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 benehes immediately
confronting her MAJESTY'S Government.
The difficulties of administration, the toils of ad-
-11 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. The 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 over 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
Bide 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 pcll 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 covetted ! Prepared,
moreover,to do battle with all corners manfully, upon
any plea, it matters little what,a Treaty or aCongress,
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 the 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 tOth of
February, of a bold and comprehensive,
and not a mere shuffling or piecemeal
I 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 other
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 l(off China) humble pie—
that has been cooked in the murderous Are kindled
(was it by Russia ?) in that treacherous and das-
tardly Peiho ambuscade ! If anything like this,
say we, is the Trice to be paid by England in the
East and
.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,'58, 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-
HEGAN, or as the autobiographic memorabilia of
the brazen-faced and brazen-voiced Baron MUN-
CHAUSEN Why, Mr. OLIPHANT, during the last
half-dozen years, has been—with his eves open and
his vigilance ever on the alert—where has he not
been Ito 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. lie entered and scrutinised—immediately
plc)" to the great Crimean war—the world-famous
fortress and arsenal of Sebastopol. lie travelled far
and wide elsewhere along the borders of the Black
Sea among the warlike tribes of the Caucasus.
Lastly, it fortunately so happened that Mr.
OLIPHANT accompanied the Earl of ELGIN'S me-

morable expedition to China and Japan, in 185/---
1858-1859, in the responsible and confidential
capacity of the Noble Lord's Private Secretary.

It is from the notes and diaries accumulated by
him during that mission that our indefatigable
traveller has built up this singular, we believe we
are strictly accurate in terming it this perfectly
unique literary monument.
The production about which we are now writing
is here alluded to in our leading columns rather
thari in those customarily devoted to literary criti-
cism, because we cannot but regard the literary
merits of the work, great though those undoubt-
edly are, as having been altogether surpassed by its
political importance. More especially have the
volumes an interest and a weight in the political
world at the present moment, when we are but just
now in the very act of embarking upon our third
and most momentous war with the Chinese, a war
the result of which must vitally affect the
past policy of Lord ELeaN, and our future
relations with both the Chinese and Ja-
panese populations. Not a statesman, not a
journalist, not a politician of any shade or colour,
not any one of those about to be entrusted at the
seat of war with either naval, or military, or diplo-
matic responsibility, but would do wisely to exa-
mine the lucid and brilliant record of Lord ELGIN'S
three years' mission, for which we are indebted to
the clear intelligence and the skilful and rapid
hand of Mr. LAURENCE OLIPHANT, his lordship's
Private Secretary. It were beside our purpose at the
present moment to do more than direct particular
attention to volumes abounding in timely and valu•
able occasionally from its import invaluable infor-
mation. A little later on—it might perchance be
to morrow, it would in every event bo at our ear-
liest opportunity—we may find occasion to revert

to these volumes, examining some of their contents
more in detail. As it is, our object is now simply,
but very earnestly, to recommend these two really
noble volumes,embellished by maps and photographs,
and a profusion of miscellaneous illustrations, to
the consideration of all lettered Englishmen—but
most of all to those who would read aright the
genius and the character of our old foes, soon let us
hope to be at length and permanently our fast
friends, the Chinese.

to all; no matter of what condition or dignity, eccle-
siastical or laical, to reveal and make known to us,
and to the holy office anywhere and everywhere,
within the period of a month, everything they have
known or may know of offenders.
" Whether they are heretics, or suspected or sup-
posed to be heretics, or whether they adhere to
Judaism, Mahomedan or Gentle, or whether they
have become apostates from the Holy Catholic
faith.

"Whether they have practised or are practising )
acts that may be ascribed "to an express or tacit
compact with the devil," such as incantation,
witchcraft, &c., prayers to discover treasures, or
for other purposes of the kind, all sorts of invo-
cations where his name or his acts are concerned.
Whether they exercise necromancy or any other
magic, abusing the sacrament or the holy and
blessed things.
" Whether, not being priests, they have usurped
with sacrilegious daring the right to celebrate
mass, or to administer to the penitent.
" Whether they keep or have kept secret con-
venticles, or reunions likely to prejudice the holy
Catholic religion. Whether they have been guilty
of making use of oaths against the blessed Lord,
the Holy.Virbin, or the saints, or otherwise been
guilty of any act against holy images.
" Whether, in spite of their oaths, they have
entered, or endeavoured to enter, into a contract of
matrimony. The first wife living or the first hus-
band, they have taken a second, or attempted to do it,
or have in any way interfered with the holy office of
the Inquisition, or with the Bull of his Holiness
Pius V. Whether they have written satires or
published writings against the Pope the Sacred Col-
lege, superiors, ecclesiastics, or religious orders ;
or composed and distributed 'writings likely to be
detrimental to the holy word; or if they possess
writings or prints containing heresies, or books of
heretics, speaking ex-professo against religion ; or
whether they read, print, or allow to print and dis-
tribute such things under any pretext : If they are
persons who without a license have eaten, or
given to eat, meat, eggs, and the like on a prohibited
day ; whether they have induced a Christian to
become a Jew or any other sect ; whether they
have prevented a Jew or a Turk becoming baptised.
We declare that those who do not denounce such
acts cannot he absolved and must be excommuni-
cated.. On purpose that this edict shall be pub-
licly known, we command its publication in every
church and public place, so that nobody shall
remain ignorant of it and nobody evade its
obedience. We charge all publishers, librarians,
shopkeepers, and hotels to stick up thepresent edict
in their respective places publicly, where every-
body can see and read it.
" The first, nay the only object of the tribunal of

the holy office being the glory of the Lord, the
glorification of the holy faith, and the salvation of
souls, we have commanded and command as above,
that all those who should consider themselves
guilty, or who know others to be guilty, be pre-
sent themselves before us or substitutes volun-
tarily, before being denounced by others, and
to confess sincerely and honestly their errors and
failings, assuring them that, " unless accused
by other legitimate eecclesiastical tribunals" they
will be received with a charitable heart and treated
with particular mercy—a mercy so very natural to
the Holy Inquisition—and they will be expedited
and delivered without any expense, or any public
penitence.
" According to the obligations imposed upon us
concerning prints or books, we expressly command
that no one dare to print, import, sell, or distribute
books within or without our jurisdiction, unless
such books have been previously submitted to the
holy office. Adhering, besides, to the edicts of
the supreme tribunal of the holy office at Rome,
concerning any intercourse with Hebrews, viz.
cohabiting, associating, or living in familiar con-
tact with them,' we oommand that nobody dares to
transgress such edicts, under the penalty therewith
expressed and promulgated.
" Given at the holy office at Pesaro, on the 15th
September, 1841.
" Brother FILIPPO BERTOLOTPI, Inspector-
General.
ANTONIO SEVERINI, Chancellor-General
of the Holy Office."