The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-19 00:00:00

AFF.

The position of affairs in the far East is by no
means reassuring. In China and Japan events are
unmistakably tending in one direction, and it re-
quires but little forecast to perceive that the
exigencies of our commerce will ere long necessitate
the active presence of a much larger force than this
country would wish to maintain there. In Japan,
though the immediate peril has passed away, the
truce is a hollow one. Prince Satsuma, having sent
a quarter of a million sterling to America for the
purchase of rifled guns, naturally wishes to temporize
until he has received this formidable addition to his
strength.
In China, the reactionary party, under the
presidency of the Empress-mother, and the general-
ship of Tsue ag-Kwoh -Fan, have not only made
themselves dominant, but actually succeeded in
stultifying all diplomatic action at Pekin. Prince
Kung, who never had much power of his own, is
now completely under the rule of this all-powerful
faction. The European representatives have not seen
the Regent for one year, and are obliged to content
themselves with bootless interviews with the Foreign
Board, which, like similar institutions in this
country, is admirably adapted for evasion and pro-
crastination. Another massacre of Roman Catholic
priests and their converts has once more brought
the French Bishop of Se-chwen to Pekin.
In vain does the French Minister claim redress ;
the effects of the Anglo-French military promenade
through the capital being entirely obliterated. In
fact, we have now discovered that we have never
been in Pekin at all—for in the centre of that walled
block of country which we call Pekin, lies Imperial
Pekin, with ramparts and fosses and its 200,000
inhabitants. No outer barbarian has penetrated this,
the sanctum of Chinese prejudice. Though every
subject strides in and out at his leisure, European
ambassadors are kept out by sentries, and obliged
to content themselves with furtive glances through
their opera glasses from neighbouring house-tops,
where they are permitted to mature that co-opera-
tive policy, into which they were • driven by
Celestial astuteness one year since. For at Pekin
individual diplomatic action is no longer possible.
Twelve months ago, the representatives of the
Western Powers, finding that they were being
played off one against the other by the Regent and
his advisers, determined to try the virtue of co-
operation. Their success is what might have been
imagined from a combination of conflicting interests.
Nevertheless, our trade is doubling itself, and
will continue to do so. The foreign city of
Shanghai has become the commercial capital of
the East, whereas but fifteen years since the bittern
and rice-bird were the sole possessors of the
swamps upon which it stands. Land there is
now as valuable as in the heart of the city of Lon-
don, and thence our capital and enterprise control
the markets of northern China. With such vast
commercial interests at stake, and with such difficult
diplomatic relations, it is with unfeigned regret
that we receive the confirmation of the dissolution
of the Chinese auxiliary force under Captain Sherard
Osborn ; for the published correspondence relative
to the expedition proves, were proof wanting, that
a similar command could not have fallen into more
able hands. Were a policy of non-intervention
possible in a country situated like China, we should
be the first to advocate it; but distracted as it is
by insurgents, whose original nuclei has been
nothing bat the starving centres of that gigantic
population, and adverse as the rulers have proved
to the humanizing influences of foreign commerce,
in opposition to the wishes of the bulk of the inhabi-
tants, it has appeared to us both just and wise to
assist in the establishment of social order within
the country, and commercial order without; to put
down freebooters by land and piracy by sea; and,
whilst we secured peaceful avenues for our com-
merce, to ensure also to the Chinese Government
the just dues arising from such foreign trade. For
it its idle to conceal the fact, that our merchants,
finding it more lucrative to bribe a mandarin
at a non-treaty port than to pay the cus-
toms' dues at a treaty one, are all more or
less engaged in smuggling at the non-treaty
ports, thereby evading that just spirit of reciprocity
which formed the basis of Lord Elgin's policy, and
which could alone justify the armed intrusion of our
trade in China.
As regards the Taeping rebellion, the energy of
Tsueng-Kwoh-Fan has during the past year driven
it into the towns of Nankin, Soochow, and Hang-
chow, and at the present moment not more than
one-fortieth part of the Empire is out of the hands
of the Imperialists. Indifferent as the rule may be
when measured by a European standard, yet as the
Taepings recede so the inhabitants advance, and
resume their peaceful avocations. Though the
enthusiastic reports of missionaries once led us to
imagine that this mighty convulsion was to lead to
the evangelisation of China, the manner in which
its leaders have acted must have convinced the most
credulous that rapine, murder, and lust were the
sole objects they had in view. Wherever their
hordes have passed—and their path has been through
the most densely-populated portions of the country
—the inhabitants, together with their dwellings,
have been blotted out ; and during their 10 years'
rule at Nankin, the ancient capital, no attempt
has been made to establish a civil administration,
but the same relentless system has been pursued
until the fairest districts have been well nigh
depopulated and exhausted. Had the ruler of
China had the sagacity to avail him self of the
powerful aid which he asked and obtained from her
Majesty's Government in the form of Captain
Sherard Osborn's squadron, Nankin would have
already been in the hands of the Imperialists, and
with it would have perished the prestige of the Tae-
ping cause, and China might once more have settled
down to those industrious pursuits which are the
sole thought of its population. Now, it is impos-
sible to predict what turn events may take, espe-
cially when we consider the vast rowdy element
which California and Australia are pouring into
Shanghai. A leader of grasp and capacity is alone
wanting to enable these adventurers to seize an
empire on the southern bank of the Yangtze.
The cause which led to the disbandment of Capt.
Sherard Osborn's force was, that her Majesty's
Government only permitted it to be organised under
certain conditions, which were submitted by the
Emperor of China's agent; who had full powers to
deal with the question. The Emperor having ob-
tained the force he required on one set of terms,
determined to use it under another. and expected
to find in Captain Sherard Osborn a docile servant,
who would assist him in this piece of chicanery.
In that expectation it is hardly necessary to say
he was • mistaken. Neither blandishment nor
bribery could induce Captain Sherard Osborn to
swerve from the original agreement, on the faith of
which her Majesty's Government had permitted
him to organise the squadron. We hope that the
Chinese Government will not have bitter cause to
regret the shortsightedness of their policy, but it is,
we fear, hoping against hope. This powerful
squadron could have stifled anarchy in the interior,
cleared the rivers and coasts of pirates, and confined
the foreign trade to its legitimate channels ; China
would have policed its own waters, and increased
its revenue, and Great Britain would have been
spared those oft recurring and inglorious wars
which seem inseparable from our relations with the
most peaceful people on the face of the earth. How-
ever disappointing to Captain Sherard Osborn may
be the result of his labours, he may rest assured
that there is but one opinion in England as to the
high-Blinded and dignified course be has pursued,
under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty. And
it is imposible to rise from the perusal of the corres-
pondence lately published, without increased admi-
ration for a character which already stood high in
the opinion of his countrymen,
that

PARASITICAL PLANTS IN MEXICO.--The forest
seemed to have been invaded by an army of huge pythons,
many of them more than a foot in diameter, looking as if
they had been stiffened while in the act of twining them-
selves in numerous folds round the tree which they had
seized with a living, fierce, and prehensile grasp, and had
then reared and lost their heads in the uppermost branch ;r4
of another still more lofty than their victims, whiCh
again
were sometimes smaller than themselves, and bearing on
the indented stems the impress of the enormous and
strangling force that had writhed itself round them.—
pipes Travels in Mexico.