Year: 1875

some effect on justice nearer home?


England and the British Merchant.


The British government has in hand a
pretty piece of investigation, and one which
the neighbors and foreign cousins of the
British people will watch with peculiar in
terest. 1t is said that sixty tons of am
munition for small arms have been shipped
from England to the Chinese ''as merchan-
disc" and act ually landed at Shanghai The
phrase, ''as merchandise" in this connec-
tion may be noted as fine instance OF the
sublime in this kind of writing 1t seems
to be assumed that there are some reasons
why cartridges are just now not merchan-
disc, though they are made on an enormous
scale in several countries, and made for sale
to those who need them and are shipped IN
the same way, in the absence Of procla-
nations to the contrary, as cotton
or corn. Just now there are no proclama-
which any soulless corporation engaged in
the manufacture and sale of cartridges is
bound to take notice. But there are some
other reasons. There has been for some time
a very lively possibility that England might
shortly be at war with China. In that case every
hundred cartridges in Chinese hands might
possibly represent the life of British sol
dier, and sixty tons taken in that proportion
might do for about twenty thousand men,
which is quite as many as England will ever
send there. This would be calamity; but
England does not greatly care for calamity.
The worst feature of the case is that it would
be a scandal if these cartridges should be
supplied to the Chinese enemy by Eng
land herself; and scandal is
worse than q calamity any day. If
the thrifty British merchant should send
out the product of British workshops to kill
the British soldier it would be shocking,
and the proposition to investigate facts
merely because they have this possibility
behind them implies notion on the part of
the English government that the traders of
that country ought not to shock the sense Of
humanity that is abroad in the world. There
is involved in this the somewhat violent as
sumption that trade has conscience; but
several other Powers as well as England
will have to acknowledge that they also have
acted on that assumption. At one time we
ourselves thought that our efforts to put
down the rebellion ought not to be thwarted
by the power Of England, welded by the
British merchant and the Southern people
equally felt outraged that our efforts to
put them down were assisted by the
same thrifty person. Germany remon-
strated with England because the Brit
ish merchant supplied France with the
means to destroy German soldiers and
Spain has demonstrated because this ire
pressible power was a comfort to the Carlists;
for the British merchant has no preiudices,
and is on any side or all sides. He will sell
man-of-war to one government, and to
another government a torpedo, deftly filled
to blow her to the moon and when she has
gone toward the moon he will rub his hands
with commercial glee, for he knows that the
one Power will want another ship and the
other another torpedo. All the governments
of the world have demonstrated with Eng
land on his account but England has
always excused herself from interference
has patted her lively merchant on the back
and regarded him as one Of her glories
Now she is likely to ''know how it is her
self J" and other nations will watch with in
terest her dealings with that commercial
power with which, while nominally at peace
with all, she has covertly made war on SO
many nations.