The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-28 00:00:00

allowances for a very bitter, but a very natural,
feeling. With the future course of trade, however,
this mission has nothing to do. If the ALMIGHTY
has so created this world that the best and shortest
road from Europe to China is across the American
Continent no nation can alter the decree, and they
may well submit without murmur to the inevitable.

It will be many a long year, if ever, before the
United States is able to supplant' English cottons
and cutlery in the markets of China, and what the
people who now inhabit the earth have to do is
to make the most of present circumstances,
leaving coming generations to adapt themselves,
to changing conditions. It is in this spirit alone
that the Chinese mission should be received
in London. The Standard, in an article marked
with more than usual bad taste, on Wednesday,
asked what had it come to do—when months ago
the Treaty it proposed to make with the Western
Powers was published to the world. The less Eug-
land says about her generosity and forbearance to
China the better, for the Standard is open to a bitter,
a killing answer ; bat it would be wise in the British
Government to make no mistake about its positiw.
It might be supposed, on reading this and similar
' articles, that the mission is to England alone,
though it is but one of many coan;;rie,s. In Europe

it• is sect to France, to Germany, to Russia, as
well as to England, anl althongh a failure in L)n-
don would materially lessen its utility, that very
failure would enhance its success elsewhere. The
astonishment and indignation excited by England's
conduct in this matter in the United States is re-
flected by the delight and exultation among Euro-
pean nations. " Here is a fine sample, say they,
of English liberality—of English Free-trade ; here
is the best proof of what we aver, that an intense
selfishness dictates English foreign policy, covered by
that most hateful cloak—hypocrisy." A persistence
in this narrow-minded jealousy would more than
anything help to alienate the United States and to
isolate England, and already, with a crow of exul-
tation, the Patric, sneering at this instance of Eng-

lish narrow-mindedness, invites the Embassy to
hasten to Paris, where, in a country of broader views
and more enlightened policy, it will meet with a
very different reception. Supposing it acted on the
advice, her MAJESTY'S Government would be placed
in a position of isolation far from enviable. That
Government may rely upon the fact, that hence-
forth they will have to meet China in the Council
of Nations, and shape their course by the laws of
International Comity. They may prefer sending

their mandates to the EMPEROR'S Government
through a Resident, but they will find an open,
unshackled commerce better answer their purpose,
and in a free competition they need fear no rival.
We believe that the mission will be followed in
China by measures highly important to trade, and
that one of the first of these will be a reduction in
the import duties. When the newspapers which
have adopted so ungenerous a tone begin to learn
the objects aimed at, they will see that the mission
in the highest sense represents the Progressive Policy
in China, which at this moment is of more value to
England than to all other nations combined.