The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-09 00:00:00

LEICESTER.

The feeling here in favour of Lord Palmerston is
very strong, and is shared in alike by all political
patties. The Conservatives very generally regard
him as the best possible Minister at the present
time, and would be anything but elated at the
prospect of his downfall. The three local journals,
representing respectively Conservative, Whig, and
extreme Radical politic., and which on most sub-
jects aro as wide as the poles - asunder, are
united in representing the late vote of the House
of Commons as the result of an unprincipled and
factious combination. Had the borough members
voted against the Government their return at the
ensuing election would certainly have been im-
perilled, for the almost universal feeling of their
constituents is, that the present contest is between
Palmerston and England on the one hand, and the
the tripartite coalition and Russia on the other.

•
r Prom the .Econotniet.l
Few topics have been more thoroughly winnowed
and sifted than the origin and detali of our pre-
sent quarrel with China. The debates continued
for two nights in the Lords and four nights in the
Commons, and nearly every speaker of eminence in
each branch of the Legislature, and many who were
eminent in neither, took part in the discussion.
It may be presumed that every point contained in
the papers laid before Parliament, and every piece
of infotmation possessed by the public, was tho-
rotighly well examined and brought to bear on the
decision ; but whether all these papers and all this
information combined were sufficient either in clear-
ness or in :fullness to warrant any confident deci-
si qt. at all, is a very different question. And, look-
ing at the matter actually as well as constitutionally,
it cannot be said that t le nation has arrived at any
definite or fixed conclusion. The House of Lords
his expressed one opinion ; the House of Commons
has expressed an opposite opinion, and the people
of England, the court of ultimate resort, is about
to be appealed to as umpire between these conflict-
ing verdicts.

We frankly and unrehictantly admit both the
difficulty of the dilemma in which Parliament was
placed, and the unsatisfactory character of the facts
and materials of the special cage before it. It was
almost impossible to debate the matter without
doing harm and incurring serious dangers. It was
equally impossible to avoid debating it without a de-
reliction of one of the most obvious duties of a con-
trolling and governing assembly. . Ministers, on
whom devolved the heavy responsibilities of action,
and independent and conscientious members of Par-
liament, who could not but look at the actual or
apparent merits of the case, were alike in a position
of grave perplexity. If Ministers blamed and de-
Berta their representatives in China for acting in a
manner which they themselves, if consulted, proba-
bly never would have sanctioned, and which, j udg-
ing by the facts as partially known to us, seemed
open to serious question, they might possibly be in
error ; and at all events- would greatly embarrass
and complicate the crisis at Canton, and by discou-
raging the English and encouraging the Chinese,
might bring the most formidable dangers on those
who looked to them for protection, and who at the
very:pion:lent might be struggling for their lives. If,
on the other hand, they resolved to assume the re-
sponsibility of what hal become afait accompli, and
to justify and endorse proceedings which their in-
structions had not warranted, and which undeniably,
as tar as yet appears, were not free from flaw or
doubt (to say the least)—they placed themselves in
the awkward and painful predicament of baying to
defend what it was clear they could not heartily ap-
prove—and thus give a great and manifest advan-
tage to their rivals and antagonists at home. Again,
honest senators felt that Sir John Bowring and Con-
sul Parkes appeared to hare acte I hastily and
harshly, and, however just their chronic grounds of
quarrel with the Chinese, to have chosen an
' unlucky and defective case for bringing that
quarrel to an issue—thus placing themselves and
their country in the wrong by a mistake, though
there might be no mistake at all as to the substan-
tial merits of the cause. Yet to condemn these
officials for what they had done and the Govern-
ment at horns for supporting them when it was
done, would not only be to kizird actual and seri-
ous mischief by playing the game of our enemies,
but would—bdore the world at large, where the
niceties of a question are always overlooked—be
equivalent to confessing that, in the quarrel with
the Chinese authorities (not about this miserable
lerclia, but about their whole conduct towards us),
they are right and we are wrong—which every one
believes or knows to be the very reverse of the
truth. It is not surprising, therefore, that there
should never have been a discussion in which sin-
Icere men and wise men felt so entirely puzzlel as
to the language they ought to hold and the vote
they ought to give. . . • • •
A second consideration, which has not received
the attention it deserves, is this :—Whatever may
be the reality or the importance of the flaw in our
case relating to the lorcha which Sir J. Bowring
ma!e the immediate occasion of the rupture, there
can be no dt übt that it wat only the occasion, and
not the real cause. One undoubted fact—at least
we believe it to be undoubted—is, that every indi-
vidual acquainted with the Chinese or resident in
China, whether merchant, naval officer, diplo-
matist, or missionary, whether Englishman or
foreigner, is of the same opinion in this matter.
All deplore the decision of the House of Commons,
and all concur in the absolute necessity of chas-
tising the persistent faithlessness, the incessant
aggressions, and the systematic affronts of the
Chinese. It is very possible that in the matter of
the lorcha we may have been in error as to fact ; it
is probable, even, that in point of law we were in
error. It is too probable, also, that as regards
the illicit trade carried on in the Canton waters our
hands are not clean. But we must not overlook
meanly every per-
the consentmecou4 testimonya