The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-10 00:00:00

THE WAR IN 0 NINA.

The Eail of HARDWICKE begged to call the at-•
tention of the noble lord the Secretary at War to the
question which be had put to this noble lord on Friday
evening last. From the answer be then received
be interred._ that important de, spatches had been
received, and would be published in the usual way. Re-
cent accounts in the newspapers stats a that the French bad
lent their valuable aid to our forces for the protection of
the inhabitants at Hong Kong. He felt grateful for that
assertion, but it was very painful to him as an. English-
man to feel indebted to any foreign power for assist-
ance.
Lord PANMURE said the answi r he gave on Friday
must have been misunderstood by the noble earl. He
said that despatches had been recell ved stating that the
9th Regiment had been engaged wit;h the Chinese, and
that certain casualties had taken p lace, and that they
would be published in the London Pazettt. A list of
those casualties had been made pub! se.
TORTURE IN IN DIA.
The Earl of ALBEMARLE gave notice of his inten-
tion, on Monday next, to move for certain returns on
the subject of the infliction of torture in India.
THE OPIUM MONOPOLY.

The Earl of SHAFTESBURY rose to move that the
following questions be put to the judges :
"1. Whether, according to the true i construction of the
4th section of an Act passed in a seLsion of Parliament
holden in the 3d and 4th years of the resign of his late Ma-
jesty King William IV., entitled 'An Lot for effecting an
arrangement with the East India Company, and
fir the better government of his Majesty's Indian Terri-
tories till the 30th day of April, 1854,' it is lawful for the
East India Company to derive a revenue from opium by
the following system :—That is to say, by prohibiting and
preventing the growth of the poppy, from which opium is
made, within their territories except as grown on
their account and under their licence and a-
perintendency, advances of money being annually
wade by theni to the cultivators of the poppy by way
of prepayment of the price of all the juice of the poppy of
a specified consistence, to be produced froth the land in re-
spect of which such advances are made, such p rice being es-
timated according to a price fixed by the compel ay for the dis-
trict in which the land happens to be situated ; the cultiva-
tors delivering to-the company as much of such juice as the
cultivators can produce, such juice being afterwards sent
by the corspany to their factories, and there manufactured
by them into opium; afterwards sent 'by therm from those
factories to Calcutta, and there sold by them by auction at
their sales, the excess of the sale prices over e.nd above the
first costiconstituting the revenue in qu estiou.
"2. Whether, having regard to the supplemental
treaty between her Majesty and the Emperor of China, bear-
ing date the Bth day of October, 1843, which contains the
following words—' A fair and regular • tariff of duties and
other dues having now been establishec 1, it is to hoped that
the system of smuggling will entirely cease,' it is
lawful for the East India Company to deal with such
opium in the manner stated in the fi. rat question, with
the full knowledge that it is so purely aced at the above-
mentioned sales for the purpose of bei ing smuggled into
China in`contravention of the laws of that empire; and
so to cultivate and manufacture the same with a view prin-
cipally to the China market, and to its b eiug so purchased
for such purposes as aforesaid; the 0 empany with that
view manufacturing the opium into th e form which the
Company consider best adapted to facilitate and promote
that contraband trade ?"

The noble lord took the opportunity' of entering at
lengthim the subject, and contended ' hat the greatest
obstacle to the spread of Christianity 'at China was the
cul ivation and sale of opium by the East India Cora-
panyi; that the statute law gave a monopoly in salt,
tobacco; and betel nut to the campa nay, but not one
word in that law was said about opi rein. The noble
eirl then detailed the process of the tiriltivation of the
poppy, the flavouring tbo opium to sc7i t the palate of
the Chinese, and concluded by urging their lord-
ships to agree to his motion, t s tying that if
his questions were submitted to the judges of the
land, he had no doubt in his own mind that they would
arrive at the conclusion that the whole transaction was

illegal. If it was declared that this a bomination was
legal, and existed by act of Parliament, 'then he pledged
himself to bring the whole subject in :all its enormity
before Parliament, and appeal to ttie feelings of the
country to put a stop to such an abomin: .ble system.
The LORD CHANCELLOR considered that the
question which had been brought before their lordships'
attention was of very deep important e ; but what he
wished to put to his noble friend, and 'to submit to the
house, was, whether the course which. his noble friend
bad asked the house to adopt was one which their lord-
ships could, with any senso of justice, possibly sanction ?
His noble friend proposed to subrait c:er tain propositions
to the judges. The judges were in the habit of being
summoned to their lordships' housein. any matter upon
which their lordships thought it right to ask their
opinion—especially with a view to any judicial busi-
ness their lordships might have to transact, or to some
pending litigation which came before the house by way
of appeal. In the year 1840 a right rev. prelate made a
motion to ascertain from the judges whether a proposed
measure as to the application of the Canada Clergy
Reserves fund would or would not be consistent with an
existing Act of Parliament, and their lordships' legisla-
tion was guided by their opinion. To such a course no man
could possibly object. But what would be) the consequence
of putting such a question as that of which notice bad
bees given ? According to the hypothesis of his noble
friend every member and servant of'the East India Com-
pany for tbe.last 50 years was guilty, to the extent of
many millions a year, of violating the law of the land.
If so, they, and each of them, were liable to be indicted,
_

tried, and punished. Could anything be so monstrous-L.
if this were to be the consequence—that their lordships
were to be called upon to prejudge the question of the
guilt of these persons who wore not before them to say
anything in their own defence, and that the judges should
determine upon a state of things submitted to them upon
one side only and have to answer a question which they
might have to decide judicially ! He (the Lord Chan-
cellor) could not conceive that, if his noble friend saw the
extreme embarrassment of such a result, he would for one
moment ask the house to sanction the course be bad sug-

gested. (Hear.) However, he (the Lord Cbancellor) was
quite prepared, on behalf of the Government, to investi-
gate a question (which had been put in a form that
rather assumed than stated the facts of the case) of how

the manufacture of opium was conducted, and who dis
posed of it. That question the Government would re
fer to their own law officers; and with respect to the
second proposition, which related not to a law but to a
treaty, they would refer it to the Queen's Advocate. He
had no doubt that' that opinion would be satisfactory to
the Government, and they probably would have no diffi-
culty in communicating it to their lordships. He (the
Lord Chancellor) would not commit himself to the pro-
position that the trade in opium was strictly I,gal. The,
object of the act was to discontinue commercial trad-
ing, and perhaps his noble friend (the Earl of Shaftes-
bury) did not know so well as some other noble lords
that dealing with the produce of one's own land was
not trading in the eye of the law-. With respect to
another trade, that of salt, the very question had been
decided that the owners of salt were not thereby con-
sidered commercial traders as the law dealt with those
words. If the fact were that the East India
Company were not empowered to cultivate opium by
the Act of 1853, his noble friend assumed further
that the cultivation of opium that existed was a mo-
copoly. But it was impossible for any one to say how
that was without a knowledge of the law. The East
India Company could prevent any one else from culti-
vating opium—a matter which could only be arrived at
by investigation of, facts. But supposing they bad a mo-
nopoly, did not the act except those operations which
were 'necessary for the purposes of government ? Now,
if it should turn out that this was the mode by which
the East India Company had thought proper to raisethe
necessary revenue of the country, how could it be said
that it was illegal? It was hardly a matter to be argued.
At the same time he (the Lord Chancellor) promised to
keep Isis mind suspended ; he bad been a lawyer quite
long enough to know that difficulties might arise and in-
genious questions might be raised, and with the promise
of investigation he had given, he would submit it to his
dt
iroa
The
wh
onef. m
noble friend whether the motion had better not be with-
Eaakrling
ofSa motionHA T
wEShßillehlt should
Ysaidhhaev.ehtande no
eicntenof
laying open to a criminal indictment the living
and the dead for the last 50 years ; and if that were really
the view of his noble friend upon the woolsack, and if
he would give him a guarantee that the question should
be refeired to the law officers of the Crown, with a view
to the full investigation of the whole matter, Ise must
say that his point would be gained, and that he would
with that understanding withdraw"his motion. (Hear.)
Earl GREY said he thought his noble friend the Eail
of Shaftesbury) had exercised a wise discretion. He
(Earl Grey) had heard with extreme astonishment that,
with.some modifications, the motion was 'about to be
assented to by her Majesty's Government. That asto-
nishment, however, was dissipated when he heard the
speech of the noble lord on the woolsack. A reference
to the judges and to the law officers of the Crown was no.
the, same thing-; but thaigh political interests weighed
with the latter, he thought they might be appealed to in
this instance with some confidence. The question was
one of far too high an importance to be dealt with in
the manner suggested by the noble earl, involving
as it did the consideration whether the conduct