The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-15 00:00:00

Paris to the Peiho—recolleot, moreover, that nine r
whole months were allowed to elapse before any offi-
cial notice whatever was taken in Western Europe
of a deed of infamy the knowledge of which had
made the blood of every Englishman boil with in-
dignation. And even then of those nine months
when the silence was at length broken—it was
broken not by England but by France ; the
French EMPEROR being the first to speak at all
upon the matter—announcing at last to Europe,
in so many words, that " a serious expedition
combined with the forces of Great Britain would
chastise China for her perfidy."
Impunity like this cannot but have the
most lamentable effect upon our prestige
in those Chinese waters, and cannot but
exercise the most disastrous influence upon .the
councils of the Chinese Government. Yet we are
acting thus towards a nation that might (if but
dealt with as we could deal with them) be awed ,
readily enough into submission ! To appreciate
at once, how readily, it is only necessary to note
the manner in which Captain OSBORNE records the
astonishment produced among the wonder-stricken
junkmen of Shantung by the appearance amongst
them of her MAJESTY'S steamship the Furious
amazed, when they " now, for the
first time saw a huge apparition advancing against
the tide, uttering strange noises, and glaring
upon them with huge eyes of red and
green (the steam lights), and beating the
water like one of their own mythical dragons of
the sea. No wonder they exclaimed " 1/1-yate !"
Observe them again, those astounded Chinese, as
they behold the tars from the Furious taking some
of our gunboats up the winding current of the
Peiho, when, writes Captain OSBORNE, " the
whole male population of a village (might be seen)
ranged along the banks, on their hands and knees,
and performing hotour as our gunboats passed !"
When " some more frightened than the rest"
shouted to our interpreter—" Hail, great King.
Oh, pray be pleased to disembark and reign over
us." When, among other incidents of a like kind,
" One man at a village . . . improved upon the
proceedings by placing himself on his knees, in the
position of adoration, and continued so long as
H.M. gunboat Bustard remained in sight." An
unsophisticated people like this ought, in reason, to
be treated other wise than we are treating them
now, than we have been treating them, for the last
half century. Ignorant and treacherous to the
last degree of ignorance and treachery, they have
been allowed to feel but partially the mighty power
of England—they have been reasoned with by a
confiding diplomacy only to be encouraged to perpe-
trate crimes like those that dishonoured our out-
raged flag upon the waters of the Peiho—
when (instead of being reasoned with thus fully
by diplomacy out of mistaken notions on our part
of a humanity that they could not understand) they
should have been made to feel at once summarily
and vividly the irresistible force at our command
both upon sea and upon shore. To put an end to
these miserable periodical wars with China, to close
the epoch of their continual recurrence, it behoves
us at length that we should scatter to the winds
these puerile notions of a false humanity and
spurious philanthropy—that we should rather than
this (in the true interests of humanity and philan-
thropy) carry conviction to the obtuse intellect of
China, a full and lasting conviction that it is idle
on her part to tamper thus perpetually with the
forbearance of the leading powers of civilised
Europe. This can alone be done now by carrying
the war at last into the heart of the stronghold of
the imperial sovereignty of China—by advancing
direct upon Pekin, and there dictating terms to the
Chinese that shall guarantee their future amity
with a race they have so often outraged from a
mistaken notion of its incapacity to approach much
more to assault and capture the capital of the
Celestial Emperors !

The above was written before the arrival of the
last China mail. We may now expect that the
next mail will bring as news not only of the land-
ing of our troops, but the capture or destruction of
the Taku forts, and the advance upon Pekin. The
capture of the capital is the only argument that
will bring the Emperor of CHINA and his deluding
Mandarins to a true sense of their position. We
have repeatedly expressed our regret that the
Expedition was not undertaken by England alone,
for recent events have too truly proved the folly
of seeking the aid of those who only encumber
us with their help and then claim all the glory.
We suspect that this China Expedition will be
the last of our going into partnership with the
politest nation in Europe, and yet the most
gasconading and presumptuous in the universe.
Henceforth let England stand or fall by her own
intrinsic might alone.
England hates coalitions in the Cabinet, and she
is honest and strong enough to hold her own by
sea and land. Freedom and despotism can never
cordially coalesce. It was a foolish attempt from
the first, and may terminate disastrously. There
can be no true friendship where jealousy is predo-
minant, and vanity the overruling " idea" of
national glory. Away with it—now and for ever-
more !

We are frequently favoured by a contemporary,
in his comments upon the career of distinguishel
public men, with the moral, that it shows what
any Englishman of fair abilities may be, or do. It
strikes us that this moral might be deduced for
English Lords from the career of the son of their
Conservative Leader. Most of them might well
despair of emulating Lord DERBY himself for
thongh at the University, and frequently since then,
he has applied himself to work with no little dili-
gence for a time, yet it is more to high natural
endowments—to a considerable share of the genius
of oratory especially—that he owes his position.
The gifts of nature would have made him a dis-
tinguished man had he been born a butcher.
He would have risen to some station, in which he
would have been able to adopt the reply of another
great man, to one who taunted him with his origin
—" had your father been a butcher you would have
been one too." But Lord STANLEY has received
. few gifts from nature, except those which are sup-
posed to be at least -within the reach of most Lords.
He can work ; and he can work till he masters a
subject; and, if he has got his crotchets, he has a
very considerable share of good common sense. Had
all hereditary legislators used such capacities as
they possess with the diligence and honesty
of Lord STANLEY, the House of Lords
would have been a. formidable competi-
tor indeed with the House of C)mrnotis ;
since, do what we will, in this country of a tho-
roughly free press, the House which shows the'
moat capacity for business, and the most good sense
in its debates, would carry the nation with it. Of
course such good sense would not suffer the House
to be far behind the political advance of the day,
and such a hereditary house would, we fancy, com-
mand the same comparative respect here, as the
Senate in the United States. The idleness of
the great men of the Lords is what really
keeps their House uninfiaential. That same
indolence makes them Conservative, and
even a DERBY, to patronise, iu
compel, at present,

language, all the antiquated notions and timidities
of the noble idlers.

Wednesday's work seems to have suited Lord
STANLEY as well as most which he undertakes. It is
not often that he ventures upon sentiment, but we
find him alluding to his father, whom he repre-
sented in the following terms :—" The noble lord
in the chair has said something of his public life.
I think I know enough of his feelings to be able to
assure you that no renown or popularity that can
be acquired in political life—no official rank or
distinction, no matter how high it may be—no
mark of Royal favour or Parliamentary confidence,
can be to him half so gratifying, or touch his feel-
ings half so nearly, as a simple expression of
kindness and goodwill from those neighbours and
friends with whom he is personally acquainted,
who know his private life, and among whom his
lot is cast in this county of Lancashire—with
whom our families have been for so many gene-
rations connected." A just representation, indeed,
of what an English nobleman ought to be, and one
which, were it as universally true as it easily
might, we may remind Lord DERBY would, even
with a largely extended, and really free suffrage,
ensure the eldest sons of Peers a place in the House
of Commons whenever they were really fit
for it. No people more readily worship
their aristocracy than Englishmen. And the
former may easily enjoy a better than feudal in-
fluence, by the means which win the attachment
of honest, but intelligent free men. A nobleman
who values his neighbour's esteem, and who counts
all around his mansion and estates his neighbours,
may be a lord among them in something more than
name, and by some tenure of their affections better
than the miserable substitute for it acquired through
a land-agent, a steward, or a lawyer.
Adverting to the Chairman's remarks on the
Knowsley Review, he gracefully observed :—" I
don't know whether many of those whom I have
the pleasure to address were present then ; if
they were I hope they enjoyed the sight. But of
this I am sure, that no one in the vast concourse
there assembled could have enjoyed it half so much
as he by whose invitation some 150,000 of his
neighbours came to pay him the compliment of a
visit at home." On the subject of Volunteers, such
a voluntary as Lord STANLEY might be expected
to feel no little interest, and he strongly expressed,
therefore, his hope that they would become one of
the permanent institutions of the country. " I
believe," he said, " it has done more than any in-
crease of the regular army possibly could have done
to elevate the position of England among the
nations of Europe; and I think so for this
reason, that it has shown to every foreign
population and every foreign prince that in
this country, however it may be elsewhere,
the Government and the nation are one,
and that whoever contests with England will have
to combat not merely with the Government, not
merely with the army, but with the united nation
in arms. It is a purely defensive movement ; it
has in it nothing of aggression, it can cause no fear
and no jealousy to any foreign country."
" However it may be elsewhere " Yes,
indeed—only think of regiments of volunteers a
short time ago in Naples—think of them now in
the Papal dominions, such as yet remain to his
Holiness Imperatoris gratice—think of volunteer
regiments in Venetia, in Hungary, in Bohemia,
think of them in half the States of Germany—
think of them even in Paris and France itself !
Verity the Continental despots must be conscious
of the difference between lawls which have
liberties to defend, and those in which armies
are partly pretorians of whom Empire
must be purchased and held, and partly im-
plements of annexation to tickle the vanity of a
people who have no liberties to love and be proud
of. One little piece of practical advice Lord
STANLEY dropped, in which we most heartily con-
cur—that as Reviews and similar demonstrations
cannot be very frequent, the shooting matches, such
as were inaugurated on Wimbledon-common, will
be introduced into every county in England—" I
hope that they will take their place amongst our
national amusements, for they are an amusement as
well as a kind of military discipline ; and I hope to
see them adopted in every county, and if that is
the case I am sure Lancashire will not be behind-
hand."

Of course, agriculture could not be forgotten at
an agricultural meeting. And we suppose we
must argree with Lord STANLEY, that such meet-
ings are specially useful for farmers, who are not
packed closely together like townspeople, and who
therefore are too "apt to think there is no place like
home, and that there is no farm like his ; that there
are no crops and cattle like his, and that he has not
much to learn from his neighbours. Now, if any
Lancashire man has an illusion like that, it is an
illusion which a walk over this showyard is very
likely to dispel; and if a man is sharp and has his
wits about him—and for my part I know very few
Lancashire men who are otherwise—if he has his
wits about him he can hardly help getting
hold of some ideas which are worth taking
home and working out ; he can hardly help
going back and knowing more of his business
than when he came." His lordship, however, seems
to overlook that grand resort and school of farmers
—the market. The yearly meeting is of course,
however, a vastly larger school.

Lord STANLEY also pointed to the "spirit of
healthy emulation, rivalry, and competition," which
these meetings create, and which is " the very life
and soul of business." He honestly adverted to the
glaring deficiencies, now fast passing away, of
Lancashire farming :—" If you speak of manufas-
tures, there is no man all over the world who will
not admit that Lancashire stands without a rival ;
if you talk about agriculture (you see I don't mean
to flatter you), although Lancashire holds a fair and
satisfactory position amongst English counties, still
it does not hold an equally pre-eminent and un-
rivalled position; but I, for one, shall not be satisfied
till it does. We live in times when farming is
likely to go through a revolution greater than any
which the world has hitherto seen. The old time-
honoured implements with which men have tilled
the soil and gathered in its produce since civilised
society began, are, one by one, being super-
seded in favour of new and modern inventions."
And so his Lordship concluded, pointing out
what farmers ought to aim at, and what
even farmers who could not afford the costly ma-
chines and experiments he had adverted to, could
yet accomplish. "But there are some things which
I believe every farmer who is worth his salt can
have, whether he is a large or small farmer, and
these are—straight fences, clean crops, thorough
draining, aria plenty of manure. And, I take it, if
a man has these four things upon his farm he will
be able, for the present at least, to hold his own
against any competition, native or foreign, with
which he is likely to have a struggle." We have
only to wish the farmers of England spirit and
energy to follow, universally, the advice of Lord
STANLEY, and they would certainly have but little
need for importations of food. England, if she used
all the manure of her towns, and carried agricul-
tural reform into. her more backward districts,
might, we verily believe, be herself an exporting
country,