The Express.
London, England, 1864-01-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 12.

THE correspondence relative to the disbanding
of the Anglo-Chinese naval force, published in the
organ of the expedition, confirms in the most
striking and conclusive manner the views of those
who have from the first condemned the adventure
as an unwise and impracticable interference with
the internal affairs of that vast and distracted
empire. Whatever name it might bear, such
an enterprise, if carried out, must have
been in reality • direct intervention on the
part of this country in an aimless but gigantic civil
conflict between rival races, religions, and interests,
equally barbarous, and marked on either
side by atrocities equally revolting and inhu-
man. And having been undertaken in the interest
of the Imperialists, the expedition, if successful,
would eventually have saddled us with the tre-
mendous task of extending our rule over some three
hundred and fifty millions more of the human race.
It was foreseen from the outset that the imposing
British contingent organized by Mr. LIY must
either sink into a mercenary force, or imposing its
own conditions of action on the Chinese Govern-
ment, become virtually the rulers of the Empire.
There was absolutely no escape from one or
other of these alternatives, nor could there be any
doubt as to which would prevail. It was not to be
supposed for a moment that a British officer
of the high character and standing of
Captain Szaasay Ossozuv would under any

circumstances consent to become the instrument
of a purely Chinese policy, and it is clear from the
correspondence that he intended from the first to
impose on the Imperial Government what he con-
sidered to be a British policy, and that with this
end in view he had taken very decisive precau-
tions for controlling its action. The second paper
of the correspondence is "The agreement entered
" into between Inspector-General B. N. LAY and
Captain SHERAZD °snow:, R.N., C. 8.," and
the sweeping nature of the conditions under which
alone the Commander of the Anglo-Chinese fleet
was to act will be seen by glancing at a few of the
clauses contained iu this Memorandum :

a British officer having to serve *foil
unprincipled, lying Mandarin, g diddled
by barbarians, makes him turn sway from t►e OX-
pedition in disgust. And truly we should have
been ashamed of him if he bad acted otherwise.
He tells Prince Kuiva in plain terms that be
woe out to command, not to obey ; is
revolutionise, not to carry out the sell&
limited policy of the Imperial Government By
" submitting to such instructions and violation of
" my original agreement I should at once deprive
"myself of the power to assist in carrying cat in
" China the policy of Western civilization. My
" force, powerful as it will be for good or seil,
" might be directed against the interests of ma-
" merce or of common humanity. Brutal butobsay
" might be perpetrated, and I should be powerless
" to prevent it. My men and officers, the pick of
" many from the Royal Navy of England, would be
" associated upon equal terms with the rowdies and
" pirates the Foutai might be pleased to employ."
He insists on this point again, and if possible in
still loftier terms, in reply to the justification of its
conduct attempted by the Chinese Foreign-office :
—" To the argument advanced by the Chinese
" Foreign-office that the course proposed by
" Prince Krivc is a usual one in Chins,' I reply I
" did not come here, or my followers either, to ao-
" custom ourselves to the treatment usual with
" Chinese sailors or soldiers, or to mist them in a
" retrogressive policy in the treatmentof European
" my/oyes or Europeans in general. The employ-
" meat of ships of war and war steamers of Euro-
" peen construction is an innovation, that of Ewe-
"

2. Osborn, u Commander-in-Chief, is to have entire
control over all vessels of European construction, as well as
native vessels manned with Europeans that may be in the
employ of the Emperor of China, or, under his authority,
of the native guilds.

3. Lay will procure from the Emperor such an authority
se may be Deosertry to corer Osborn's act* ars the Commas-
der•io-Chief of the European Chliaati Navy.
4. Osborn undertakes to act epos all orders of the Em-
peror which may be conveyed direct to Lay, and Osborn
engages cot to atteed to any orders conveyed through any
other chassol.

pean officers and gentlemen still more so. I and
my force are part and parcel of a new order of
things indicating progress in China.' I will
be no party to her lapsing back into her
ancient system and treating Europeans as if
they were Chinamen."
The moral of all this is plain enough. As a
" European officer and gentleman," Captain
COSHOHN went to China to impress Western ideas
and Western policy on the Imperial Government,
and assist it in carrying out the new order of
things. In this, as well as in his language and
conduct at Pekin, he showed a perfect sense of what
was due to his character and position as an English
officer. The passages we have quoted from his
spirited remarks on Prince Kuiro's Letter of In-
structions indicate plainly enough that he was deter-
mined to maintain this position. Bat they prove
still more clearly that he had no buainess at all
in China as the servant of the Memos
Captain OSBORN was at once a British officer, a
subject of the Quails, and an employe of the
Chinese Government. The position was a false
one from the first, and, unless the Imperial
Government were utterly imbecile, must in
the nature of things have ended, as
it has done, in failure and disappointment.
The attempt to carry Western civilization to
China and diffuse Western idess amongst the
Chinese is a very laudable undertaking. But it
cannot be made by any one in the position of an
officer of the nati►e Government, which has
always consistently opposed those ideas as
fatal to its own existence. That Govern-
ment, like all the governments of the East,
will indubitably maintain its character to the end.
And before Englishmen and English officers again
engage in such a service it would be well for them
to weigh more seriously than the leaders of the
Anglo-Chinese expedition appear to have done the
questions which it appears from the correspondence
they proposed to themselves :—" How are cruel
" or unjust orders from Pekin to be prevented
" How shall European officers and seamen levy
" war for a barbarous sovereign without being
" made to participate in acts which our country
" would repudiate ?"

THE burden of our Christmas and New Year's
song this year has been our blessings of peace and
order and general prosperity at home, while every
continental country is suffering under disturbance
and alarm. It is right to be grateful for such
privileges—and it would be the worst of calami-
ties if we were not ; but those are the best
patriots who set forth most plainly the truth that
such alarms as we suffered from in the departed
year arose directly from our own mistakes and
shortcomings. The menace of war with America
arose out of the privateering which has afflicted
the Americans through our neglect and delays,
and the false expectations crested in Poland
were caused by our uncertain action in
regard to its oppressors. Mr. FORSTER'S
address to his constituents last Friday ailorde
warnings, and sets forth our duties and
deficiencies with a plainness of speech which
is more instructive, and therefore more patriotic,
than the most fervent expressions of satisfaction
in our domestic tranquillity, and our immunity
from the strifes and the passions which are dis-
turbing our neighbours. Few or acne of our
countrymen will now question that we did right,
as a people, in refusing that recognition of the
Southern Confederacy which would have been a
practical intervention in the American conflict, or
that we made a mistake in excluding Mr. Fos-
STEIL'S amendment on the Polish question, a decla-
ration by which we should have emphatically con-
demned the course of Runde without exciting hopes
in the Poles which we were not prepared to gratify,
and bringing upon ourselves the rebuff which we have
had to endure from their oppressor. Such lessons
should warn sod guide us in the psrpkxities
which beset us in our continental policy at the
opening of the new year.
Not only will it be • critical season in regard to
continental politics, but there must be more or less
trial of forces at home. For a considerable time
the vast importance of a good conduct of our
foreign relations has given to Government and
parties a liberty sod security which cannot last for
ever, and which the people are beginning to think
has lasted full long enough. In the policy of
the Government, as in Mr. Footmen's address,
the domestic interests of the country must now
mums their due prominence. No Conserva-
tive Ministry would now dare to reverse or
impair the foreign policy of England, knowing
that any attempt to do so would be their instant
ruin. The time has therefore arrived for the re-
sumption of • liberal and progressive policy at
home ; and, while necessity clearly requires this,
the shortest way to it may be, as Mr. Fossres
believes, by remanding to Opposition the Ministry
whose effete or sham liberalism has long ceased
to answer to the needs of the country.
At any rate we cannot go on as we
are, deteriorating in our liberties and retro-
' grading in our political course while pre-
tending to stand on the principles of the re-
forms of former days. The American war has cast
a strong light on our position ; and we deserve any
consequences which our lathes may produce if we
do not take care that no more time is lost in coin-
; witting the political strength of the commonwealth
to the right hands. Through the American war
we have learned what there is of sound political
insight and judgment, and fidelity of polities'
, conscious, in the large working des which
is still excluded from political rights.

5. Lay, upon his part, engages to refuse to be the medium
of any orders of the reasonableness of which he is not
satisfied.

The two last of these provisions clearly destroy
the independent action of the Chinese Govern-
ment, and deprive it of all means of carrying out
its own policy. Instead of being any longer
supreme, it becomes in effect the servant of Messrs.
LAY and OSBORN. Captain 0811015 will obey no
orders except those conveyed to him directly from
the Burritos through LA; and LAY is to exercise
his own discretion as to what orders he will for-
ward. If he is not satisfied with the orders issued
by the Imperial Government he simply refuses to
convey them, and they become at once a deed
letter. Under such an arrangement Mr. LAY
and Captain OSBORN would have exercised the
supreme authority, and thus have become for the
time being the rulers of China. Prince Kowa
had quite sufficient discernment to perceive this
obvious bearing of the agreement between the
Inspector-General end the Captain of the Fleet,
and on its being communicated to him, be very
naturally refused to ratify it. In his own instrno-
tions to Captain 0811ORN the Prince makes effective
provision for carrying out the orders of the Im-
perial Government, by stipulating for the appoint-
ment of a Chinese Commander-in-Chief of the
united navy, under whom Captain OSBORN is to
serve. The British Captain repudiates this pro-
posal, not only with characteristic firmness, but
in a tone of conscious superiority that would no
doubt help to convince Prince RUNG of its
wisdom and necessity. Captain 09901LN can,
indeed, hardly restrain his indignation at the
bare thought of acting under the Imperial Govern-
ment in any inferior capacity. The very notion of

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the govern* classes ' of have
been Waiting en ignoreece of po phy WHAT THE TWO GREAT GERMAN
and of American history scarcely credible in edu- POWERS WILL DO.
Gated men, and have gone as fervently into the The Inapendance Beige of yesterday evening
came of tyranny and barbarism as Englishmen are 1 Inys :—" The understanding between the two great
wont to do into the cause of liberty and progress, German powers on the question of the duchies
much larger numbers of working men, and not seems now established. We learn from Vienna
least, working men who were rendered destitute that Austria and Prussia agreed on the Bth inst. to
by the cotton famine, have, from first to last, seen confide to the Prussian Marshal Baron Wrangel,
the true bearings of the struggle, and have pro• the command in chief of all the Federal troops
nounced for the right. The spectacle has moved of the northern expedition. Our correspondent
even the apathetic and the careless to an avowal believes that by this measure the two powers hope to
that men like these ought to be in the constitute- make the German action more vigorous by central-
cies ; yet we all know that admission will not be hang under one authority the divergent tendon-
given them by the present Ministry, nor by any cies which have manifested themselves in the
other till the accession of a Conservative nimble- German Diet. Will not this explain the in-

tration has revived and concentrated the old libe-

ralism of the middle classes, and their leaders.
The same must be said of all the questions which
have been falling back for years—the questions
in which religious liberty is involved, from the
Irish Church to the Burial Bill, the Land question,
the remains of the Law of Settlement, and the
question of just and prudent taxation. It
is probable that a Conservative ministry
may serve us well in the East, in helping us
out of our entanglements in China and Japan;
and while they are so engaged, and while we are
seeing what good measures they have to propose
at home, we may be preparing for a new start in
political wisdom and welfare by reforms such as
neither party is, or ever will be, while in high
places, prepared to offer. Such, in Mr. Foarraa's
view, and that of other well-principled Liberals, is
our position and our prospect. It will be well if all
see, u plainly as himself and his constituents, that
the one only way to all other politicg reforms
and gains is a thorough reform of the representation.
The more this is considered the more plainly it
will be seen that to refuse this, or to defer it too
long, is to brave dangers incomparably more se-
rious than any which the most timid Conservative
need apprehend from any gradual and deliberate
extension of the suffrage.

TEE official communication from Lahore, pub-
lished this evening among our telegrams, announces
what we hope will prove to be the early and unex-
pected conclusion to the war on the Punjaub frontier.
Mukla, the seat of the Hindustani fanatics, has
been reached and destroyed, and our troops are
preparing to return. At the date of the latest ad-
vices they were in the territory of a tribe which
professes friendship for us, and have only to exact
hostages from the Judoon and Othmanzye tribes,
according to precedent, before going into quarters.
The authorities on the spot, whoever they may be,
who controlled this movement, and, by limiting its
fan, have brought to a close what seemed at one
time likely to grow into • serious war, deserve
praise.

tention attributed to those courts of substi-

tuting their intervention for that of the con-
federation I To obtain from Denmark solemn
guarantees for the maintenance of the rights of the
duchies, and in return to protect the integrity of
the Danish monarchy, such we are assured will be
the programme adopted by the, two great German
powers. If this is so the Dano-Gorman conflict
will be absorbed in the grave antagonism
which will be provoked between Austria and
Prussia on the one hand and the secondary states
on the other."
The Prase of Vienna indulges its readers with
an account of the various means by which Queen
Louise of Denmark has endeavoured to detach her
son-in-law, the Prince of Wales, from Coburgian
sympathies, and obtain from England a material
support of Denmark. The same paper uses the fol-
lowing language :—" A day will oome in which the
countries of the Schlei and the Eyder will be taken
from Denmark, and Germany, freed from Danish ar-
rogance, will dominate over the peninsula which
forms the key of the two seas, and which they now
dispute with it so obstinately."
The most avowed partisans of the Duke of
Auguatenburg appear prepared to sacrifice Schles-
wig provisionally to the triumph of the pre-
tender in Holstein. " The news," says the
Temps of Hamburg, the principal organ of the
Augustenburg agitation, " of the arrival of 12,000
Prussians and Austrians, is rather disquieting than
reassuring. The circumstances are such that we
are compelled to regard with distrust any mingling
of the two great powers in our affairs, and to
desire that their soldiers and their commissioners
were rather distant from than near to our
frontiers. However we may wish to see our brethren
of Schleswig delivered from their chains, we can-
not desire for the moment an occupation of that
duchy. What we ask now of the Diet is that it
would recognise Frederick as Duke of Holstein—
neither more nor less."

(nom's 11:110ILLML)
THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION.
VIENNA, JAN. 12.

It is stated that the Danish Minister for Foreign
Affairs has addressed a note to the Austrian cabinet,
indirectly admitting that Denmark had not fulfilled
her engagements, and requesting that the negotia-
tions between Denmark and Germany might be
continued from the point at which they ceased in
1851-52.

SCHLESWIG.
ALTONA, Jag. 11, Evisucc.

According to advices received here the families
of subaltern officers and others inhabiting the
castle of Gottorp have been ordered to evacuate
it within 24 hours, as the government of Schleswig
will be transferred thither. It is said that the
King and Queen may possibly take up their resi-
dence in the castle.

The party in Schleswig favourable to the claims
of the Angustenburg family are reported to have
sent an address to Kiel expressing their devotion to
the Prince of Augustenburg.

SPAIN.
NEW ELECTORAL LAW.

MADRID, JAZ. EL

In the sitting of the Congress of to-day the
Minister of the Interior read a bill for a new elec-
toral law. Opinions upon the measure are di-
vided.

It is thought that a ministerial crisis will now
soon take place.

AMERICA.

The Hamburg and American Company's steamer
Bavaria, from New York on the 30th nit., has ar-
rived off Cowes. She brings 47 passengers, 105,000
dollars in specie for England, and 1,960 dollars
for Hamburg.
Her news has been anticipated.

LIVERPOOL, umr.l2.

The Cunard screw steamer Heel*, from New
York on the 30th ultimo, arrived herethiammaing.
Her news has been anticipated.

!FATHER REPORT.—(raul DAL)

TIYINDAY. JANUARY 1; I LX.

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