The Sun. — 1860-03-31 (London, England)

SOMERSET—The noble earl, in the returns which he moved for, had asked for the probable cost of the Chinese expedition, and yet had himself presumed that he would be a bold man who world speculate upon its cost. (Hear.) It appeared to him that the noble eat' had asked for that which he admitted neither Parliament nor the Government could supply, lie Is:shed to call their lordships' attention to the position in which they stood. As regarded the action which took place at the'moufh of the Peilici river last year, those occurrences had taken place before he came into office, and therefore he (the Duko of Somerset) considered himself no more responsible for them than was the noble lord. To pretend any responsibility for such transactions would be going quite beyond all parliamentary precedent. But it ought not to be forgotten that when tho news of those occurrences reached England the public mind was thrown into a state of very great alarm, for it was feared from the report that neither British life nor property was safe at Amoy, or Shanghae, or Canton. Under such circumstances he asked was it not the duty of the Admiralty to take immediate steps for the sending out a force sufficient to protect the lives and properties of British subjects ? The noble earl indeed said that parliament ought to have been summoned, but that was not the opinion of the Earl of Derby, and it was plain that no advantage would result from the summoning of parliament, but that on the contrary it would greatly increase the alarm which already prevailed. What the people of England required was that immediate steps should be taken to redress the wrong, and to retaliate for the outrages which the Chinese had committed. Parliament was perfectly aware of the course which the Government had taken; the papers and instructions to Mr. Bruce had been laid upon the table, and they showed sufficiently the mild and moderate course which had been adopted by the Government. He could not understand what course the noble earl would have desired. He could see no other course open to the Government to pursue than the one they had adopted in this case. Ho did not agree in opinion with the noble earl that no outrages had been committed by the Chinese. He thought, on the contrary, there was throughout duplicity and deception on their part, and no one who read the papers could help seeing that the Chinese did try toavoid seeing our ambassador. They tried in every way to put him off from coming to Pekin. They went on leading him to believe that he could come, and when he came to the Peiho river he found it barricaded, and they led him to believe that these barricades would be removed and he should pass on to Pekin. If that was not:a case of duplicity :and evasion he did not know what was. (Hear.) But the noble earl went back and told them that this Chinese expedition was to be the commencement of a new policy. Surely he must remember that it was not a twelvemonth ago that they had a freely entered into by his noble friend (Lord Elgin), that that treaty was to have been ratified at Pekin ; but if the Chinese thought fit not to fulfil their promise, but to enter into an open war upon the English force, surely that was not anew policy, but returning to a state of things which existed before the treaty was agreed to. With regard to our relations with China in past years, any one who looked back to 1839 must see they were very unsatisfactory, and that everytwo or three years there was some outrage or complaint, and in the course of that time we had had several wars with ;;liina. The noble earl said these wars caused a very great increase in the estimates, and that this course of policy ought to be checked ; but if he looked back to the period since 1840 he would find that, as far at least as the navy was concerned, we had four or five times a larger force in China than we had now. In 1843 we had more men in China than we had now, and from 1840 to 1860 our relations with China were in an unsatisfactory condition, The reason, he believed, was this, that we were never able directly to communicate with the Chinese government, but with viceroys, who took different views one from another, but who, by putting humiliations on those whom they called barbarians, threw every difficulty in their way. It was true the imperial government sometimes recalled those viceroys, and either took off their heads or advised them to commit suicide. That was one way they had of getting rid of an obnoxious minister in that country. (A laugh.) What they (the Government) wanted was to put things on a satisfactory footing by this expedition; if that were done it' would be the most successful expedition that ever was sent to China, and he should not care what it might cost for the moment. We did •not know what other course the government could have pursued under the circumstances. He :confessed that in his position at the Admiralty, he could not censure Admiral Hope for what he had done ; for he showed the gallantry and courage of a British seaman. Errors of judgment might have been committed, yet what position should they have been in if they had not sent out this expedition to demand redress for the outrage that had been offered ? The noble earl had stated that this policy would have the effect of destroying their trade. It would be most unfortunate if the result should be injurious to our trade, but fortunately the people of Canton and Shanghae manage their affairs differently. Everybody w'ho looked back for the last 20 years would find that the result was that our, trade had gone on increasing more and more. The Chinese were a peculiar people ; they would fight with you in one part of the country and trade with you in another. The value of Eritish produce exported to China from 1834 to 1842 was £926,000, from 1313 to 1850 it was £1,700,000, and from 1851 to 1859 it was 4995,000... Now during all that period they had nearly constant wars in China, and yet their trade multiplied much more rapidly than at any other time. Now, as regarded the amount of the forces in their expedition, he could not go into details as to the cost, because it was clear that must depend upon what took place. If they agreed to the treaty and the demands which the Government made,