The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-31 00:00:00

enforce the performainue of the treaty of Tien• tsin and to
obtain an apology flow the Emper ar of China for the occur•
I'CIICCB which had taken plaice at the mouths of the reiho
River. There was net a particle of evidence to show that
without any expedition at all there would be any obstacle
to the treaty in question, and he must add that, if an apology
was all that was wanted, they would have to p ay very dearly
for it—for an apology from a semi .barbarous sovereign they
would have to pay five.or six millions of money. If it were
proposed to obtain from the Chinese by force concessions
which they would not yield except to force, then it appeared
to him that those concessions would be of very little value ;
for what guarantee had they that as SOCIII as the force should
be withdrawn the concessions would not also cease to
operate ? It should not be forgotten that with a large land
force, such as they proposed to send, the difficulties of trans-
port were very great ; then there were the dangers of cli-
mate, the difficulties of supplies, and the uncertainty which
must exist as to what measures it would be proper to adopt ;
in short, it appeared to.him to be an act of great rashness to
send under such circumstances so large a land force to
China. Well, but let them suppose these operations were
as successful as they c( uld desire, what would be the
result ? What interest had they in China beyond the
extension of their trade ? Were they to burn the
Chinese towns, to slaughter the people, to devastate the
country and bring upon it all the inevitable calamities
of war? Every blow we struck at China more or less
recoiled upon ourselves ; and supposing the success
•f our army so great that it would overthrow the existing
Government, when then we Should be in a worse position
than ever. The results would be to China most disastrous,
to ourselves anything but beneficial. He assured their
lordships, from the best information he could gather, that
such a shock as it was proposed to give to the Chinese Go-
vernment was not at all unlikely to overturn it, and that
what it might be very easy to ov&threw it might be very
difficult to provide a substitute for. How were peace and
order to be preserved in that immense empire if the machi-
nery by which it had hitherto been regulated were broken
up ? We had had some experience of former doings at
Canton, where our proceedings had brought upon that por-
tion of the Chinese empire a state of anarchy. Hitherto
our trade with China had been most flourishing and pros-
perous, and one, of the main causes of that was that the
Chinese Government had maintained order and security,
so that the people were able to carry on the operations of
agriculture and to produce their tea and sugar and those
other articles which formed her staples of commerce. But
should there ensue a state of anarchy, not only would the
best trade between China and England be hazarded, but
also that very important trade between China and India.
He believed that in such an event not less than between
£7,000,000 and .1'8,000,000 of revenue would be sacrificed.
He feared there was too much reason for believing that the
rebellion in the Chinese empire was the consequence of
our war with China in 1840. He had once an interesting
conversation with Dr. Wilson, who told him that it was
to the war, and especially to the effect of the large pecu-
niary indemnity which England enforced, that the re-
bellion was owing—that by it her finances and her Go-
vernment were crippled and paralysed, her great officers
were left unpaid, and in every instance there was
greater suffering than there had ever been before ; that
by the war the maintenance of order and security
was destroyed; and Dr. Wilson described in most moving
terms the ruin and misery which arose frem that insecurity
and from the disorganisation of the Government. (Hear,
hear.) In consequence of that rebellion many of the pro
ductions of China had fallen off, and kith it, of course,
trade also. He did not ask their lordships to pronounce
any judgment upon the line of policy which the Govern-
ment had pursued, nor on the justice of the quarrel they
had taken up. In moving for those returns he had ab-
stained from going into details. In the position is which
he stood—connected with no party in that house, having
no right to look for any support—he certair'y felt that he
could not properly ask their lordships to pronounce any
judgment upon so great a question, and therefore it was
that he avoided entering more fully upon this wide field ;
he had only touched the mere surface in order to show their
lordships that there were those largo questions which ought
to be considered, and that it was the duty of Government to
invite to their consideration the attention and the judg-
ment of Parliament. (Hear.) With these observations the
noble earl concluded by moving for the returns.
The Duke of SOMERSET—The noble earl, in the returns
which he moved for, had asked for the probable cost of the
Chinese expedition, and yet had himself presumed that he
would be a bold man who world speculate upon its cost.
(Hear.) It appeared to him that the noble eat' had asked
for that which he admitted neither Parliament nor the Go-
vernment could supply, lie Is:shed to call their lordships'
attention to the position in which they stood. As regarded
the action which took place at the'moufh of the Peilici river
last year, those occurrences had taken place before he came
into office, and therefore he (the Duko of Somerset) con-
sidered himself no more responsible for them than was
the noble lord. To pretend any responsibility for such
transactions would be going quite beyond all parliamentary
precedent. But it ought not to be forgotten that when tho
news of those occurrences reached England the public mind
was thrown into a state of very great alarm, for it was
feared from the report that neither British life nor property
was safe at Amoy, or Shanghae, or Canton. Under such
circumstances he asked was it not the duty of the Admiralty
to take immediate steps for the sending out a force sufficient
to protect the lives and properties of British subjects ? The
noble earl indeed said that parliament ought to have been
summoned, but that was not the opinion of the Earl of
Derby, and it was plain that no advantage would result
from the summoning of parliament, but that on the con-
trary it would greatly increase the alarm which already
prevailed. What the people of England required was that
immediate steps should be taken to redress the wrong, and
to retaliate for the outrages which the Chinese had com-
mitted. Parliament was perfectly aware of the course
which the Government had taken; the papers and instruc-
tions to Mr. Bruce had been laid upon the table, and they
showed sufficiently the mild and moderate course which had
been adopted by the Government. He could not understand
what course the noble earl would have desired. He could
see no other course open to the Government to pursue than
the one they had adopted in this case. Ho did not agree
in opinion with the noble earl that no outrages had been
committed by the Chinese. He thought, on the contrary,
there was throughout duplicity and deception on their part,
and no one who read the papers could help seeing that the
Chinese did try toavoid seeing our ambassador. They tried
in every way to put him off from coming to Pekin. They
went on leading him to believe that he could come, and
when he came to the Peiho river he found it barricaded,
and they led him to believe that these barricades would be
removed and he should pass on to Pekin. If that was not:a
case of duplicity :and evasion he did not know what was.
(Hear.) But the noble earl went back and told them that
this Chinese expedition was to be the commencement of a
new policy. Surely he must remember that it was not a
twelvemonth ago that they had a freely entered into by his
noble friend (Lord Elgin), that that treaty was to have been
ratified at Pekin ; but if the Chinese thought fit not to ful-
fil their promise, but to enter into an open war upon the
English force, surely that was not anew policy, but return-
ing to a state of things which existed before the treaty was
agreed to. With regard to our relations with China in past
years, any one who looked back to 1839 must see they were
very unsatisfactory, and that everytwo or three years there
was some outrage or complaint, and in the course of that
time we had had several wars with ;;liina. The noble earl
said these wars caused a very great increase in the estimates,
and that this course of policy ought to be checked ; but if
he looked back to the period since 1840 he would find that,
as far at least as the navy was concerned, we had four or
five times a larger force in China than we had now. In 1843
we had more men in China than we had now, and from 1840
to 1860 our relations with China were in an unsatisfactory
condition, The reason, he believed, was this, that we were
never able directly to communicate with the Chinese govern-
ment, but with viceroys, who took different views one from
another, but who, by putting humiliations on those whom
they called barbarians, threw every difficulty in their way.
It was true the imperial government sometimes recalled those
viceroys, and either took off their heads or advised them to
commit suicide. That was one way they had of getting rid
of an obnoxious minister in that country. (A laugh.)
What they (the Government) wanted was to put things on
a satisfactory footing by this expedition; if that were done
it' would be the most successful expedition that ever was
sent to China, and he should not care what it might
cost for the moment. We did •not know what
other course the government could have pursued under
the circumstances. He :confessed that in his posi-
tion at the Admiralty, he could not censure Admiral Hope
for what he had done ; for he showed the gallantry and
courage of a British seaman. Errors of judgment might
have been committed, yet what position should they have
been in if they had not sent out this expedition to demand
redress for the outrage that had been offered ? The noble
earl had stated that this policy would have the effect of de-
stroying their trade. It would be most unfortunate if the
result should be injurious to our trade, but fortunately the
people of Canton and Shanghae manage their affairs diffe-
rently. Everybody w'ho looked back for the last 20 years
would find that the result was that our, trade had gone on
increasing more and more. The Chinese were a peculiar
people ; they would fight with you in one part of the coun-
try and trade with you in another. The value of Eritish
produce exported to China from 1834 to 1842 was £926,000,
from 1313 to 1850 it was £1,700,000, and from 1851 to 1859
it was 4995,000... Now during all that period they had
nearly constant wars in China, and yet their trade multi-
plied much more rapidly than at any other time. Now, as
regarded the amount of the forces in their expedition, he
could not go into details as to the cost, because it was clear
that must depend upon what took place. If they agreed
to the treaty and the demands which the Government made,