The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-16 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE,

THIS DAL—Morning, sh. 10m.—Afternoon, sh. 25m.
To-mounow.-Morning, sh. 42m.—Afternoon, sh. 59m.

WEATHER.--SUN OFFICE, JAN. 16, 11i61.
THEB7I[OMZTEI3., IN THE SRAM'.
30—highest since noon yesterday.
22—lowest this morning and during the Bight.
26—this day at noon.
BAEOMBTER-30.20.
WIND—North-Easterly—fresh; with bitter cold weather,
but fine and sunshiny withal.

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IRE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 16, 1861.

the future, if not actually "fall to the ground," at
any rate meet with some disastrous interruption to
the recently restored tranquility. The very docu-
ment published in our columns this evening, the
very document the heading of which we have here
but just now specified, is a reminder, and a very
vivid and startling reminder it is, moreover, of
the difficulties not only likely but absolutely
certain to impede the path of Mr. BRUCE
in his future dealings with the Chinese
Government. His position under the happiest
circumstances could not possibly be other than cne
of peculiar difficulty out in China—namely,
as the representative of the British Go-
vernment at the Court of a Prince ruling
a race hitherto, in all past ages, found to have
been so wholly impracticable. But how much
must not that difficulty be enhanced when it is
borne in mind that the QUEEN'S Ambassador is
accreditted there to the Court of China—to the
Court of the Chinese—while there are two
RICHARDS not merely in the field, but also in the
Palace ! When there are " the powers that
be," it is true, at Pekin ! But when there are also
none the less indubitably " the powers that be" at
Nankin in like manner ! ! There is the Tartar
dynasty enstalled in the person of HIEN TUNG
in the former. And there is the Taeping
Dynasty installed in the latter (that
is in Nankin), in the person of the redoubtable
leader of the Revolution. Between the two, who is
to decide ? Not Europeans certainly. The decision
pending now for a dozen years past, and still
altogether unsettled--rests principally with the
Chinese themselves. While the Western Powers
are insisting, as they have been insisting now for
a good many months past, upon the loyal adhe-
rence of Europe to the principles of non- interven-
tion—it were hardly reasonable to expect them to
violate those same identical principles in the far-off
land of that great Chinese Empire where the Tartars
and the Teel ings have been, during years and years
past, struggling fiercely for the mastery. It would be
a monstrous inconsistency if we allowed ourselves in
any way whatever to be dragged into this gigantic
internecine conflict. .And far more even than that
—it would be a monstrous folly into the bargain
if we permitted our diplomacy or our armaments
to be lured into a course so wholly and entirely
preposterous. True, doubtless, that we have
but just now entered into a pacific agreement
with the representative of the ancient, or at
any rate, the so-called ancient dynasty, that of
the intruding Tartars. But then it cannot at the
same time but be borne also in mind that there
are something like sympathetic chords vibrating
(however faintly and obscurely—still vibrating)
between the Taeping rebels (also, it should be said,
so-called) who—no matter (for the argument now
before us) how partially—have certainly obtained
in some mysterious manner, to say the very least
of it, dim glimmerings and vague scintillations of
a belief in Christianity. Our policy under these
reallyextraordinary circumstances, ought obviously
to be what we cannot but rest assured they will
be, if a diplomatist of such sagacity as Lord ELGIN
is to be allowed any voice in the future regulation
of our proceedings out in tlaat quarter of the
globe—a policy holding us entirely aloof from
the civil war yet waging between the so-called
Usurping Dynasty and the so-called Ancient
Dynasty, between the Tartars and the Taepings,
between the Imperial forces directed from Pekin
and from Nankin, the Chinese Moscow and the
Chinese St. Petersburg.