The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-12 00:00:00

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

(From the Globe.)
Chinese affairs, notwithstanding the crushing an-
swers which events have given to the factious cries of
last Session, are still used to help the Tories to the
sweets of office and misgovernment. The Times,
which was compelled to recant all it said against the
policy of the Gayer= nt in making reprisals on the
Chinese, has once more given utterance to a Graham-
afflatus A pamphlet is, we see, advertised, entitled
" War with China," and the motto is—
" An if a man would buy a poison now,
Whose sale is present
Here lives a caitiff wrotch would sell it him."

SIIAKSPEARE.

We like this motto much. The lively fancy of
the pamphleteer makes John Chinaman, Romeo—
opium is the poison—and the caitiff wretch, the apo-
thecary, is John Bull—a capital cast of the parts ! We
will not accept the Times' account of the success which
the Whin.' newspapers s7iid had attended our arms in
China. Apart from the inflated and magniloquent ver-
biage which the Times employs, and which we know
of no Whig journal tasteless enough to use, no
Whig newspaper ever said that the negotiations
with the Celestial Government, which had been •
commenced, had also been completed. 'When
describing the nature and purposes of the expe-
dition, we always said—reprisals for the sake of nege-
tiation. To the cry of an " Opium War," we replied
—both words are fals2. The Governanent has issued
an Order in Coined far reprisals—they have not
declared war. The opium traffic is not an object
of the expedition. The British has k)iced the Chi-
nese Government against the opium smugglers.
Superintendent Eiliot, in December, 1838, com-
pelled all boats engaged in the opium traffic to quit
the Canton river, and he expelled Mr. James.
limes for persisting in the traffic. Lord Palmerston,
besides inFtrueting the Superintendent to abstain care.;
fully from any connection with any traffic which inter.
fered with the laws and customs of the Chinese,
strongly reprimanded the British subjects who
raised a riot when Commissioner Lin caused a Chinese
smuggler to be strangled before the foreign factorie!.
John Bull, therefore, is not a caitiff seeking to sell poi-
son. Negotiation, in one word, was the object of the
expedition. Admiral Elliot, the brother of Lord
Mint°, has speedily and successfully won this object—
'eve have gained negotiation. The Chinese insisted on
punishing British subjects, and on denying, diplomatic
relations to the British Superintendent. They would
strike, and they would not hear. The pettiest officer of
the Celestial Empire refused to receive a letter from
the representative of the Queen of England, unless
marked as coming from an inferior to a superior. When

' for the sake of peace this was submitted to, the
Chinese threatened to exterminate the British if an
Englishman was not given up to die for a Chinese
killed by an American. Thus the hostilities com-
menced. But our reprisals sought not war, bat peace ;
they told the Chinese, If you will not reason with us,
you must fight us. But they first said, Reason with us
and hear us, as friends of peace and fellow-men. All
throughout the discussions of last Session we declared
that undoubtedly one of the very first things
done by the conductors of the expedition would
be to demand diplomatic relations, and make proposals
for negotiations to the Chinese Government. The men
who then denounced what they called the war as a
monstrous iniquity, now denounce the reprisals for
being reprisals and not war. They formerly repeated
the exaggerations of Joseph Sturge and the peace men,
and they now echo the exaggerations of the reckless and
impatient war men.
(From the Courier.)

Under the full hope that the Bill for the regulation of
railways was not to be thrust forward until its provisions
and clauses had been fully considered and discussed by
all the railway companies, not only in esse but in
posse, we recommended the companies to withhold all
opposition, and to give their confidence and opinions to
the Committee appointed at the Birmingham conference,
which Committee consists of Mr. Glyn, Mr. Russel,
and Mr. Chaplin, the chairmen or deputy-chairmen of
the most important lines out of London. We now find
the Bill stands for a second reading on Friday evening
next, before a copy of the proposed Act can have been
laid before halt the railway boards, the clauses of
which all go on small legislation. It would be better
at once to appoint Mr. Porter auditor, Mr. Laing
prosecutor, and Sir Frederick Smith superintendent of
all the lines in the kingdom—what these gentlemen
know on the subject is a different matter. To
them it is proposed to commit the m?st minute detail
of the working of the lines. They are to judge of the
servants, of the signals, of the starting of the trains, which,
if carried into effect Reerirding to the clause in the
Act, would shut up the Croydon Railway until
the new line was made into Londoa. As no acci-
dent has arisen on the Greenwich line to cause such
legislation, it would be hard indeed upon these com-
panies to be subject to the provisions of this proposed
" Regulation for the Safety of the Public," or to be
dependent on the whim or caprice of these gentlemen of
the railway department of the Board of Trade, whose
knowledge of the working of companies is nil, and to
whom no such power should be given. Half legislation
is always bad, and we should be much more disposed to
leave the public, who arc sagacious and timid enough for
self-protection, to force due protection on the companies,
than that any Government department should have any
power in details unconnected It ith the acts of incorpo-
ration, which acts, by the was , should be assimilated.
( From the Standard.)

We do not believe that a single shill ag was expended
in corruption by Mr. Cabbal's friend s;ond this it is
which causes us to exult as much in the temporary defeat
at St. Alban's, though it should be a permanent defeat, as
in any victory. It is, indeed, a glorious victory over the
bad habits of both parties, and a proud moral tri-
umph over the corrupt Whigs and Radicals. " Hey
tibi erupt ark's." Let the Conservatives take this
course, and they ensure not only an early but an en-
during ascendancy in the estimation of the moral
and religious people in England. Better far be
beaten here and there by the force of corruption,
than try to avoid defeat by meeting bribes with bribes.
Defeats like that of St. Alban's (it cannot be told
too often) are real victories. Which will have
most effect at the next general election The
recollection that the Whigs have been beaten
at Canterbury, Walsall, and in Monmouthshire,
by even the perfectly honourable means by which they
were beaten, or the recollection that in their despair
they bought, with undisguised and impudent profligacy,
eighty corrupt electors of St. Alban's with gold from
the Treasury, while the Conservatives would not cot,
ruptly advance one shilling iu the contest deemed vital
by both parties ?