The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

nO3l THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—In the speech of Lord Aberdeen, delivered
at the banquet given by the merchants of London to and
in honour of Sir Henry Pottinger, his Lordship remarked
that " the meeting possesst:d nothing of a political
character." To a certain extent this was true. But,
though the occasion was not decidedly " political," the re-
miniscences to which it gives rise are emphatically so. It
leads the public mind back to the debates in Parliament on
the Chinese war ; it calls up the House of Commons scenes
when Sir James Graham brought forward his motion
in condemnation of the Whig Ministers for having un-
dertaken it ; and expatiated en the injustice and the
impolicy of the Chinese expedition ; it reminds us of the
pious and humane Mr. Gladstone's expression, that the
poisoning of the water-tanks by the natives was a thing
qu:te "of course." Who that heard and read these
things could anticipate such an event as that of Wednes-
day evening ? The Ministers—who as Opposition leaders
condemned the Chinese war, as fraught with the elements
of folly and crime—assemble with the members of the
Administration they assailed on this very question, to
confer honour on the Envoy who was commissioned by
the Government they had long sought to destroy, and
endeavoured to effect its destruction for directing the
war to be commenced. We find these very men paying
compliments to the Government they then assailed,
as well as to the Envoy they had selected—in fact,
bearing testimony against themselves, by the praises
which, through their colleague, Lord Aber-
deen, they consented to lavish upon Lord Pal-
merston, and his Chinese policy ! In acknow-
ledging the graceful compliments paid to him
by the Noble Lord, his successor at the Foreign-
office, Lord Palmerston gave a gentle hint, which the
company appreciated, and loudly cheered :—" We have
assembled here fur a common purpose—men of all
shades of politics are met—members of the Cabinet
which began the expedition, and members of the Ca-
binet which succeeded it, and which, though differing
from their predecessors on many other essential points,
yet felt it their duty, when clothed with the respon-
sibility of office, to continue the operations in China,
which were in progress when they came into power."
—(Cheers.) It is well for them, and for the country,
that they did "continue" those operations. They might
have abruptly terminated the war. Acting upon their ex-
pressed and faction-inspired denunciations of the Chinese
war. They might have withdrawn the troops, and
boasted of their consistency. They knew better than
to do so. They persisted in the course which they had
condemned in their predecessors ; and reaped where
they had not sown. The improvement in trade, fur
which the present Government takes credit to itself, is,
to a considerable extent, the result of the openings which
China presents for British manufactures—openings for
which the country is indebted to the policy which was
condemned by the members of the now approving Go-
vernment when in opposition. The large sum paid by the
Chinese under the treaty of peace concluded between
the two countries, as a compensation to Great Britain
for the expenses of the war—this large contribution
toward supplying the deficiency in the Exchequer, and
to the surplus revenue of which Sir Robert Peel
boasts as the fruit of his financial skill, is the pro-
duct of the policy which the present Government con-
demned, affected to deplore, and sought to counteract.
" Clothed with the responsibility of office," their eyes
became enlightened as to what was required to main-
tain the honour and advance the interests of the country;
and " they continued the operations in China," which
they had, with unanimity and earnestness, condemned.
Thus it is. In Parliament and outside its walls—in the
measures they propose, and in the speeches they deliver
when expounding or defending them—in the language
they employ when addressing public meetings, whether
economical or festive, the present Ministers are com-
pelled to justify the policy of the Government they ob-
structed, and eventually upset.
STANDARD.—We owe an apology for having ne-
glected to direct attention, yesterday, to the remarkable
and most gratifying scene on the preceding evening at
Merchant Tailors' Hall—the entertainment given to Sir
Henry Pottinger, by the principal merchants of London.
This brief delay has given to most of our morning Con-
temporaries an advantage over us, but an advantage com-
pensated by the opportunity we have of considering their
opinions. It is a very old observation, that to the acqui-
sition of lasting fame two things are necessary, great
talents and good fortune. Sir IL Pottinger has been
abundantly favoured with both, and he has employed
both in the manner best fitted to establish his own
renown, and to promote the honour, prosperity, and
happiness of his country, and through her to promote
the advancement of the human race. It was not an ex-
aggeration that the Chairman employed when he com-
pared the opening of the Chinese empire to the
commerce and social interests of Europe, with the
achievements of Vasco di Gams and Christopher Co-
lumbus. Whether we regard the difficulty of the
task, the innocency of the means by which it has been
accomplished, or the probable benefit to mankind, we
must place the adoption of the Chinese empire into the
family of civilised nations far before the opening of the
maritime passage to India, or the discovery of the
western world. In the intercourse of mankind,
moral obstacles are always harder to surmount than
obstacles that are merely physical. The passage
from London to New York, or, indeed, to the
Antipodes—New Zealand and Australasia—is much
more certain and secure, upon the average of years,
than that across the narrow isthmus which separates
the Mediterranean from the Red Sea. In less than
three centuries civilisation has tamed what was the
vast desert of North America, from the Floridas to
Detroit, but in ten times three centuries civilisation
has mad little proeress in the abode of the Arabs.
The case of China itself, however, so long
courted by civilised nations, and so long inaccessible,
is the most remarkable example of the repulsive
force of purely moral difficulties. When we boast,
too, of the innocency of the means by which China
has been thrown open, we must not be understood as
justifying the origin of the war which has led to so
happy a result, or even to the unsurpassed skill and gal-
lantry with which that war was conducted. We may
consistently deplore the original quarrel, we may dismiss
all feeling as to the mode in which the war was con-
ducted, except admiration, for the skill, gallantry, and,
above all, humanity, of our soldiers and sailors ; and yet
exult with unalloyed triumph in the good which wisdom
has drawn out of what was at first perhaps evil. We must
not be supposed to detract from the merits of our brave
sail ere and soldiers— they discharged the duty assigned to
them as British sailors and solders always discharge their
duty, and as no other sailors or soldiers can ; they ac-
consplished what no other men in the world could accom-
splish. Far be it from us to detract from their claim upon
the admiration of their country, but truth requires us to
say, that their victory was followed by a victory still
more important, in the use made of their glorious suc-
cesses. It is at the end of their serviees that the proudest
triumph of the British name commences. Tho war
might have been continued along the whole almost
endless coast of China, with, no doubt, the same
brilliant success that characterised the last
campaign, but without any other useful consequence,
and continued for ever, were it not f.)r the wisdom of
the man who saw and seizsd the proper moment to ter-
minate it, and used the means best calculated to termi-
nate it to the benefit of his country and his species.
A flint stone," says Lord Bacon, "is found to be more
easily broken upon a feather bed, than a steel anvil."
And never was the principle of the great philosopher
illustrated mere faithfully or mere successfully
applied, than by Sir Henry Pottinger ; he prepared
the softest conditions to serve as the basis of his pacific
negotiation, and upon those soft conditions he shattered
into fragments that obdurate barrier which had from the
creation separated China from the world—almost literally
" tote p•-nitas dtvisa orte." We freely costcede to Sir H.
Pottinger all the praise of this great, this inappreciable
achievement; and in conceding it we do not feel that we
do the least wrong to the Government under which ho
acted. To put fit men into fitting offices, and having
put them there, to repose unbounded confidence in them,
is the one secret of success in all the affeirs of life, great
and small ; the master's eye may he useful to keep the
labourer from idleness, or to restrain the cashier from
dishonesty ; but in the details of complicated affairs,
the roaster's eye, the master's opinions, the master's
interference can do nothing but mischief, for this
plain reason, that the party who conducts the details
must of necessity know more about them than any one
else can. The more highly, therefore, we esteem the
services of Sir Henry Pottinger, the more highly
must we speak of the wisdom that left him free to
the exercise of his own powerful talents. There is,
is this respect, the reverse of an opposition of in-
tenets between Sir Henry and her Majesty's Mi-
nisters. We cannot admire the wisdom with which the
confidence of the Government has been employed and
repaid, without as much admiring the wisdom with
which it was reposed. Nor let this latter wisdom
be lightly prized. We are, happily, rich in examples
of sagacity and fidelity in the public service, but
instances of the courage and self-denial which
embrace the risk of loss, or embrace any other
serious responsibility, in reliance upon the sagacity and
fidelity of others—rare, in all the concerns of life, are
most rare in political affairs. It is impossible to read
the dispatches of' Lord Nelson or the Duke of Wel-
lington, or any of the multitudinous correspondences
published in Parliamentary reports, without a
painful sense of the extent to which the public
service has always suffered by the imperfect
confidence which all the Governments before the
present, have generally reposed in public servants. This,
we repeat it, must be the effect of cowardice or self-
conceit, or, in the case of governments, of a habit de-
rived from the constant indulgence of these weaknesses
by former governments. It is not the least of the merits
of Sir Robert Peel's Government if it has boldly broken
through this wretched habit in all cases, as it certainly has;
and with what splendid success we see in the cases of
China and Canada. Having thus hastily alluded to the
difficulties to be encountered in opening the Chinese
empire, and to the innocency and even generosity of
the means employed, we need not expend a word in
allusion to the boundless advantages obtained by a free
pacific communication with three hundred and fifty
millions of men, previously as much estranged from us
as it they occupied another planet. These advantages
will nut be felt perhaps for a few years to a great extent,
but they are vast beyond the power of imagination to
conceive.

Tills
Forests GLASGO;C—'-AT}IEDR/:1 —We were informed
"P" months ago that it was the intention of the Com-
missioners of Woods and to restore our venerable
Cathedral to its ancient and, at the time, w e ex-
pressed our gratification atltta: '''.
is now confirmed—and eTerey 'C'ltlitgence- This result
justl:i whatttcr, after all, to
rejoice at the fact. L. will be
much
mbe
of Glasgow must
have our noble old building madeandswamping
awmas, than
run the risk of changing its character,
altogether, by modern additions. The Commissioners oflt
Wood.' and Forests have the sincere and grateful thanks
of the citizens of Glasgow for the decision to which they
have come in this matter.—Glasgow Paper.