The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-19 00:00:00

i Conaidered"—and purports to be the production remember one thing—By those Russians, the
of "An Asiatic." Our pamphleteer not merely British Flag had not been publicly outraged !
announcing himself to be, An Asiatic upon his ttle- k Occasionally, indeed, there is, beyond all this,
page, but endorsing that declaration immediately an inaccuracy in his fact=, such as, when once
afterwards by the apologetic excerpt of a thread- . indicated to the writer, may reasonably induce
bare verse from a dog's-eared page of Terence. I him to hesitate in his own mind as to the abso-
His argument, howbeit—whatever may be said as
ilute soundness of his conclusions. At fault in
to the 'bloom of his latinity—ia anything but hack- , his " facts," he may appreciate the possibility of
neyed. And it is precisely because of this, because his being in error as to his deductions. It is
of its novelty—added to the graces of a rhetorical thus, in the former particular, for example, that
style and the occasional evidence (unhappily to our we find him at p. 10 writing of " the bombard-
thinking invariably upon "the wrong side") of ment of Algiers in 1820 by Lord EXMOUTH"—
much logical acumen—that we conceive the when the Battle of Algiers was fought, on the
, pamphlet of this ingenious if not ingenuous Diz- contrary, four years earlier, viz., in 1816 :
• putant is entitled to an immediate and respectful Sir EDWARD PELLEW having then won his
consideration. viscountcy by that superb maritime achieve-

As it is here "dispassionately considered" by
An Asiatic—The China Question is viewed en-
tirely from the side of the late triumphant but
worsted Opposition. So that the anonymous
pamphleteer himself, with all his easily recognis-
able ability, constitutes after all but another atom
added supplementarily to the old " fortuitous
concurrence." An atom sparkling, however, like
diamond-dust as he flutters into the doomed heap
—though otherwise strangely dull at the same
time to the recognition of the glaringly obvious
fact that the Country at large has very recently
negatived the decision arrived at upon The China
Question by the motley opponents of Lord
PALMERSTON' S Government. That indisputable
" fact " is virtually ignored throughout the
whole of his argument by our clever but
by no means convincing pamphleteer. He
will give credit at once, we doubt not, to our
candour and sincerity, when we observe in re•
ference to this novel and ingenious plea of his, in
behalf of the Yehites both in China and in Eng-
land, that the tendency of his argument has only
served in reality in our own instance (now that
we have carefully read it throughout), to confirm
our judgment all the more resolutely in our im-
pression as to the accuracy of our former con-
victions. Any recapitulation in this place of the
names, and dates, and events, constituting the out-

meat. Enough, however, upon these casual flaws
in detail—important ()alp, it must be admitted,
inferentially ! Not so, however, is it when the
writer endeavours to prove his case by other im-
plied analogies—no less erroneous, to say the
least of them, than the one attempted to be
drawn, as already intimated, between this new
war with the Chinese and our late war with the
Muscovites. It will be sufficient for us, we con-
ceive, upon this point to remind An Asiatic, in
reference to what he has remarked at page 40,
that the "Arrow" lorcha was not taking auxiliary
forces to swell the ranks of the Chinese insur-
gents—a circumstance essential for the comple-
tion of any parallel with the case of the " Kan-
garoo" barque, which, when seized by the Rus-
sian gun-boat, was (he admits it himself) " tak-
ing Polish recruits to CiKassia r Again—the
" Billow" ship mentioned at p. 41, was not
boarded by the American authorities, its flag was
not hauled down contemptuously when the two
" free negroes" were taken into custody, those
same unfortunates being, on the contrary, seized
(under suspicion) at the time when they were
" ashore at New York without leave." Conse-
quently here again there is no admissible resem-
blance whatever to the wrong-doiugs perpetrated
on board the " Arrow" larcha by the Cantonese.
Moreover, when our pamphleteer asks later on (p.
51), " Would a merchant captain (sailing under
the British fig) engaged in a Danish contraband
trade, and with Danish refugee sailors on board,
forcing a passage through the Sound, and being
fired upon while his flag was flying :—be the
cause of war between thiscoun try and Denmark?"
It may be answered—But the "Arrow" lorcha was
not engaged in a contraband trade, was not forcing a
passage anywhere contrary to the maritime regu-
lations of the Chinese—bat was, on the contrary,
lying at anchor in the waters of Canton, having
been duly chartered as a British trader not many
months before at Hongkong. Sufficient has bee❑
said, however, we rest assured (perhaps more than
sufficient), t 3 make good our opinion in regard to
this really clever but unconvincing (and unconvinc-
ing because purely illogical) argument—an opinion
expressed at the commencement of our remarks,
and here again reiterated, to the effect that the
ingenuity of the plea advanced by "An Asiatic,"
in defence of the Yehites, will be found to be very
slightly sustained in the course of his really able
pamphlet by the far higher characteristic of
ingenuousness.

line of the Chinese Question in its entirety would be
absolutely superfluous. We have told the story
over and over again, until we ara all of us heartily
sick of it—until we are, many of us, eager to
place a taboo, for ever and a day, upon the mere
names of the Lorcha and the Consul, and the British
Plenipotentiary and the Chinese Commissioner. We

do not, therefore, by any means, intend to fallow
our Asiatic publicist through all the windings of
the labyrinth thridded so perseveringly by our-
selves, time and again, as occasion required, until
we had become familiarised to its every turn and
involution. It will be sufficient for our purpose
if we here point out briefly, in one or two parti-
culars, where it is, and why it is, that
we conceive the analogies attempted to be drawn
by our author between the China Question and
several other questions to be altogether undiscover-
able to ourselves,' in their pretended apposite-
ness, that is to say,l by way of illustration. Ica.
plying at the same time casually, and, so to speak,
merely inferentially, howit comes to pass that we
regard the conclusions arrived at by this able
pamphleteer to be generally speaking altogether
inconsequent.

Foremost among these assumed analogies,
then—to be plain—is the one attempted to be
drawn between this new war with China and the
late war with Russia. And here it is at once as.
sumed that the course adopted by the Muscovites
at the outset of their quarrel with reference to
Turkey, was absolutely humane as compared with
that subsequently pursued by the English
with regard to the Chinese, "The princi-
palities, so much land, on the one hand," says
An Asiatic, "are sequestered, as if by a civil
process assisted by military aid; the whole City of
Caliton," he adds, "on the other, is bombarded,
and marines landed to set the suburbs on fire,
Ive., dm" Pp. 8-9. Not a sylla,le here
about the bloody work perpetrated by the Rus-
sians (after crossing the Pruth) at Jassy and
Bucharest—by way of enforcing the mere "civil
process" we may presume,',by which they were
amiably appropriating to themselves the twin pro-
vinces of XL:Ho-Wallachia. Not a word as to
the sanguinary conflici.s forced upon the Osmanli
army under OSIER PAOII9. at Giurgevo, at K tla-
fat, and at Silistria ! Not a whisper about the exe-
crable massacre of Sinope ! All those events being
prior (recollect!) to the advance of the allied fleets
into the Euxine through the Channel of the Darda,
nelks. Yet the Russian inauguration of the late
war is spoken of as a mere sequestration—" us if
by a civil process assisted by military aid !" While
the British inauguration of their war with the
Chinese is held up, on the contrary, to universal
odium, as a gratuitous and monstrous violation of
all the dictates of Humanity. Remembering that
while among the immediate provocations to war
in China, were—a wanton outrage upon the British
flsg, an insolent refusal of negotiation, an official
instigation' at Canton to the murder of our fellow
countrymen, the setting of blood-money by YEil
upon the heads of Englishmen, the stabbing and
throat-slitting of unarmed passengers on board
the Thistle, the poisoning of the bread at Hong
Kong by some one, no matter by whom, at any
rate by some one ! Remembering that while all
these atrocities might be enumerated as among
the provocations to war in China (to say nothing
of the gratuitous violation of a Solemn Treaty of
Peace for fourteen years consecutively)—abso-
lutely nothing of the kind could be adduced in
explanation of their onslaught upon Turkey by
the Russians—no blood-money, no poisoning, no
stabbing, no insult to the national flag, no re-
fusal of negotiation ! Remembering this,
we put it to our Asiatic pamphleteer if
we are not after all, in some degree, justified in
designating a turn of the argument like this—
ingenious rather than ingenuous?

The second reading of the Ministers' Money
(Ireland) Bill was last night carried in the House
of Lards by the very slender majority of five.
In the Commons the similar stage of the measure
passed by no less than 139 majority. There
was, therefore, but a very narrow escape from a
collision, that might have proved very prejudicial
to the interests of the Established Church in Ire-
land ; and we earnestly hope that, the sense of
the hereditary branch of the Legislature having
been thus taken, no further effurta may be made
either to reject or neutralise the advantages that
may fairly be anticipated from the bill passing
into a law.

The whole question is one, so far as the Irish
Church is concerned, merely of As. d. If the
claimants receive the money from any quarter
they will be well contented. Indeed, even the
recipients would greatly prefer that so fertile a
cause of dissention should be removed, and that
the interests of the Church should not be jeopar-
dised by so unfortunate a connection.
It is however a very different matter :with the
payers. They naturally regard it as "an insult
and badge of degradation"—oue that should be
resisted at any expense, however onerous. Far
more than two-thirds of the entire amount is
levied in the Irish metropolis, which contributes
3,490/. of the entire charge. Of the trifling
balance, 2,2701. is claimed from, not paid by,
Cork ; while only 1,4161. is demanded from the
other six towns. And this is the mighty sum
which is to create ill-feeling and irritation in the
centre and south of Ireland

The charge, too, is partial, and that enhances
the annoyance. Why should Cork pay when
Belfast is exempted I—why should Kinsale be
mulcted, while Enniskillen escapes with impunity?
Its origin, too, is known, and that by no means a
creditable one. It is a bequest of the pious and
religious(!) Monarch, CHARLES H., and how is it
sustained ? By the allegation that it was a charge
on the property of Protestants, because no
others could legally hold real estate at the time it
was enacted ! Thus ripping up the very worst
feature of the atrocious penal codel
Lord DERBY should have been the last man to
mix himself up with the opposition. He had
himself saved the Irish Church, by yielding to
expediency. He it was who brought forward the
grants in 1832 and 1833, of 60,0001. and
1,000,0001. sterling, suppressed ten bishoprics,
rendered tithe composition compulsory, and re-
duced the amour't by 25 per cent. He it
was who got rid of Church cess, and averted
the storm that was threatening the exist-
ence of the Establishment. All parties have
recognised the value of his exertions, and
having experienced the efficacy of a conciliatory
policy, he should not "nail his colours to the
mast" on a comparatively trivial issue. The
funds in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners provide the legitimate means of satisfying
the claims of existing clergymen. They are said
to belong to the Church, and are properly appli•
cable to church purposes, and there can be none
more advantageous than that of abolishing a
source of discord that must occasion animosity and
ill-feeling, and create, or rather continue, an
organised opposition to the temporalities of the
Irish Church.

Again, commenting upon the statement some-
where advanced, to the effect that the whole of
Europe approves of the war with Ctiina, and in•
sisting at the same time that "they (sic) did not
approve of the war with Russia," it is here ob-
served (p. 13)—" If the war must be righteous
because of this European concurrence—why,
their, holding back in the war with Russia
was a proof that the Russian war was not a
righteous war F' Illogically argued—obviously—
for the one sufficient reason, that sit Europe was
not opposed to the war with Russia ! European
Turkey being backed up not merely by England, but
by France also, and by Sardinia, and, in a quibbling
manner, even by Austria—Prussia alone, among
all the " Great" Powers, maintaining, from first to
last, an obdurate neutrality. For the petty
German Principalities are out of that cate-
gory altogether ! And Italy no less is self-
absorbed in her own woful dreaming over her
disappointed aspirations ! And the Iberian Penin-
sulabut a feeble inclination, and absolutely
no capacity, to
participateof
in the great
tional contentions
ChristendomlSo
o thatit n e rtnhae-
inference in the case i
s altogether inadmissible.
Referring yet in another way to the outbreak
of the Russian war as compared with the outbreak
of this Chinese war, our pamphleteer exclaims (p.
18), ".How much negotiation there was in that case
before even the declaration of war I" True--buts

The Directors of the Bank of England have at
length made a trifling reduction in the minimum
v.te of discount. It was yesterday fixed at 6 per
cent., in place of 6i, at which it had stood since
the beginning of April. We do not now thank
them for the change which they resisted while it
was possible so to do—we will not say that it
was " their poverty, and not their will, that con-
sented ;" but we have no doubt that the pro-
ceedings before the Committee, now sitting on the
Bank Charter Act, exercised a salutary influence
in bringing about this result. They would, if pos-
sible, keep it at the highest point ; but it was
palpable that so doing would be merely "killing
the Goose that laid the golden eggs," or, at all
•vents, transferring her custody to more conside-

Tiff! NUN. VONFONI 111VIONINei

rate keepers. According to the official returns for
the weekending the 6th inst., the amount of bullies
in both departments had increased to 10,290,6491.,

aul the "Notes Unemployed " to 5,277,6001.,
while the entire circulation had been 'reduced to
18,785,9801., being a decrease within the week
of 291,4951. ! A continuance of the screw at its
previous intensity would, under such circum-
stances, have proved that the Bank did not act
fairly with the public, and have gone far to prove
the necessity of the regulation of monetary affairs
being intrusted to a national department in place
of a private trading corporation !
Although, however, this change has taken place
—a movement at a snail's pace—in the right
direction, we cannot look forward to a re-
turn to even a reasonable rate of dis-
count for years to come, unless occasioned by
a change in the monetary code and an en-
larged paper currency. The Times, which so
earnestly protests against English notes of small
and convenient denominations, approves of the
creation of 50 franc notes (21.) by the Bank of
France, the result whereof will be the liberation
of a large amount of gold and a strong effect on
prices. Why, then, should not a similar experi-
ment be fried in this country ? Mr. JAMES WIL•
SON has long since pointed out the certain advan-
tages that must i.evitably follow the adoption of
such a course, which would be tantamount to
those resulting from the discovery of an equal
quantity of gold in the centre of England.
But this is to be avoided to suit the interested
views of Mercator and his disciples. Mills are
still to work half time ; factories 'are to be par-
tially or altogether closed ; the industrial popula-
tion of the country must submit to the most seri-
ous privations, simply that the wealth of a few
leviathan capitalists may be enhanced beyond all
reasonable bounds! The people deserve the inflic-
tion because they have submitted patiently to the
most flagrant injustice ever perpetrated on any com-
munity. But, sooner or later, they will shake off
the unaccountable apathy, and then a long
reckoning must be settled. A reduction of the
minintuna rate of discount to 6 por cent. at head-
quarters, will not satisfy the demands of an
outraged and indignant people.

J trly,,li 10,
____! ,'l,

LATEST

` L:J

17,000 Protestants, pray:ng thAt- Ie t,ifiletent
V k: Ler of ly member, by t'•e comoi,,ne, may
be •suinmon.”.d to he Gne al Evangelical
which is to assenibl,• thi, ye ,r, in ci r o come to
a se :lenient of t!it, cons :Au ion of th- Pr, -
test,mt Church in Bkvaria, an t, ptv ;:n End to
the CtisSensirms uhiell have lat ly ti:e
tnnqu,lllty of hat church. SlinnarpeLtions have
been signed in otner loJahtics.

FRANCE
PARIS, THURSDAY.
The Spanish Governmt-nth is named the Duke de
Rivas Ambassador at the Court of the Tuileries.
The Emperor h despatched oue of his orderly
officers, Colonel Fave, of the Engineers, to Chalons,
in order to ha-ten the preparations for the camp.
It is said that it will open on the 25th August, and
break up on the sth October.
The most prominent event connected with the
elections is the third "warning" giv, n to the Siecle.
From this we may conclude that the Government
does not regard with indifference the influence
wh'ch this journal exercises on public opinion. The
third warning might have been accompanied by sus-
pending the publication of the journal entirely.
The re trier will discover i❑ the subjoined transla-
tion of the decree the reasons why so severe a mea-
sure was not resorted to :
"The Minister, Secretary of State for the Department
of the Interor ; considering Art. 32 of the organic de.
cree on the press of the 17th February, 1852 ;
"Considering the warnings given to the Siecle on the
12th December, 1853, and the 24th February, 1857 ;
"Considering the article contained in the number of
the Siecle of the 17th, commencing by the words Si l'on
doutait,' and signed L. Haviu ;
"Considering t'sat in the said article the Siecle, not
content with attributing exclusively to the cand.dates of
the Opposition, whom it qoalifies as democratic, the
monopoly of the great principles of 1789, imputes to the
electors who may vote for the Government andidates a
wish to attack the cause of family ties by the right of
birth, and by religious marriage, to menace property in
seeking to establish under the deceitful name of testa-
mentary liberty the right of despoiling children for the
benefit of religious communities, to threaten the cause of
civil equality, the cause of liberty, of thinking, speaking,
and writing, &c.
"Considering that the Government of the Emperor,
based on the sovereignty of the people and on the prin-
ciples of 1789, henceforward the unshakeable foundations
of French society, cannot allow the ideas of order and of
progress which it represents, and the mass of the electors
who approve of them, to be thus calumniated ;
"Looking to the fact that the Siecle, having already
received two official warnings, might, according to the
terms of the law, be suspended from this day, but seeing
that the Government, which has allowed to the electoral
struggle the greatest possible latitude, is unwilling,
although it has the right, to strike at the last days of
that contest even one of the most energetic and active
organs of an opposition the bearing of which public opi-
nion will appreciate ;
" Seeing that it cannot, however, dispense with giving
warning, that it will not allow that journal to misrepre•
sent, for the benefit of a sterile agitation, the loyal in-
tentions of a policy which secures the glory, the tran-
quillity, and the security of the country ;
" On the proposition of the Director-General of Public
Safety,
" Decrees as follows :
"Art. 1. A warning is hereby given to the Siecle, in
the person of M. Songere, responsible gerant, and of M.
Flavin, who signed the incriminated ar. icle.
" Art. 2. The Prefect of Police is charged with the
execution of the present decree. " EILLAUT."
The accounts of the promising stat: of the harvest
continue to be most encouraging. It is the eneral
opinion that the price of food throu..4liout France
must er© long fall considerably. The Moniteur
Vinicole says :
" We are delighted to be able to point out a fact which
gives a striking confirmation to the hopesof a fine vintage,
which is that in most of the great centres of production
prices begin to give way, and were it not for the low-
ness of stocks g3nerally, the decline would already be
very sensible. We also find another good omen in the
extensive orders which the coopers have received for
casks from the large prprietors of vineyards. The
state of the vines is most prosperous, and the blossoming
is going on under the most favourable conditions. The
grape disea,e, where it has shown itself has been
checked by sulphur, and it appears that in several parts
of the country the oidiane has been confounded with the
*Tinian?, vitis, which is an affection far less formidable.
The following private telegraphic despatches
have been received :

Advice:4 from St. Peter-burg, sta,e that the
cholea is gaining g onnd > s 014 weather becomes
warmer. The average number ,:f deaths there at
present is 70 per day.

" BERNE, JUNE 17.
The Federal Council, after having received the
news of the ratification of the treaty, immediately
despatched an order to Neufchatel to effect the stipu-
lated amnesty."

" MADRID, JUNE 18.
"Several amendments have been presented to the
bill for the reform of the press.
" It is announced that the Duke of R vas is appointed
to the embassy of Paris."

BOURSE, June 18.—The following were the last
quotations :

Eul of Month.
0.

Cash. fr. c.
4i per Cents
3 per Cents 6B 50
Bank Shares 4,6 0 Credit Foncier 5OO
Credit Mobilier 1,172 50 Itoman
Do. Account - Austrian
Belgian 4i - Spanish Threes 39;
Piedroontese (5) - Home Debt