On this side of the house it has received considerable, but not unanimous support. I have the misfortune to differ on this occasion from many gentlemen with whom I act in political life, and among whom are some of my most intimate friends in private life. If I look to the benches opposite I find there the noble lord the member for the City. (Cheers.) He is also a party to this unprincipled combination. I really think that the First Minister should settle his courteous description with his late much cherished and honoured colleague, and not with me. (A laugh.) There are also gentlemen opposite who once did act in very intimate connection with the Con servative party, and the apprehension that that intimacy should be renewed has conjured up before the First Minis- ter a combination at once the most horrible and the most heterogeneous. (Cheers and laughter.) The First Minis ter is of all men the man who cannot bear a coalition. (Laughter.) Why, sir, he is the very archetype of political combinations without avowed principles. (Great cheering and laughter.) See how his Government is formed. It was only last year that every member of his Cabinet in this house supported a bill introduced, i think, by a late col- league. It was opposed in the other house by a member of the Government, who, to excuse his apparent inconsis tency, boldly declared that when he to9k office the First Minister required no pledge from him on any subject whatever. ( Laughter.) Yet the noble lord is alarmed and shocked at this unprincipled combination ! The noble 101 l cannot bear coalitions ! The noble lord has acted only with those among whom lie was born and bred in politics. (Cheers and laughter.) That infant Hercules ( exclaimed the right lion. gentleman pointing to Lord Palmerston) was taken out of the Whig cradle, and how consistent has been his political life ! (Renewed laughter.) Looking back upon the last half century, during which he hail pro fessed almost every principle, and connected himself with almost every party, the noble lord his raised a warning voice tonight against coalitions, because he fears that majority of the House of Commons, ranking in its numbers some of the most eminent members of the house—mu who hare beeu colleagues of the noble hgd—lual 144