The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 26, 1860,

second thoughts, to the most perverse, to the most
obtuse, to the most cross-grained partisan upon the
side of the Opposition, whether seated below the

gangway or upon the back benshes immediately

confronting her MAJESTY'S Government.

The difficulties of administration, the toils of ad-
ministration in this country, are altogether to nu-
merous and too onerous in themselves not to

render fair play the right of any, of

every successive Government. Whether that meed
of fair play was honestly, manfully, and generously
dealt out last year to the late administration is not
now the question. Besides—our views upon that

point we have long since, and earnestly enough,
articulated. Tho question at this moment is—as it
was a twelve month since—shall Ministers be

dealt with fairly, frankly, and magnanimously ?
The very denial of all this (in 1859) to their an-
tagonists, by the present occupants of the Treasury
Bench when their relative positions in regard to Mr.

Speaker were distinctly reversed—only renders it
now more than ever desirable that fair play should,
in truth, be once more accorded to her MAJESTY'S
Government. Grievous, indeed, would it be to the
national interests, and little else could it by pos-

sibility be but an outrage to the national character,
were it in any way likely that the tactics of the
Opposition in the earlier part of the session of

1859 would be adopted as a precedent. The past
is past. Political parties have changed places in

the House of Commons. The Tory Reformers, or
enlightened Conservatives, have, without any dero-
gation to their own dignity, been removed from the
side of the Government to the side upon which
they proved, for example, during the Crimean war
anything but a factious, on the contrary, we will
say without an instant's hesitation, an eminently
patriotic Opposition. -While the many-coloured
Coalition opposite—the Coalition which consented,
a twelvemonth back, at the instance of the
author of the notorious Whig " dodge"
to push their opponents from the seat of power in
a pell mell scramble for the occupancy of those
seats by themselves—Whigs, Radicals, Peelites,
Canningites, Peace-at-any-Price-ites sit there cheek
by jowl upon the benches they cove tted ! Prepared,
moreover,to do battle with all comers manfully,upon
any plea, it matters little what,a Treaty or aCon gress,
Italy or China, Reform-or Finance—provided only
they may receive what they would not give—
" A clear stage and no favour "—in other words,
just honest, simple English Fairplay. This they
at least, we rest assured, will have. And that
they will have it, we rejoice to know, for again we
say it—Fairplay is the right of every British
Administration.
It is satisfactory then to be aware at once that
the Ministerial arrangements for the course of public
business will in no way be interfered with.
Everything will be taken into account in
due time and in properly ordered sequence.
Our principal solicitude in regard to the
conduct of public business in this seemly and per-
fectly constitutional fashion, having reference to
the revision as soon as possible of tho singularly
one-sided Commercial Treaty between France and
England ! To the prosecution of the new Chinese
war as rapidly and energetically as may be in any
way practicable ! To the balancing of the national
accounts as speedily as can be in any manner con-
trived, in no hair-splitting, or specious,or merely stop-
gap Financial Statement! To the unfolding of a policy
in regard to Italy, such as may tend to secure the
happiness, instead of ensuring the yet further deso-
lation of that beautiful peninsula! And last, but not
by any means least, to the submission to the House
of Commons not later than the 20th of
February, of a bold and comprehensive,
and not a mere shuffling or piecemeal
scheme for a Reform in the national Representa-
tion ! One malign influence it is impossible not to
recognise already as operating adversely to the
popular interests in the councils of the Coalition.
Allusion is made of course to the peace-at-any-price
school of politicians. To what else than that—allied
though its leaders are so intimately with the noble
and beneficent Free Trade principles—to what °ther
influence than that can be attributed the palsy
foreshadowed to the Chinese expedition, through an
ominous sentence in the Speech from the Throne ?
To what else do we owe the disgracefully one-
sided character (for 18 months to come) of the new
commercial treaty between France and England,
Now about to be formally submitted to Parliament
for its approval ? Peace-at-any-Price ! Remember
the designation. Is this the Price? All these
mercantile concessions to France during the
next year and a half, without any reciprocation of
advantages from our Imperial Neighbour ! All
this possibility of eating ;(off China) humble pie—
that has been cooked in the murderous ire kindled
(was it by Russia ?) in that treacherous and das-
tardly Peiho ambuscade ! If anything like this,
say we, is the ',Price to be paid by England in the
East alai :in the West, at the bidding of the Peace-
at-any-Price; mongers—away with the Coalition !

The publication by the Messrs. BLACKWOOD of
the two remarkable volumes* in which Mr. LAU-
RENCE OLIPHANT gives us the narrative of Lord
ELGIN'S mission, in '57, '5B, and '59, to the Chinese
and Japanese Governments, marks at once a new
starting point in our own knowledge and a new
epoch in the general development of Asiatic civili-
sation. It is like the opening of a grand bivalve
gateway to the East—letting a flood of light through
the mists of obscurity and ignorance hitherto ob-
structing our view of those vast and remote regions,
regions comprising within them very nearly one
moiety of the vast aggregate of this earth's popula-
tion. The narrator, as such, possesses to that end a
variety of rare and admirable qualifications. He
is already widely known as a keen observer even
in this peculiar age of keen observers. Already,
though as yet apparently, and, as his readers will
all hope, but in the early part of his career he has
travelled to the north, to the south, to the east, to
the west, as but few have travelled, even in this
peculiar age of rapid and incessant locomotion.
Talk of BELZONI in Egypt, of BRUCE in Abyssinia,
or of those earlier men of enterprise who consumed
a lifetime in penetrating into one single country,
and then returned homewards with stories hardly
less surprising than the records of LEMUEL GUL•
LIVER, mariner : histories as veracious as the after
dinner anecdotes of Major LONGBOW, as the ac-
count of the personal adventures of Major GEO-
IIEGAN, or as the autobiographic memorabilia of
the brazen-faced and brazen-voiced Baron MUN-
CHAUSEN ! Why, Mr. OLIPIIANT, during the last
half-dozen years, has been—with his eyes open and
his vigilance ever on the alert—where has he not
been He has traversed the umbrageous wilds of
Minnesota in the far west of the great North Ame-
rican continent. He has wandered over the Steppes
of Russia. He entered and scrutinised—immediately
prior to the great Crimean war—the world-famous
fortress and arsenal of Sebastopol. He travelled far
and wide elsewhere along the borders of the Black
Soa among the warlike tribes of the Caucasus.
Lastly, it fortunately so happened that Mr.
OLIPHANT accompanied the Earl of ELGIN'S ma-

* Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's mission to China and
Japan in the years 1857, 18.58, and 1859. By Laurence
Oliphant, Esq., Private Secretary to Lord Elgin. 2 vols.
Bvo. William Blackwood and Sons. London and Edin-
burgh. 1860.