The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-14 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

THIa DAY.—Morning, 4h. Om.—Afternoon, 4h. 18m.
To-monnow.-Morning, 4h. 36m.—Afternoon, 4h. 54m.

TIII3 WEATHER.—Srx OFFICE, JAN. 13, 1561.
THEItIioICETEIL, IN TILE SHADE.
39—highest since noon yesterday.
33—lowest this morning and during the night.
33—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.77; a fall of half an inch since yesterday.
WlND—Southerly and Easterly—moderate ; with a
heavy fall of snow about noon and up till late.
JAN. 14.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHAM
34—highest since noon yesterday.
26—lowest this morning and during the night.
30—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-29.75.
WIND -- South-Easterly— fresh ; with sharp frosty
weather.

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4 igtcc
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THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, JAN. 14, 1861.

Nothing could well be more satisfactory under
the circumstances than the intelligence just
received from China, in the shape of despatches
addressed to her MAJESTY'S Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, by her MAJESTY'S Envoy Extra-
ordinary to the Court of Pekin and Minister Pleni-
potentiary. These the latest communications from
Lord ELGlN—dated from the Chinese Capital (the
briefest of them) on the 4th of November, and from
Tien-tsin (at greater length), subsequently on the
13th and 15th of November, duly appeared in
a Supplement to the London Gazette of Friday,
the 11th of January, published as such at a late
hour the day before yesterday. They may be
examined by our readers at pleasure in another
part of our impression of this evening;
those there deeply interesting despatches
with their enclosures, the latter comprising among
them. communications from important English offi-
cials, such as Mr. ADKINS, our agent left in Pekin,
and Mr.IVADE, our Chinese Secretary, and Colonel
FOLEY, our Commissioner at the French head-
quarters; together with missives addressed by the
Tartar Government to its own people as to the
scattered provincial authorities, to men high in
power, such as LAO, the Governor-General of the
Two Kwang. Looking through these papers, it is
impossible not to recognise at once the complete
manner in which the Allied Expedition has inspired
the Tartar rulers with a conviction, that it would
savour somewhat of madness to trifle henceforth,
as they have done so often hitherto, with the inte-
rests of the terrible " outer-barbarians" from the
opposite extremity of the world. The armaments
themselves have effected this good, in the first in-
stance—those small but sufficient armaments, led
on respectively by General GRANT and General
MONTAUBAN, carrying with them devilish little
brass cannon and diabolical Armstrong guns, that
rendered the old-fashioned artillery as much lumber
of the past, by comparison, as the crossbow and ;le
catarpult ! Scattering the disproportioued swarms
of Tartar horsemen, time after time, with the utmost
facility, between Tien-tsin and the capital of the
Chinese Empire! And at length when the EIiPEPOR
was scared away in ignominious flight into the
wilds of Manchouria, and his legions under the
Prince SAN-KO-LIN-SIN routed irretrievably—at
length, we say, as the coup de grace in retalia-
tion for the atrocious massacre of a cluster of
Englishmen and their attendant Hindoo compa-
nions in arms and brothers in misfortune—at length
firing their almost fabulous palace of splendours,
leaving in lieu of all that accumulation of mag-
nificence nothing more than a vast heap of
smouldering ruins where once had stood the
resplendent structure of Yuen-min-Yuen ! All
this having been accomplished by the English and

French forces, under the vigorous guidance of
the Allied Commanders-in-Chief, has naturally

enough tended at last to influence the opinions
of the Chinese, or rather of their Tar-
tar rulers, with a tardy consciousness that,
as we have before observed, it were sheer folly
or lunacy to trifle with us any longer so daringly
and mendaciously. The wholesome impression
forced upon our late antagonists at the points of our
bayonets and the mouths of our rifles and our
Armstrongs appear to have been confirmed to the
uttermost by the admirable manner in which the
allied diplomatists have throughout conducted the
subsequent negotiations. To appreciate this fact
fully—for once and for all—it is only necessary to
glance through these latest communications from
her Britannic MAJESTY'S two ambassadors, those
two brothers, Lord ELGIN and Mr. BRUCE, her
MAJESTY'S present representative at the Court of
Pekin, and her MAJESTY'S Minister Plenipotentiary,
thither and in every sense of the phrase Envoy
Extraordinary. The Earl of ELGIN especially has
acted from first to last as we could alone have anti-
cicipated—it would be hardly extravagant to say,
to admiration. His lordship in his dealings
with the Chinese has actually contrived at last—

"To open their eyes"—not without " a little
surprise" on their part—" to a sense of their situa-

tion !" His interview with Prince KUNG—or
rather, as his Imperial Highness appears to be
more correctly designated, Yin SIN, Prince of
Kung—have proved in this way particularly effica-
cious. A notion—perhaps by this time something
more than a mere glimmering of a notion—would
seem to have dawned upon the imagination of the
brethren of the Sun and Moon and all the heavenly
constellations—a somewhat more reasonable notion
than has ever before appeared to have penetrated
the brain ot his Tartar Highness as to the power
and dignity appertaining to the QUEEN of these
realms, and as to the respect and loyalty due to the
stipulations entered into by the Chinese or by the
Japanese, or by any other Power or Race whatever,
with the authorised commissioners and representa-

tives of her Britannic MAJESTY'S Government. In
evidence of this tardy conviction having been hap-
pily forced at last upon the acceptance and recog-
nition of Prince KUNG, as the chief representative
and principal administrator of the Chinese EMPE-
ROR'S Government, there are the facts now brought
vividly before us by these last received despatches
from Pekin, together with the enclosures already par-
ticularised. For example, there is the conspicuous
and in every way most remarkable fact, that the
terms of the Treaty of Peace recently entered into
between the English and the Chinese have been
duly published in the Pekin Gazette, and what is
still more, if possible, placarded about the walls of
that capital for the wondering perusal of the
Chinese people themselves. It is certainly to be
regretted that another of the most vitally important
stipulations appearing in that Treaty has not sum-
marily been carried into effect according to the
original terms of the agreement entered into be-
tween the negotiators. It is to be regretted, more-
over, that Mr. BRUCE, as her MAJESTY'S Ambas-
sador and representative at the Court of the
Emperor HIEN FUNG, had not taken up his abode
forthwith at the capital of the vast nation, to the
ruler of which his Excellency is thus accredited.
Instead of doing which, as we have well known
for same time past, Mr. BRUCE is to winter at
Tien-tsin—biding his time there until his formal
settlement at Pekin can be accomplished with a
trifle more of convenience ! The motives actuating
Lord ELGIN and his brother, in guiding them to
this conclusion, we doubt not are powerful enough
in themselves. But—viewing the facts of the
case from this distance—it assuredly does appear
matter of regret that what may be said to have
been the neck of the difficulty all along should not at
length have been broken at once without another
day's delay, now that we might have inducted
the diplomatic representative of our SOVEREIGN
into his place of residence in the Chinese capital
under the shadow of the victorious banners of the
Allied Expedition, and while the avenging smoke
was yet rising from the blackened debris of that
whilom abode of delights, the summer palace of
YuEN-MIN-YIEN. Among the documents given to the
public in this last supplement to the London Gazette
there is one (and it is certainly, by no means, the
least interesting, in this extremely readable group
of communications) addressed to Lord J. RUSSELL,
as Foreign Secretary, by Lord ELGIN'S brother
himself, the Hon. FREDERICK W. A. BRUCE, her
Britannic MAJESTY'S representative henceforth at
the Imperial Court at'Pekin. From this despatch it
will be seen how courtly, and yet at the same
time how frank have been the interviews
which have taken place recently between Mr.
BRUCE and Prince KUNG—Mr. BRUCE having been
formally introduced to Prince KUNG at the first of
these interviews by the Earl of ELGIN and KIN-
CARDINE. Not the least satisfactory result of this
eminently-judicious interchange of civilities being,
by the way, the circumstance of that hint thrown
out by his Excellency to his Imperial Highness—
the hint that it might be as well for
the Chinese EMPEROR and his MAJESTY'S
Government if they were to accredit an
Ambassador, on their part, to the distant Court
of St. James's ! A hint that we do yet trust may
happily result before much longer in the addition
to the corps diplomatique at this Court of St.
James's of some duly buttoned and pigtailed Man.
darin.

Mliddle•class electors have now an opportunity if
they choose to use it. For some twenty years we
have patiently borne the burden of an Income-tax,
confessed by all candid Chancellors of the
Exchequer themselves to be a tax of irremediable
yet flagrant injustice ; denounced by moralists as
the strongest temptation conceivable to lying and
fraud ; and groaned under despondingly 'oy all
whose incomes are less than £5OO a-year. This
year we were,to have been free from the tax. We
begin the year with an Income-tax of TENPENCE
in the pound. The question we submit to ten-
pound householders and tenants-at-will, is, shall
we end the year with an Income-tax still on our
shoulders ?

If we would not, now is the time for action. A
beginning b0;<; been made, which, if well worked,
may easily put an end to it. A considerable num_
ber 0P... members have commenced signing a memorial
4i.0 the Premier to urge on his attention the enor-
mous amount of the public expenditure. They are
members wbo generally support Lord PAL3IER-
STON ; and though they address him most respect-
fully, and refrain from even the semblance of a
threat, they yet conclude thus :—" We are com-
pelled to say that we should view an expenditure
for the coming year approaching that of the current
year with great regret and disapprobation ; and we
believe that that would be the feeling of our consti•
tuents and of the country at large. We have there-
fore thought it right to offer these suggestions in a
friendly
spirit to your lordship, and we trust they
may not be thought unworthy to receive the serious
consideration of the Government."

They mention, as reasons for their appeal, that
they have reason to think the expenditure of last
year was forced on the Government against its will
by an unhappy combination of circumstances; that