The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-22 00:00:00

Martin's-le-Grand, as her Britannic MAJESTY'S

Postmaster-General !
Whatever has occurred since to complicate
anew the Chinese Question—whether the work
of recomplication be that brought about at
home here amongst ourselves, or abroad yonder
at the mouth of the Peiho—the blame in no

imaginable way attaches to Lord ELGIN. For the
rekindling of the flame of war that noble earl is
clearly in no way whatever responsible. The
calamity has arisen from causes beyond the influence
of his benignant and triumphant policy. The tur-
pitude of the Chinese, the treachery of their das-
tardly ambuscade, the infamous preparation by them
of the masked batteries of the Pciho fortifications—
these and no errors in the policy of Lord ELGIN
were the sources of these new disasters, the obvious

causes of this third war between the English and
the Chinese. Then, what need, it may be asked, of
Lord ELGIN'S explanations yesterday ? Those

explanations were, in a manner, incumbent upon
his lordship for three reasons—because he was
charged with a pusillanimous evasion of re-
sponsibilities—because he was accused of un-
necessary severity to the Chinese—because he
was in a manner distinctly arraigned before the
country and before Parliament by the late mar-

time Commander-in-Chief on the Chinese station
charged by Admiral Sir MICHAEL SEYMOUR with
having disingenuously in his (SirMicHAEL's) regard,
" hinted a fault and hesitated dislike !" These
were the three points upon which Lord ELGIN, last
evening, offered to his peers a full and complete
explanation. In regard to the first charge, namely,
that of having pusillanimously evaded responsi-
bility, the Earl of ELGIN remarked—" A few days
ago it was observed elsewhere, with something like
a taunt and a jeer, that the noble earl who nege-
ciated the treaty of Tientsin did not himself pro-
ceed to Pekin to exchange the ratifications. Had
there been any one in the other house qualified to
give an answer, or to explain the occurrence, it
would have been seen that I was never charged with
the ratifications of the treaty at Pekin, that they
were never placed in my possession, and that I never
had the option of going to Pekin. No doubt it was
the obvious, proper, and natural course to charge
the Minister remaining permanently in China with
such duties, but if it was intended to imply a doubt
of my readiness and willingness to discharge the
most difficult and disagreeable portion of the mis-
sion entrusted to me, 1 think the sting of such an
insinuation would have been removed by such an
answer as I have suggested, and by explaining the
real facts of the case." Surely not a syllable fur-
ther :upon this point can be deemed for a single
moment necessary. In regard to the second
charge, that of needless severity to the Chinese,
thus spoke Lord ELGIN immediately, and
without one instant's hesitation :—", On an-

other occasion some very severe reflections were
passed on me by an hon. gentleman whose speech
I first read in an American review, and in which
it was alleged that I exhibited undue harshness
because I pressed that on the Chinese which my
colleagues did not. That hon. gentleman might
have been reminded that I did not go out to
China without instructions ; that it was not a
matter of choice with me whether I should put
forward these demands on the Chinese Govern-
ment; and, above all, that I should have
assumed a most serious responsibility bad I
abstained from pressing the demand for a re-
sident Minister at Pekin in the face of positive
instructions ; that I was obliged to have re-
course to coercive measures in China ; that I was
not to make permanent arrangements, or, to use an
euphonism, amicable commercial relations with
China, until the object of the mission was accom-
plished." As to the point in dispute between Lord
ELGIN and Sir MICHAEL SEYMOUR that will be
very shortly cleared up beyond the possibility of
further doubt by the publication of the forth-
coming supplementary correspondence between
them. In the meantime Lord ELGIN has,
in the most frank and candid manner, offered
tas acitifowicagments for the eminent services by
which the members of the Royal Navy out in
those seas meritoriously forwarded, according to
his own showing, the progress, and efficiently con-
duced to the success, of his swift and memorable
expedition.

Thursday and Friday evenings will, in all
human probability, compensate for the wonderfully
dull debate of yesterday. We shall then hear the

great guns firing away at one another in earnest—in-
stead of watching a mere preliminary skirmish like
that of last evening. Yesterday, in fact, it was
simply the pawns that were brought forward on
the chessboard of Parliament—the game in real
earnest has not yet commenced. Mr. Du CANE,
with no inconsiderable ability, thrust forward

his very trenchant and two-edged resolution,
revised, or, so to speak, re-stropped, for a cut
to the right at the Treaty, to the left
at the Budget, thus : " That this House,
recognising the necessity of providing for
the increased expenditure of the coming financial
year, is of opinion that it is not expedient to add to
the existing deficiency by diminishing the ordinary
revenue, and is not prepared to disappoint the just
expectat:ons of the country by re-imposing the
Income-tax at an unnecessay high rate." Can any
sane man deny the reasonableness of either the
one or the other of these propositions? The
expedient of adding to the existing deficiency
by diminishing the ordinary revenue, points, of
course, as any one can see with half an eye, to the
" Sop to Cerberus," the Peace Offering of remitted
duties upan French produce and upon French ma-
nufactures (without an equivalent !) to the 'tune of
£1,000,000 ! An addition to the already enor-
mous deficit (caused, as we all know, by Mr.
Cor,DEN's FRENCH TREATY) which is charm-

ingly made up (as we also very well know) through
Mr. GLADSTONE'S FRENCH BUDGET by the
additional ld. in the £1 upon the income-tax,
that additional penny representing the required
£1,000,000 ! No one wanted this Secret Treaty
—least of all English Free Traders, who,
upon principle, look with jealousy upon all rigid
commercial treaties as things of the past—.
with jealousy a treaty in
particularly regarding
which the reciprocity is all on one side, a treaty in
which if Monsieur has incontestably his quo, while
poor English Jack looks in vain for his compensa-
tive quid ! Above all and beyond all earnest
Free Traders must look with suspicion upon a treaty
so very secretly negotiated—and negotiated, too, in
this particularly secret manner, between the
Imperial ruler of the most formidable military
power upon the Continent, and an English mer-
chant, who, besides being the chief of all living
Free Traders, is one of those most notoriously

labouring under the Peace-at-any-Price hallucina-
tion ! THIS is the price of the Peace Treaty nego-
tiated by Mr. COBDEN—the uncompensated
remission by England of another £1,000,000,
to be added to an already large deficiency,

to be made up by the increase of the Income Tax
by another £1,000,000 ! And to what end? To
please his Imperial Majesty the Emperor NAPO-
LEON III! To afford gratification to the French
Protectionists! To do all this in the name of Free
Trade ! And for the sake of Peace to pay thus