The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-28 00:00:00

were legally right, the policy they pursued was such
as ought to have been followed in the circumstances in
which they stood. With respect to the question oflaw,
he entered on it with a great deal of diffidence. Great
authorities had pronounced against the view which he
humbly took. Great names had been quoted in that
house against it, and it was with a'l humility that a man
ought to feel in such circumstances that he ventured to
state his opinion ; but at the same time he thought it
right to say that, giving all due weight to these great
legal authorities, the opinion he had formed was one
which he held without much hesitation. He thought it
could be demonstrated from the proceedi gs before them
that there was no true ground for saying that any prin-
ciple of international law had been transgressed by the
authorities at Hong Kong. He was anxious to get the
house out of the region of generalities which surrounded
the subjt &, because he believed it would be found that
the only safe way in which the legal question could be
sifted was to deal with it in connection with the facts as
they had taken place in China ; for a good many of the
general propositions which had been laid down might
be more or less ti ue, while they had oo application to the
facts out ut which the whole question had arisen. The
facts were shor:ly theze : —Alter the treaty of 1842, and
down to 1855, a large population had grown up in the
colony of Hong Kong, and when these proceedings com-
menced there were about 60,000 Chinese in the colony.
He did not say they had ceased to be subjects of China,
or had lost their allegiance, but they were living under
our law and under our protection. In virtue of the powers
which he had as the colonial Governor, Sir John Bow-
ring allowed these Chinese to become possessed of Crown
lands in the colony. He did not say that was naturali-
sation to the fullest extent, but it was a step towards it,
and was in accordance with law. (Hear, hear.) A
civil war broke out in China, and there existed a great
deal of smuggling along the coast. For the double pur-
pose of knowing to whom the coasting vessels belonged,
and enabling them to attack with more effect the emue-
gling trade, an ordinance was passed in March, 1855,
under which any Chinese holding property in Crownlands
in Hong Kong who chose to apply might, on certain con-
ditions, have their vessels registered, and be entitled to
use the British flag. Was that ordinance a dead letter ?
Was it a thing done in a corner ? Or was it unknown to
the Chinese? In point of fact, lorchas were registered by
hundreds, and it became notorious that the coasting trade
of China was almost exclusively carried on by these
torches sailing under the British flag. In S-pt., 1855,
the Chinese seized four lorchas bearing the British flag ;
Sir J. ho wring remonstrated, and pointed out t, them
that by the treaty they were not entitled to seize those
vessels. On that occasion the Chinese made no complaint
aeout the treaty ; they never pretended they were igno-
rant of it, for, indeed, a copy of it was sent to them, and
without the least remonstrance the lorchai were restored.
(Hear ) It was a principle of international law that if
a nation was ie posses ion of and exercised an alleged
right which had not been disputed, whatever the merits
or grounds of that right might be, the nation was en-
titled to continue in possession of it without interrup-
tion till a remonstrance was made against it. That
was an elementary principle of international law laid
down by Grotius and all the great authorities. (Hear.)
In such a case no country was justified in taking the
law int.) its own hands. They were bound in the first in-
stance to remonstrate, and if remonstrance failed, then
they might act To take an example : —There was an
island near Bushire that formerly belonged to the French.
We had lately landed troops there, and supposing they
were to remain for two years, that might give us no
right to it ; but still the French would not be entitled,
without first remonstrating, to take steps for the reco-
very of the island, or to land a body of troops for that
purpose. A nation in such a case was entitled to main-
tain its position until steps had been taken to show that
it was wrong. How could the affairs of nations be car-
ried on on any other principle than that ? (Hear ) Of
course, if the element of bad faith were once admitted the
argument did not apply, for against a fraud there always
existed a right to a remedy, but if the nation acted in
good faith, then no violence could be proceeded with in the
first instance to interrupt its possession. If, therefore,
he did not care to stop and inquire to what extent we
might or might not have had power to license these
lorchas, the cause must be obvious. These lorchas were
licensed for the benefit of the Chinese themselves
(ironical cheers)—and a proof of this was that the licene2s
were very extensively used. (Hear.) They were employed
in order to enable us more effectually to put down smug-
gling on the coast, and that we might be able to distin-
guish between those who were licensed traders and those
who were smugglers. But, whether that were so or
not, it was plain that the Chinese never imagined the
ordinance was against them, for they allowed the sys-
tem to go on for two years and a-half without remon-
strance. (Hear, hear.) But what were the objections
that bad been stated And here he must say that mat-
ters bad been confounded which were entirely and es-
sentially different. One objection was that no country
was entitled to grant such licence to the ship of another
nation ; and another was that the ordinance of 1855
went entirely in the face of our own municipal
law. Now, the second of these objections appeared to
him to have nothing to do with the question. The Chi-
nese had nothing whatever to do with our municipal
law. If the ordinance was justified by' the law of na-
tions, it was clear that they could have to right to say
they objected to it because they had a repugnance to
our Merchant Shipping Act of 1854. Was there to be
no force in the orders of our colonial Governments so far
as regarded foreign nations, unless the latter were first
satisfied upon every question of law that might arise
upon them in this country ? (Hear.) How many ques-
tions might not in this way be raised ? The appointment
of the governor of Hong Kong himself might be liable to
objection. There might be irregularity in sending him
out, and they might question his powers. So also of many
other mattere. lie contended, therefore, that the Chinese
bad nothing whatever to do with the passing of the Mer-
chant Act. But the question had been put on another
ground that was perfectly intelligible. It was ar-
gued that it was impossible to give privileges
to foreign vessels as against their own country. That
was tantamount to saying that it was impossible to regis-
ter a vessel owned by a foreigner. Now, it was of course
lawful for a nation to register a ship in any form it'
pleased ; but it was said that, granting the possession of
a register, the vessel could not be called a British vessel,
because thel owner owed allegiance to another country.
Was that correct, even as regarded our own practice ? In
the existing Merchant Shipping Act it was enacted that
not only natural born subjects of this country might be
the owners of registered vessels, but persons born in other
countries might also, provided they had let' ers of naturali-
cation, and took the oath of allegiance. (Cheers from the
Opposition.) Bat did the taking of the oath of allegiance
to the British Sovereign prevent them from remaining un-
der allegiance to their native countries? If the Chinese of
Hong Kong took the oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria,
did they cease to be Chinese subjects! Hon. gentlemen
opposite declared exactly the reverse, and he said the same.
The question of letters of naturalisation was raised the
other day, when it appeared that, although a man might
be naturalised here, that did not release him from his
allegiance to the country in which he was born. But if
we registered a ship under our Merchant Shipping Act,
and a British merchant chartered it and took a British
crew, would we allow our flag to be pulled down by any
nation in the world under the pretence that the original
owner was a foreigner ? (Hear, hear.) When we once
registered a vessel and used it as a British vessel,
would we net protect it against all the world ? Suppose
that when we were engaged in hostilities with Russia a
neutral Power had fired upon our flag, under the pre-
t. xt that the owner of the vessel was originally a native
of that country, would we have put up with that insult
or permitted it to go to r )(Ire-tied ? Certainly not. The
true principle was, that it lay with Britain to say what
a British ship should be—that it belonged to each coun-
try to say to what kiral of vesselDts authority should be
given. If any other country thought it had a right
to complain it had the power of remonstrance •
but, in the first instance, it lay with Britain to say what
should and what should not be entitled to the protection
of her flag. (Hear.) The enforcement of that principle
was a boon, not an injury to the Chinese themselves.
(Ironical cheers from the Opposition). lie repeated that
the facts of these lorchas carrying a British flag, so far
from being against the interests of the Chinese, was, on
the contrary, a protection to the Chinese and to our-
selves against the pirates and smugglers who infested
those seas. (Hear, bear.) Such was the view ke was
inclined to take of the international question, and it ap-
peared to him that the first ground was conclusive—
viz., that when we were found in the undisputed exer-
cise of a right for a series of years the Chinese were not
entitled to take the law into their own ban's, (Hear.)
That being the state of
.matterz, the Arrow, with the
British flag flying, came into the waters of Canton,
was boarded by a party of Chinese officials—eudently
not by accident or chance, but in a manner which
showed that their proceedings had been precon-
c_7ted—and the crew were cirri d off. The first question
was that justifiable by the law of nations, on the
pretence that our Government had no power to pass the
ordinance? Looking at the position io which maters
stood, and the use which had been made of the ordi-
nance without remonstrance or question, he said that
the Chinese were houndl ritiins:he first instance to make a
representation to the
disputed
dthtohreities if their ground
of action was that they
re-
f 3 or our power of legality of the re-
Passing the ordinance. But the
real question lay here—was that proceeding on n the part
of the Chinese in good faith or not
question
froms7l:ild be difficult
for the house to settle that
&pinaepers ;.biut
while on the one hand the conduct of the
be immaterial if proceeding from accident or missteamkeig itt
became on the other most important if proved the result
of intention or design. If the British flag was
flying
they knew the fact, and they also knew that the vesisnegl
was sailing under British authority. Under these cir-
cumstances their course was simple. Gilgit Parkes was
living on the spot, and, instead of sending two
mandarins to ea-ry off the crew at once, it was their
duty to apply to him, in order to ascertain whether the
vessel was really under British protection. Why did
they not do that ? Was it that no remonstrance had
been made before ? Not in the least. There had been
a remonstrance in the previous September on the same
subject, and that remonstrance had been successful.
Was it that they were ignorant of what the vessel was ?
He rather thought not. (Hear, hear.) He thought
there were plain indications in the correepondeuce
that they knew the hi-t wy of the vessel. lie had no
(Inuht that their proceedings were no mistake at all.
They knew perfectly well the circumstances in which the
vessel was ; their proceedings were designed, and were
taken for the purpose of showing that they did not in-
tend to recognise the British flag under such circum-
stances. If th y were not boand to recok nice the British
flag, they were at least bound to say so. Talk of civi-
heed nations ! Any civilised nation, if it disputed a
right which we bad been exercising for a long time,
would in the first instance remonstrate with our repre-
sentatives. No civilised nation would issue proclama-
tions offering a reward for the heads of its adversaries.
(Hear, hear.) China was not entitled to be put in the
category of nations with which it was possible to deal