The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The destruction of the 11th Regiment at
Hongkong recalls the scarcely greater calamity of
the 44th at Cabul. In that case it was the work
of Asiatic treachery, of frost and snow, of old
English carelessness and incompetence, bad mili-
tary command, bad material arrangements, and,
as we were forced to confess, a bad political posi-
tion. In this case there is nobody to blame but
ourselves. The Regiment has been sacrificed by
bad quarters, a bad season, and a locality always
more or less insalubrious, by injudicious or con-
flicting orders, by the neglect and absence of the
local officials, and by the want of a comprehen-
sive policy for supplying the numerous and dis-
tant outposts of this Empire in a way to economise
British blood by utilising the many millions under
our sway or our influence. As a perfectly gra-
tuitous and wanton immolation this surpasses that
at Cabul, while the loss exceeds the carnage of the
24th at Chillianwallah, which still casts a shadow
of its own over the glories of the Punjab. The
present story has now been often told, but it will
be often told again. The 2d Battalion of the 11th
Regiment arrived at Hongkong in June from the
Cape, at least two months before it was expected,
and before there was barrack accommodation for
it. There was no resource but tents ; the rainy
season was impending, and tents in rain are fatal
to the English constitution, there at least. The
spot selected—we are not told whether there was a
choice in this matter—was near a native burial-
ground. The certain doom of the battalion was
immediately predicted by the residents. We have
seen a letter written the very day after its arrival,
and it was noticed as unfortunate, though not likely
to make much difference in the result, that the Go-
vernor and chief medical officers were enjoying the
more pleasant air, the more cheerful society, and
certain pecuniary advantages at Yokohama, in Japan.
It so happened that just then there was a hope that
Hongkong was not so unhealthy a place as it had
been found hitherto, andthat its character was unde-
served. It so happens, too, that some who felt this hope
as late as last June have found themselves sadly de-
ceived. Nevertheless the worst was expected for the
devoted battalion, and the worst came to pass. The
men immediately began to droop, to sicken, and to die.
Everything was done for them that could be done,
and three naval surgeons offered their services tc.;
supply the place of the absentees. The lists of
death and disease have been already given in these
columns ; but as the tale is not yet told, and we
have yet to learn who died at Hongkong, who at
Yokohama, to which the 11th was removed, and
who in the further wanderings of the plague-smitten
battalion, we will only quote at present a very brief
announcement in our yesterday's columns. In our
Naval and Military Intelligence we read what must
be almost the last act in this strange and miserable
history The transport Gresham, from Hong-
kong, arrived in Simon's Bay, December 7, bound
to England. On departure she had on board 280
invalids, principally military from the 2d, 9th, and
11th Regiments. Forty-two are reported to have
died on the passage to the Cape, where Commodore
Cockburn paid prompt attention to them. Twelve
of the worst cases were transferred to the Naval
Hospital, 50 of the sick were sent to the Seringa-
patam, and 68 others were placed under canvas at
Simon's Town." If we have any bias in this mat-
ter, it is one which, as far as it goes, tends to excuse
the authorities—viz., our belief that Hongkong is a
very unhealthy place. But it, has long had a bad
name for health, and that was a circumstance to be
taken into consideration by the authorities concerned
in the moving of troops. Either conflicting orders
were sent to Hongkong or to the battalion at its
previous station ; or orders were disobeyed ; or the
authorities at Hongkong had undertaken to have
barracks ready but had not done so, or were not
allowed time for it, or had not barrack room because
the soldiers already there had not been moved on to
Yokohama. So far as regards the arrangements,
there has been a want of head somewhere, and it is
only due to the people at Hongkong, to the absent
Governor and surgeons, and to the persons charged
with preparing barracks, to repeat that all on the spot
were surprised at the appearance of the battalion.
The question of official blundering or personal
blame may be left to the inevitable inquiry. But
there are two questions which may be asked at

once, and which will prejudge nobody in particular.
The first of these concerns the selection of Hong-
kong as the seat of our Anglo-Chinese Government
and the headquarters of our army in that part of
the world ; the second is a question we have often
asked before, and it is whether more cannot be done
to save our costly British soldiers by the substitu-
tion of natives from India or China. Hongkong
stands condemned as a place of residence by the
deeds rather than the words of everybody who has
a chance of getting away from it. We decline to
follow certain Chinese authorities in an account of
this matter, which would put officers holding high
places of trust in her Majesty's service on a level
with sharpers. We cannot believe that all the civil,
military, and naval authorities of Hongkong were
flocking to Japan in order to enjoy a paltry profit
by a certain fixed rate of exchange between our
money and the Japanese, enforced upon Japan by
the terms of our Treaty, though in effect a gross
wrong to that country. We will assume that the
officials at Honkong find what has been said from
the first, that the island is most unhealthy. No
doubt we were deceived by a national prejudice.
English women and English men have a fixed belief,
which nothing can shake, that a seashore, particu-
larly one with a mountain behind, and most of all
a mountainous island, must be healthy, nay, so
superabundantly healthy as to supply a stock of
health that will last many months afterwards. Even
in England this is often found a mistake, or only
true in a conditional and modified sense. But at
Hongkong there is an utter want of area for build-
ing, space for exercise, and even air for ventilation.
We have gathered a population there, and there is
not room for it, so it is poisoning us. The most
fatal objection is one that we might perhaps be
better prepared for, if we gave a little more attention
at home to comparative salubrity of spots very near
one another. The mountain there is said to be com-
posed of a very friable granite, through which water
is always oozing, more or less, from some unknown
source—geologists even say, from the mainland of
China. It is even said there is something deleterious
in this water, or rather, in the constant disintegra-
tion of the granite. It is not, however, necessary
to suppose any positive malaria, such as would re-
quire a Chemical explanation. Wheiever, as on the
slopes of our own sandhills and gravel-hills, there is
at a certain level, a perpetual exudation of the water
filtering through the mass above, there is sure to be
a liability to fever. There will always be spots,
even where no water shows, where the soil will be
overcharged with moisture, and whence a vapour
will ascend. Peksons exposed to this vapour
throughout all the diurnal changes of the tempera-
ture will be liable to chill, and to fever of course all
the more, if they are neglecting the usual conditions
of health as to diet, exercise, clothing, artificial
warmth, and the like. From all accounts, it is not
easy to escape spots of this malarious character at
Hongkong; and if it ever is to be a healthy station,
our soldiers must not be housed as they have been
hitherto. But that other questions now pressed
upon us `are more important, and, we do not deny,
more difficult. The difficulty, however consists in
the national reluctance to give up a national tradi-
tion, and accept an actual necessity. There is no
mincing the matter, we cannot find British soldiers
for all the duty to be done. If we choose to have
colonies and dependencies all over the world, and
assert a political influence over more than half the
population of Asia, as well as half Africa, half
North America, not to speak of Europe,—we must
accommodate ourselves, not to our position, but
to our own magnificent pretensions. We must
do as other Empires have done, and use one
nation to assist us in controlling another. What-
ever may be alleged about the superstitious pre-
judices of Hindoos, there is no doubt that we
can obtain any number of soldiers from India
who would be quite equal to the defence of our
positions and free cities on the coasts of China
and Japan. Even if their employment is at-
tended with difficulties, or positive disadvantages,
this is a comparative question ; we have to choose
between evils, or rather to do one thing because it
is no longer possible to do the other. Can anybody
venture to say what will be the total money cost of
carrying the 2d Battalion of the 11th from England
to Yokohama, and bringing its remains back again?
It will be something enormous, and, after all, a
small matter compared with the loss of life, and,
we must add, character. Even if there had been
great cost, some mortality, and a few hitches, we
might have done better from our Indian army. The
British soldier was precious many years ago, when
the great Sikh chieftain said that had he such sol-
diers he would have every one carried by natives,
and only placed on the ground to do the fighting
work. He is far more precious now, far more costly,
and more scarce ; that is, more difficult to be ob-
tained on any terms. So we must save him if we
can, and we must even be prepared to run risks in
doing so.
THE " ANGLO - AMERICAN TIMES" ON THE
"TIMES" AND ENGLISH INVESTORS.—Our con-
temporary, the Times, has expended a con-
siderable portion of its space during the past
fortnight in endeavouring to prove to English
manufacturers and capitalists that credits with
the United States rest upon a very insecure foun-
dation. The Times has not been always correct in
its predictions upon American affairs ; but, like
the Bourbons, it seems to have learnt nothing and
forgotten nothing. We do not refer to the present
policy of our contemporary under any impression
that its fallacies require answer or explanation from
us ; for Englishmen engaged in the operations of
commerce have many sources for obtaining
information outside of the newspaper
press, and know far better than the Times
can tell them where lie their best and
most secure markets. The United States are
much better known at the present time than at any
period prior to our late war ; and the mercantile
and moneyed classes of Great Britain now obtain
precise information in regard to American securities
and investments from their own business correspon-
dents, instead of being forced to take, as formerly,
cunt grano salts, the representations of irresponsible
writers and editors. The Times must have a ridi-
culously poor opinion of the intelligence of its
readers when it assumes that the exports
from Great Britain to the United States
being, for the moment, in excess of the
imports of American produce, repudiation and
panic must be the result. Everybody acquainted
with the peculiar operations of commerce and the
ramified channels of international exchanges is well
aware that commerce, which, after all, is simply
barter on an extended scale, requires time to
balance its profits and losses; and knowing, as the
Times well knows, that bills due in London and
New York are, and have been, constantly paid in
continental cities, and especially in China and the
East, it would assuredly have been the most honest
course to wait the usual result, instead of fruitlessly
attempting to frighten the English commercial
world by the played-out bugbear of repudiation.
Prior to the election of Abraham Lincoln, in
other words, before the crisis produced by the re-
bellion, the United States not merely supplied
Great Britain with the raw material of her chief
manufacture, but they were, at the same time, the
richest and fest market for English goods. The
manufacturers of this country never made up their
minds that the Union was destroyed ; they held
on to the belief that, sooner or later, it would be
restored to greater strength than ever, and, what is
more, they desired this consummation ; for while
it lay within the bounds of possibility that
other regions than the Southern States might, in
process of time, supply them with raw material,
no other market for their manufactures could equal
that existing in the American Republic. And they
are now more satisfied than ever that their reason-
ing was correct. The defunct institution of slavery
has, by its death, given birth to two great bless-
ings : it has abolished the stigma of labor, thereby
opening the whole area of the Republic to European
emigration ; and it has, in a single day, turned four
millions of colored men into the best of customers.
If, then, trade was admittedly profitable with the
United States when twelve-per-centum of the
population were non-consumers, what must be the
result now that so great an addition is made
to the purchasers of England's manufactures ?
It requires no very intimate acquaintance with
the United States, or the drift of English
commerce, to perceive that English merchants and
capitalists do not endorse the strictures of the
Times or attach weight to its direful forebodings.
Never, in the history of journalism, have the co-
lumns of the English press so teemed with what
may be termed American advertisements as at the
present time. Railway and other companies,
steamship and similar corporations, fill its pages ;
American securities are daily advancing in public
estimation, new lines of transportation are started
almost weekly, and trans-Atlantic telegraphs seem
to multiply indefinitely. The Times cannot pos-
sibly persuade its readers that so great an increase
of trade with the New World is based upon mere
blind speculation •, for the American people
have satisfied all honest and thoughtful
minds that they are bent upon meeting every
liability caused by their late war, and that the
policy of their Government will henceforward be
one of retrenchment, economy, and the develop-
ment of the unparalleled resources of their country.
English manufacturers have had enough of
Surats," and they know that, within a very short
period of time, the supply of cotton from the United
States will reach a far higher figure than even in
'59 or 'GO ; and that, henceforward, the supplies in
question will not be rendered insecure by
the anomalous condition of the Southern
laboring population. Add to this the in-
creased importations of American breadstuffs and
provisions, caused by larger areas in the -West being

-"qt. ,

brought under cultivation, and the easier access to
European markets consequent upon the develop-
ment of railroads, canals, and other lines of com-
munication with the sea-board ; and it is easy to
foresee that, within a comparatively short
period, the balance of trade must be larger than
ever in favor of the United States. It is simply
futile on the part of the Times to attempt to swim
against this mighty current. The English people
could overlook its false predictions anent the war,
because military affairs are proverbially uncertain ;
and they can smile at its never-ending mis-
takes upon American politics. But the Times
will not be permitted by its readers to de-
ceive them reference to commercial matters,
for commerce belongs to the category of certainties,
and means of correct information on trans-Atlantic
affairs are now within the reach of all. It is time
for our contemporary to change its tone. Let it
accept the situation as the world at large has ac-
cepted it, and seek to regain that influence amongst
its readers which it formerly possessed by following
the policy contained in the maxim—Tempora mu-
tantur et nos mutamur in illis.