KARL MARX 

ARTICLES ON THE CHINA WAR



INDEX

1) REVOLUTION IN CHINA AND IN EUROPE 

2) THE CASE OF THE LORCHA ARROW 

3) PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES ON THE CHINESE HOSTILITIES 

4) DEFEAT OF THE PALMERSTON MINISTRY 

5) RUSSIA AND CHINA 

6) WHOSE ATROCITIES?

7) SOME OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE

8) PERSIA-CHINA

9) [TRADE OR OPIUM?]

10) FREE TRADE AND MONOPOLY

11) TRADE AND THE TREATY

12) THE BRITISH AND CHINESE TREATY

13) THE NEW CHINESE WAR

14) ANOTHER CIVILIZATION WAR

15) THE NEW CHINESE WAR

16) TRADE WITH CHINA

17) ENGLISH POLITICS 




REVOLUTION IN CHINA AND IN EUROPE 
 New York Daily Tribune
June 14, 1853

by
  KARL MARX


A most profound yet fantastic speculator on the principles which govern
the movements of Humanity was wont to extol as one of the ruling
secrets of nature what he called the law of the contact of extremes. 
The homely proverb that "extremes meet" was, in his view, a grand and
potent truth in every sphere of life; an axiom with which the
philosopher could as little dispense as the astronomer with the laws of
Kepler or the great discovery of Newton.

Whether the "contact of extremes" be such a universal principle or not,
a striking illustration of it may be seen in the effect the Chinese
revolution seems likely to exercise upon the civilized world.  It may
seem a very strange, and a very paradoxical assertion that the next
uprising of the people of Europe, and their next movement for
republican freedom and economy of Government, may depend more probably
on what is now passing in the Celestial Empire -- the very opposite of
Europe-than on any other political cause that now exists -- more even
than on the menaces of Russia and the consequent likelihood of a
general European war. But yet it is no paradox, as all may understand
by attentively considering the circumstances of the case.

Whatever be the social causes, and whatever religious, dynastic, or
national shape they may assume, that have brought about the chronic
rebellions subsisting in China for about ten years past, and now
gathered together in one formidable revolution the occasion of this
outbreak has unquestionably been afforded by the English cannon forcing
upon China that soporific drug called opium.  Before the British arms
the authority of the Manchu dynasty fell to pieces; the superstitious
faith in the eternity of the Celestial Empire broke down; the barbarous
and hermetic, isolation from the civilized world was infringed; and an
opening was made for that intercourse which has since proceeded so
rapidly under the golden attractions of California and Australia.  At
the same time the silver coin of the Empire, its lifeblood, began to be
drained away to the British East Indies.

Up to 1830, the balance of trade being continually in favour of the
Chinese, there existed an uninterrupted importation of silver from
India, Britain And the United States into China.  Since 1833, and
especially since 1840, the export of silver from China to India has
become almost exhausting for the Celestial Empire. Hence the strong
decrees of the Emperor against the opium trade, responded to by still
stronger resistance to his measures.  Besides this immediate economical
consequence, the bribery connected with opium smuggling has entirely
demoralized the Chinese State officers in the Southern provinces. just
as the Emperor was wont to be considered the father of all China, so
his officers were looked upon as sustaining the paternal relation to
their respective districts.  But this patriarchal authority, the only
moral link embracing the vast machinery of the State, has gradually
been corroded by the corruption of those officers, who have made great
gains by conniving at opium smuggling.  This has occurred principally
in the same Southern provinces where the rebellion commenced.  It is
almost needless to observe that, in the same measure in which opium has
obtained the sovereignty over the Chinese, the Emperor and his staff of
pedantic mandarins have become dispossessed of their own sovereignty. 
It would seem as though history had first to make this whole people
drunk before it could rouse them out of their hereditary stupidity.

Though scarcely existing in former times, the import of English
cottons, and to a small extent of English woollens, has rapidly risen
since 1833, the epoch when the monopoly of trade with China was
transferred from the East India Company to Private commerce, and on a
much greater scale since 1840, the epoch when other nations, and
especially our own, also obtained a share in the Chinese trade.  This
introduction of foreign manufactures has had a similar effect on the
native industry to that which it formerly had on Asia Minor, Persia and
India.  In China the spinners and weavers have suffered greatly under
this foreign competition, and the community has become unsettled in
proportion.

The tribute to be paid to England after the unfortunate war of 1840,
the great unproductive consumption of opium, the drain of the precious
metals by this trade, the destructive influence of foreign competition
on native manufactures, the demoralized condition of the public
administration, produced two things: the old taxation became more
burdensome and harassing, and new taxation was added to the old.  Thus
in a decree of the Emperor, dated Peking, Jan 5 1853, we find orders
given to the viceroys and governors of the southern provinces of
Wuchang and Hanyang to remit and defer the payment of taxes, and
especially not in any case to exact more than the regular amount; for
otherwise, says the decree, "how will the poor people be able to bear
it?"  And "Thus, perhaps," continues the Emperor, "will my people, in a
period of general hardship and distress, be exempted from the evils of
being pursued and worried by the tax-gatherer." Such language as this,
and such concessions we remember to have he ard from Austria, the China
of Germany, in 1848.

All these dissolving agencies acting together on the finances, the
morals, the industry, and political structure of China, received their
full development under the English cannon in 1840, which broke down the
authority of the Emperor, and forced the Celestial Empire into contact
with the terrestrial world.  Complete isolation was the prime condition
of the preservation of Old China.  That isolation having come to a
violent end by the medium of England, dissolution must follow as surely
as that of any mummy carefully preserved in a hermetically sealed
coffin, whenever it is brought into contact with the open air.  Now,
England having brought about the revolution of China, the question is
how that revolution will in time react on England, and through England
on Europe.  This question is not difficult of solution.

The attention of our readers has often been called to the unparalleled
growth of British manufactures since 1850.  Amid the most surprising
prosperity, it has not been difficult to point out the clear symptoms
of an approaching industrial crisis.  Notwithstanding California and
Australia, notwithstanding the immense and unprecedented emigration,
there must ever, without any particular accident, in due time arrive a
moment when the extension of the markets is unable to keep pace with
the extension of British manufactures, and this disproportion must
bring about a new crisis with the same certainty as it has done in the
past.  But, if one of the great markets suddenly becomes contracted,
the arrival of the crisis is necessarily accelerated thereby.  Now, the
Chinese rebellion must, for the time being, have precisely this effect
upon England.  The necessity for opening new markets, or for extending
the old ones, was one of the principle causes of the reduction of the
British tea-duties, as, with an increased importation of tea, an
increased exportation of manufactures to China was expected to take
place. Now, the value of the annual exports from the United Kingdom to
China amounted, before the repeal in 1834 of the trading monopoly
possessed by the East India  Company, to only 600,000; in 1836, it
reached the sum of 1,326,388; in 1845, it had risen to 2,394,827; in
1852 it amounted to about 3,000,000.  The quantity of tea imported
from China did not exceed, in 1793, 16,167,331 lbs.; but in 1845, it
amounted to 50,714,657 lbs.; in 1846, to 57,584,561 lbs.; it is now
above 60,000,000 lbs.
 
The tea crop of the last season will not prove short, as shown already
by the export lists from Shanghai, of 2,000,000 lbs. above the
preceding year.  This excess is to be accounted for by two
circumstances.  On one hand, the state of the market at the close of 
1851 was much depressed, and the large surplus stock left has been
thrown into the export of 1852.  On the other hand, the recent accounts
of the altered British legislation with regard to imports of tea,
reaching China, have brought forward all the available teas to a ready
market, at greatly enhanced prices.  But with respect to the coming
crop, the case stands very differently.  This is shown by the following
extracts from the correspondence of a large tea-firm in London:

"In Shanghai the terror is described as extreme.  Gold had
advanced in value upwards of 25 per cent., being eagerly sought
for hoarding; silver had so far disappeared that none could be
obtained to pay the Chinese dues on the British vessels requiring
port clearance; and in consequence of which Mr. Consul Alcock has
consented to become responsible to the Chinese authorities for the
payment of these dues, on receipt of East India Company's bills,
or other approved securities. The scarcity of the precious metals
is one of the most unfavourable features, when viewed in reference
to the immediate future of commerce, as this abstraction occurs
precisely at that period when their use is most needed, to enable
the tea and silk buyers to go into their interior and effect their
purchases, for which a large portion of bullion if paid in
advance, to enable the producers to carry on their operations."

At this period of the year it is usual to begin making arrangements for
the new teas, whereas at present nothing is talked of but the means of
protecting person and property, all transactions being at a stand. 

"...if the means are not applied to secure the leaves in April and
May, the early crop, which includes all the finer descriptions,
both of black and green teas, will be as much lost as unreaped
wheat at Christmas."

Now the means for securing the tea leaves will certainly not be given
by the English, American or French squadrons stationed in the Chinese
seas, but these may easily, by their interference, produce such
complications as to cut off-all transactions between the tea-producing
interior and the tea exporting sea ports.  Thus, for the present crop,
a rise in the prices must be expected -- speculation has already
commenced in London -- and for the crop to come a large deficit is as
good as certain.  Nor is this all.  The Chinese, ready though they may
be, as are all people in periods of revolutionary convulsion, to sell
off to the foreigner all the bulky commodities they have on hand, will,
as the Orientals are used to do in the apprehension of great changes,
set to hoarding, not taking much in return for their tea and silk,
except hard money.  England has accordingly to expect a rise in the
price of one of her chief articles of consumption, a drain of bullion,
and a great contraction of an important market for her cotton and
woollen goods.  Even the Economist, that optimist conjurer of all
things menacing the tranquil minds of the mercantile community, is
compelled to use language like this:

"We must not flatter ourselves with finding as extensive a market
as formerly for our exports to China ... It is more probable,
therefore, that our export trade to China should suffer, and that
there should be a diminished demand for the produce of Manchester
and Glasgow." 

It must not be forgotten that the rise in the price of so indispensable
an article as tea, and the contraction of so important a market as
China, will coincide with a deficient harvest in Western Europe, and,
therefore, with rising prices of meat, corn, and all other agricultural
produce.  Hence contracted markets for manufacturers, because every
rise in the prices of the first necessaries of life is counterbalanced,
at home and abroad, by a corresponding reduction in the demand for
manufactures.  From every part of Great Britain complaints have been
received on the backward state of most of the crops.  The Economist
says on this subject:

In the South of England "not only will there be left much land unsown,
until too late for a crop of any sort, but much of the sown land will
prove to be foul, or otherwise in a bad state for corn-growing." On the
wet or poor soils destined for wheat, signs that mischief is going on
are apparent.  "The time for planting mangel-wurzel may now be said to
have passed away, and very little has been planted, while the time for
preparing land for turnips is rapidly going by, without any adequate
preparation for this important crop having been accomplished...
oat-sowing has been much interfered with by the snow and rain.  Few
oats were sown early, and late-sown oats seldom produce a large crop.

In many districts losses among the breeding flocks have been
considerable.  The price of other farm-produce than corn is from 20 to
30, and even 50 per cent. higher than last year.  On the Continent,
corn has risen comparatively more than in England.  Rye has risen in
Belgium and Holland a full 100 per cent.  Wheat and other grains are
following suit.

Under these circumstances, as the greater part of the regular
commercial circle has already been run through by British trade, it may
safely be augured that the Chinese revolution will throw the spark into
the overloaded mine of the present industrial system and cause the
explosion of the long-prepared general crisis, which, spreading abroad,
will be closely followed by political revolutions on the Continent. It
would be a curious spectacle, that of China sending disorder into the
Western World while the Western Powers, by English, French and American
war-steamers, are conveying "order" to Shanghai, Nanking and the mouths
of the Great Canal.  Do these order-mongering Powers, which would
attempt to support the wavering Manchu dynasty, forget that the hatred
against foreigners and their exclusion from the Empire, once the mere
result of China's geographical and ethnographical situation, have
become a political system only since the conquest of the country by the
race of the Manchu Tatars?  There can be no doubt that the turbulent
dissensions among the European nations who, at the later end of the
17th century, rivaled each other in the trade with China, lent a mighty
aid to the exclusive policy adopted by the Manchus.  But more than this
was done by the fear of the new dynasty, lest the foreigners might
favour the discontent existing among a large proportion of the Chinese
during the first half-century or thereabouts of their subjection to the
Tatars.  From these considerations, foreigners were then prohibited
from all communication with the Chinese, except through Canton, a town
at a great distance from Peking and the tea-districts, and their
commerce restricted to intercourse with the Hong merchants, licensed by
the Government expressly for the foreign trade, in order to keep the
rest of its subjects from all connection with the odious strangers.  In
any case an interference on the part of the Western Governments at this
time can only serve to render the revolution more violent, and protract
the stagnation of trade.

At the same time it is to be observed with regard to India that the
British Government of that country depends for full one seventh of its
revenue on the sale of opium to the Chinese while a considerable
proportion of the Indian demand for British manufactures depends on the
production of that opium in India. The Chinese, it is true, are no more
likely to renounce the use of opium than are the Germans to forswear
tobacco.  But as the new Emperor is understood to be favourable to the
culture of the poppy and the preparation of opium in China itself, it
is evident that a death-blow is very likely to be struck at once at the
business of opium-raising in India, the Indian revenue, and the
commercial resources of Hindostan.  Though this blow would not
immediately be felt by the interests concerned, it would operate
effectually in due time, and would come in to intensify and prolong the
universal financial crisis whose horoscope we have cast above.

Since the commencement of the eighteenth century there has been no
serious revolution in Europe which had not been preceded by a
commercial and financial crisis.  This applies no less to the
revolution of 1789 than to that of 1848. It only that we every day
behold more threatening s conflict between the ruling powers and their
subjects the State and society, between the various classes; conflict
of the existing powers among each other reaching that height where the
sword must be drawn, and the ultima ratio of princes be recurred to. 
In the European capitals, every day brings despatches big with
universal war, vanishing under the despatches of the following day,
bearing the assurance of peace for a week or so.  We may be sure,
nevertheless, that to whatever height the conflict between the European
powers may rise, however threatening the aspect of the diplomatic
horizon may appear, whatever movements may be attempted by some
enthusiastic fraction in this or that country, the rage of princes and
the, fury of the people are alike enervated by the breath of
prosperity.  Neither wars nor revolutions are likely to put Europe by
the ears, unless in consequence of a general commercial and industrial
crisis, the signal of which has, as usual, to be given by England, the
representative of European industry in the market of the world.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the political consequences such a crisis
must produce in these times, with the unprecedented extension of
factories in England, with the utter dissolution of her official
parties, with the whole State machinery of France transformed into one
immense swindling and stockjobbing concern, with Austria on the eve of
bankruptcy, with wrongs everywhere accumulated to be revenged by the
people, with the conflicting interests of the reactionary powers
themselves, and with the Russian dream of conquest once more revealed
to the world.





                       THE CASE OF THE LORCHA ARROW



                          New York Daily Tribune
                               Jan 23, 1857

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THE MAILS of the America which reached us yesterday morning bring a
variety of documents concerning the British quarrel with the Chinese
authorities at Canton, and the warlike operations of Admiral Seymour. 
The result which a careful study of the official correspondence between
the British and Chinese authorities at Hong-Kong and Canton must, we
think, produce upon every impartial mind, is that the British are in
the wrong in the whole proceeding.  The alleged cause of the quarrel,
as stated by the latter, is that instead of appealing to the British
Consul, certain Chinese officers had violently removed some Chinese
criminals from a lorcha lying in Canton river, and hauled down the
British flag which was flying from its mast.  But, as says the London
Times, "there are, indeed, matters in dispute, such as whether the
lorcha ... was carrying British colours, and whether the Consul was
entirely justified in the steps that he took."  The doubt thus admitted
is confirmed when we remember that the provision of the treaty, which
the Consul insists should be applied to this lorcha, relates to British
ships alone; while the lorcha, as it abundantly appears, was not in any
just sense British.  But in order that our readers may have the whole
case before them, we proceed to give what is important in the official
correspondence.  First, we have a communication dated Oct. 21, from Mr.
Parkes, the British Consul at Canton, to Governor General Yeh, as
follows:

     "On the morning of the 8th inst. the British lorcha Arrow, when
     lying among the shipping anchored before the city, was boarded,
     without any previous reference being made to the British Consul,
     by a large force of Chinese officers and soldiers in uniform, who,
     in the face of the remonstrance of her master, an Englishman,
     seized, bound and carried away twelve Chinese out of her crew of
     fourteen, and hauled down her colours. I reported all the
     particulars of this public insult to the British flag, and grave
     violation of the ninth article of the Supplementary Treaty, to
     your Excellency the same day, and appealed to you to afford
     satisfaction for the insult, and cause the provisions of the
     treaty to be in this case faithfully observed. But your
     Excellency, with a strange disregard both to justice and treaty
     engagement, has offered no reparation or apology for the injury,
     and, by retaining the men you have seized in your custody, signify
     your approval of this violation of the treaty, and leave her
     Majesty's Government without any assurance that similar
     aggressions shall not again occur."

It seems that the Chinese on board the lorcha were seized by the
Chinese officers because the latter had been informed that some of the
crew had participated in a piracy committed against a Chinese
merchantman.  The British Consul accuses the Chinese Governor-General
of seizing the crew, of hauling down the British flag, of declining to
offer any apology, and of retaining the men seized in his custody.  The
Chinese Governor, in a letter addressed to Admiral Seymour, affirms
that, having ascertained that nine of the captives were innocent, he
directed, on Oct. 10, an officer to put them on board of their vessel
again, but that Consul Parkes refused to receive them.  As to the
lorcha itself, he states that when the Chinese on board were seized,
she was supposed to be a Chinese vessel, and rightly so, because she
was built by a Chinese, and belonged to a Chinese, who had fraudulently
obtained possession of a British ensign, by entering his vessel on the
colonial British registers method, it seems, habitual with Chinese
smugglers.  As to the question of the insult to the flag, the Governor
remarks:

     "It has been the invariable rule with lorchas of your Excellency's
     nation, to haul down their ensign when they drop anchor, and to
     hoist it again when they get under way. When the lorcha was
     boarded, in order that the prisoners might be seized, it has been
     satisfactorily proved that no flag was flying.  How then could a
     flag have been hauled down? Yet Consul Parkes, in one despatch
     after another, pretends that satisfaction is required for this
     insult offered to the flag."

From these premises the Chinese Governor concludes that no breach of
any treaty has been committed.  On Oct. 12, nevertheless, the British
Plenipotentiary demanded not only the surrender of the whole of the
arrested crew, but also an apology.  The Governor thus replies:

     "Early on the morning Of Oct. 22, I wrote to Consul Parkes, and at
     the same time forwarded to him twelve men, namely, Leong Ming-tai
     and Leong Kee-fu, convicted on the inquiry I had instituted, and
     the witness, Wu-A-jin, together with nine previously tendered. 
     But Mr. Consul Parkes would neither receive the twelve prisoners
     nor my letter."

Parkes might, therefore, have now got back the whole of his twelve men,
together with what was most probably an apology, contained in a letter
which he did not open.  In the evening of the same day, Governor Yeh
again made inquiry why the prisoners tendered by him were not received,
and why he received no answer to, his letter.  No notice was taken of
this step, but on the 24th fire was opened on the forts, and several of
them were taken; and it was not until Nov. 1 that Admiral Seymour
explained the apparently incomprehensible conduct of Consul Parkes in a
message to the Governor.  The men, he says, had been restored to the
Consul, but "not publicly restored to their vessel, nor had the
required apology been made for the violation of the Consular
jurisdiction." To this quibble, then, of not restoring in state a set
of men numbering three convicted criminals, the whole case is reduced. 
To this the Governor of Canton answers, first, that the twelve men had
been actually handed over to the Consul, and that there had not been
"any refusal to return the men to their vessel." What was still the
matter with this British Consul, the Chinese Governor only learned
after the city had been bombarded for six days.  As to an apology,
Governor Yeh insists that none could be given, as no fault had been
committed.  We quote his words:

     "No foreign flag was seen by my executive at the time of the
     capture, and as, in addition to this, it was ascertained on the
     examination of the prisoners by the officer deputed to conduct it,
     that the lorcha was in no respect a foreign vessel, I maintain
     that there was no mistake committed." 

Indeed, the force of this Chinaman's dialectics disposes so effectually
of the whole question -- and there is no other apparent case -- that
Admiral Seymour at last has no resource left him but a declaration like
the following:

     "I must positively decline any further argument on the merits of
     the case of the lorcha Arrow.  I am perfectly satisfied of the
     facts as represented to your Excellency by Mr. Consul Parkes."

But after having taken the forts, breached the walls of the city, and
bombarded Canton for six days, the Admiral suddenly discovers quite a
new object for his measures, as we find him writing to the Chinese
Governor on Oct. 30:

     "It is now for your Excellency, by immediate consultation with me,
     to terminate a condition of things of which the present evil is
     not slight, but which, if not amended, can scarcely fail to be
     productive of the most serious calamities."

The Chinese Governor answers that according to the Convention of 1849,
he had no right to ask for such a consultation.  He further says: 

     "In reference to the admission into the city, I must observe that,
     in April 1849, his Excellency the Plenipotentiary Bonham issued a
     public notice at the factories here, to the effect that he thereby
     prohibited foreigners from entering the city.  The notice was
     inserted in the newspapers of the time, and will, I presume, have
     been read by your Excellency.  Add to this that the exclusion of
     foreigners from the city is by the unanimous vote of the whole
     population of Kwangtong.  It may be supposed how little to their
     liking has been this storming of the forts and this destruction of
     their dwellings; and, apprehensive as I am of the evil that may
     hence befall the officials and citizens of your Excellency's
     nation, I can suggest nothing better than a continued adherence to
     the policy of the Plenipotentiary Bonham, as to the correct course
     to be pursued.  As to the consultation proposed by your
     Excellency, I have already, some days ago, deputed Tcheang,
     Prefect of Lei-chow-fu."

Admiral Seymour now makes a clean breast of it, declaring that he does
not care for the Convention of Mr. Bonham:

     "Your Excellency's reply refers me to the notification of the
     British Plenipotentiary of 1849, prohibiting foreigners from
     entering Canton.  Now, I must remind you that, although we have
     indeed serious matter of complaint against the Chinese Government
     for breach of the promise given in 1847 to admit foreigners into
     Canton at the end of two years, my demand now made is in no way
     connected with former negotiations on the same subject, neither am
     I demanding admission of any but the foreign officials, and this
     only for the simple and sufficient reasons above assigned.

     "On my proposal to treat personally with your Excellency, you do
     me the honour to remark that you sent a prefect some days ago.  I
     am compelled therefore to regard your Excellency's whole letter as
     unsatisfactory in the extreme, and have only to add that, unless I
     immediately receive an explicit assurance of your assent to what I
     have proposed, I shall at once resume offensive operations."

Governor Yeh retorts by again entering into the details of the
Convention of 1849:

     "In 1848 there was a long controversial correspondence on the
     subject between my predecessor Len and the British
     Plenipotentiary, Mr. Bonham, and Mr. Bonham being satisfied that
     an interview within the city was utterly out of the question,
     addressed a letter to Leu in the April of 1849, in which he said,
     'At the present time I can have no more discussion with your
     Excellency on this subject.' He further issued a notice from the
     factories to the effect that no foreigner was to enter the city,
     which was inserted in the papers, and he communicated this to the
     British Government.  There was not a Chinese or foreigner of any
     nation who did not know that the question was never to be
     discussed again."

Impatient of argument, the British Admiral hereupon forces his way into
the City of Canton to the residence of the Governor, at the same time
destroying the Imperial fleet in the river.  Thus there are two
distinct acts in this diplomatic and military drama -- the first
introducing the bombardment of Canton on the pretext of a breach of the
Treaty Of 1842 committed by the Chinese Governor, and the second,
continuing that bombardment on an enlarged scale, on the pretext that
the Governor clung stubbornly to the Convention of 1849.  First Canton
is bombarded for breaking a treaty, and next it is bombarded for
observing a treaty.  Besides, it is not even pretended that redress was
not given in the first instance, but only that redress was not given in
the orthodox manner.

The view of the case put forth by the London Times would do no
discredit even to General William Walker of Nicaragua.  

     "By this outbreak of hostilities," says that journal, "existing
     treaties are annulled, and we are left free to shape our relations
     with the Chinese Empire as we please... the recent proceedings at
     Canton warn us that we ought to enforce that right of free
     entrance into the country and into the ports open to us which was
     stipulated for by the Treaty Of 1842.  We must not again be told
     that our representatives must be excluded from the presence of the
     Chinese Governor-General, because we have waived the performance
     of the article which enabled foreigners to penetrate beyond the
     precincts of our factories." 

In other words, "we" have commenced hostilities in order to break an
existing treaty and to enforce a claim which "we" have waived by an
express convention!  We are happy to say, however, that another
prominent organ of British opinion expresses itself in a more humane
and becoming tone.  It is, says the Daily News, a "monstrous fact, that
in order to avenge the irritated pride of a British official, and
punish the folly of an Asiatic governor, we prostitute our strength to
the wicked work of carrying fire and sword, and desolation and death,
into the peaceful homes of unoffending men, on whose shores we were
originally intruders. Whatever may be the issue of this Canton
bombardment, the deed itself is a bad and a base one -- a reckless and
wanton waste of human life at the shrine of a false etiquette and a
mistaken policy." 

It is, perhaps, a question whether the civilized nations of the world
will approve this mode of invading a peaceful country, without previous
declaration of war, for an alleged infringement of the fanciful code of
diplomatic etiquette.  If the first Chinese war, in spite of its
infamous pretext, was patiently looked upon by other Powers, because it
held out the prospect of opening the trade with China, is not this
second war likely to obstruct that trade for an indefinite period?  Its
first result must be the cutting off of Canton from the tea-growing
districts, as yet, for the most part, in the hands of the imperialists
-- a circumstance which cannot profit anybody but the Russian overland
tea-traders.

With regard to the reported destruction of a Chinese fort by the
American frigate Portsmouth, we are not yet sufficiently informed to
express a decided opinion.





             PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES ON THE CHINESE HOSTILITIES



                          New York Daily Tribune
                              March 16, 1857

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THE EARL of Derby's resolution, and that of Mr. Cobden, both of them
passing condemnation upon the Chinese hostilities, were moved according
to notices given, the one on the 24th February, in the House of Lords,
the other on the 26th of February, in the House of Commons.  The
debates in the Lords ended on the same day when the debates in the
Commons began.  The former gave the Palmerston Cabinet a shock by
leaving it in the comparatively weak majority of 36 votes.  The latter
may result in its defeat.  But whatever interest may attach to the
discussion in the Commons, the debates in the House of Lords have
exhausted the argumentative part of the controversy-the masterly
speeches of Lords Derby and Lyndhurst forestalling the eloquence of Mr.
Cobden, Sir E. Bulwer, Lord John Russell, and tutti quanti.

The only law authority on the part of the Government, the Lord
Chancellor, remarked that "unless England had a good case with regard
to the Arrow, all proceedings from the last to first were wrong." Derby
and Lyndhurst proved beyond doubt that England had no case at all with
regard to that lorcha. The line of argument followed by them coincides
so much with that taken up in the columns of The Tribune on the first
publication of the English dispatches that I am able to condense it
here into a very small compass.

What is the charge against the Chinese Government upon which the Canton
massacres are pretended to rest? The infringement of Art. 9 of the
Supplemental Treaty Of 1843. That article prescribes that any Chinese
offenders, being in the colony of Hong Kong, or on board a British
man-of-war, or on board a British merchant ship, are not to be seized
by the Chinese authorities themselves, but should be demanded from the
British Consul, and by him be handed over to the native authorities. 
Chinese pirates were seized in the river of Canton on board the lorcha
Arrow, by Chinese officers, without the intervention of the British
Consul.  The question arises, therefore, was the Arrow a British
vessel? It was, as Lord Derby shows, "a vessel Chinese built, Chinese
captured, Chinese sold, Chinese bought and manned, and Chinese owned."
By what means, then, was this Chinese vessel converted into a British
merchantman? By purchasing at HongKong a British register or sailing
licence.  The legality of this register relies upon an ordinance of the
local legislation of Hong-Kong, passed in March, 1855.  That ordinance
not only infringed the treaty existing between England and China, but
annulled the law of England herself.  It was, therefore, void and null.
Some semblance of English legality it could but receive from the
Merchant Shipping Act, which, however, was passed only two months after
the issue of the ordinance.  And even with the legal provisions of that
Act it had never been brought into consonance.  The ordinance,
therefore, under which the lorcha Arrow received its register, was so
much waste paper.  But even according to this worthless paper the Arrow
had forfeited its protection by the infringement of the provisions
prescribed, and the expiration of its licence.  This point is conceded
by Sir J. Bowring himself.  But then, it is said, whether or not the
Arrow was an English vessel, it had, at all events, hoisted the English
flag, and that flag was insulted.  Firstly, if the flag was flying, it
was not legally flying.  But was it flying at all? On this point there
exists discrepancy between the English and Chinese declarations.  The
latter have, however, been corroborated by depositions, forwarded by
the Consuls, of the master and crew of the Portuguese lorcha No. 83 --
With reference to these depositions, The Friend of China of Nov. 13
states that "it is now notorious at Canton that the British flag had
not been flying on board the lorcha for six days previous to its
seizure." Thus falls to the ground the punctilio of honour together
with the legal case.

Lord Derby had in this speech the good taste altogether to forbear from
his habitual waggishness, and thus to give his argument a strictly
judicial character.  No efforts, however, on his part were wanted to
impregnate his speech with a deep current of irony.  The Earl of Derby,
the chief of the hereditary aristocracy of England, pleading against
the late Doctor, now Sir John Bowring, the pet disciple of Bentham;
pleading for humanity against the professional humanitarian; defending
the real interests of nations against the systematic utilitarian
insisting upon a punctilio of diplomatic etiquette; appealing to the
"vox populi vox dei" against the greatest-benefit-ofthe-greatest-number
man; the descendant of the conquerors preaching peace where a member of
the Peace Society preached red-hot shell; a Derby branding the acts of
the British navy as "miserable proceedings" and "inglorious
operations," where a Bowring congratulates it upon cowardly outrages
which met with no resistance, upon "its brilliant achievements,
unparalleled bravery, and splendid union of military skill and valour"
-- such contrasts were the more keenly satirical the less the Earl of
Derby seemed to be aware of them.  He had the advantage of that great
historical irony which does not flow from the wit of individuals, but
from the humour of situations.  The whole Parliamentary history of
England has, perhaps, never exhibited such an intellectual victory of
the aristocrat over the parvenu. 

Lord Derby declared at the outset that he "should have to rely upon
statements and documents exclusively furnished by the very parties
whose conduct he was about to impugn," and that he was content "to rest
his case upon these documents."  Now it has been justly remarked that
those documents as laid before the public by the Government, would have
allowed the latter to shift the whole responsibility upon its
subordinates.  So much is this the case that the attacks made by the
parliamentary adversaries of the Government were exclusively directed
to Bowring & Co., and could have been endorsed by the home Government
itself, without at all impairing its own position.  I quote from his
Lordship:

     "I do not wish to say anything disrespectful of Dr. Bowring.  He
     may be a man of great attainments; but it appears to me that on
     the subject of his admission into Canton he is possessed with a
     perfect monomania (Hear, hear, and a laugh).  I believe he dreams
     of his entrance into Canton.  I believe he thinks of it the first
     thing in the morning, the last thing at night, and in the middle
     of the night, if he happen to be awake (a laugh).  I do not
     believe that he would consider any sacrifice too great, any
     interruption of commerce to be deplored, any bloodshed almost to
     be regretted, when put in the scale with the immense advantage to
     be derived from the fact that Sir J. Bowring had obtained an
     official reception in the Yamun of Canton (Laughter)."

Next came Lord Lyndhurst:

     "Sir J. Bowring, who is a distinguished humanitarian as well as
     plenipotentiary (laughter), himself admits the register is void,
     and that the lorcha was not entitled to hoist the English flag. 
     Now, mark what he says: 'The vessel had no protection, but the
     Chinese do not know this.  For God's sake do not whisper it to
     them.' (Hear).  He persevered, too, for he said in effect: We know
     the Chinese have not been guilty of any violation of treaty, but
     we will not tell them so; we will insist upon reparation and a
     return of the men they have seized in a particular form.  If the
     men were not returned in the form, what was to be the remedy?
     Why, to seize a junk-a war junk.  If that was not sufficient,
     seize more until we compelled them to submit, although we knew
     they had the right on their side and we had no justice on ours
     (Hear) ... Was there ever conduct more abominable, more flagrant,
     in which -- I will not say more fraudulent, but what is equal to
     fraud in our country -- more false pretence has been put forward
     by a public man in the service of the British Government ? (Hear)
     ... It is extraordinary that Sir J. Bowring should think he had
     the power of declaring war.  I can understand a man in such a
     position having necessarily a power of carrying on defensive
     operations, but to carry on offensive operations upon such a
     ground -- upon such a pretence -- is one of the most extraordinary
     proceedings to be found in the history of the world... It is quite
     clear from the papers laid on the table yesterday that from the
     first moment at which Sir J. Bowring was appointed to the station
     he now fills, his ambition was to procure what his predecessors
     had completely failed to effect -- namely an entry within the
     walls of Canton ... bent only upon carrying this object of gaining
     admission within the walls of Canton into execution, (he) has, for
     no necessary purpose whatever, plunged the country into war; and
     what is the result? Property, to the large amount Of $1,500,000,
     belonging to British subjects, is now impounded in the city of
     Canton, and in addition to that our factories are burned to the
     ground, and all this is only owing to the mischievous policy of
     one of the most mischievous of men. -- But man, proud man, Drest
     in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most
     assured, This glassy essence, like an angry ape,  Plays such
     fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep."

And lastly, Lord Grey: 

     "If your Lordships, will refer to the papers, you will find that
     when Sir John Bowring applied for an interview with Commissioner
     Yeh, the Commissioner was ready to meet him, but he appointed for
     that purpose the house of the merchant Howqua, without the city...
     Sir John Bowring's dignity would not allow him to go anywhere but
     to the official residence of the Commissioner ... I expect, if no
     other result, at least the good result from the adoption of the
     resolution -- the instant recall of Sir J. Bowring." 

Sir J. Bowring met with similar treatment at the hands of the Commons,
and Mr. Cobden even opened his speech with a solemn repudiation of his
"friend of twenty years' standing."   The literal quotations from the
speeches of Lords Derby, Lyndhurst and Grey prove that, to parry the
attack, Lord Palmerston's Administration had only to drop Sir J.
Bowring instead of identifying itself with that "distinguished
humanitarian." That it owed this facility of escape neither to the
indulgence nor the tactics of his adversaries, but exclusively to the
papers laid before Parliament, will become evident from the slightest
glance at the papers themselves as well as the debates founded upon
them.

Can there remain any doubt as to Sir J. Bowring's CC monomania " with
respect to his entrance into Canton?  It is not proved that that
individual, as the London Times says, "has taken a course entirely out
of his own head, without either advice from his superiors at home or
any reference to their politics?" Why, then, should Lord Palmerston, at
a moment when his Government is tottering, when his way is beset with
difficulties of all sorts -- financial difficulties, Persian war
difficulties, secret-treaty difficulties, electoral reform
difficulties, coalition difficulties -- when he is conscious that the
eyes of the House are " upon him more earnestly but less admiringly
than ever before," why should he single out just that moment to
exhibit, for the first time in his political life, an unflinching
fidelity to another man -- and to a subaltern, too -- at the hazard of
not only impairing still more his own position, but of completely
breaking it up? Why should he push his newfangled enthusiasm to such a
point as to offer himself as the expiatory sacrifice for the sins of a
Dr. Bowring?  Of course no man in his senses thinks the noble Viscount
capable of any such romantic aberrations.  The line of policy he has
followed up in this Chinese difficulty affords conclusive evidence of
the defective character of the papers he has laid before Parliament. 
Apart from published papers there must exist secret papers and secret
instructions which would go far to show that if Dr. Bowring was
possessed of the "monomania" of entering into Canton, there stood
behind him the cool-headed chief of Whitehall working upon his
monomania and driving it, for purposes of his own, from the state of
latent warmth into that of consuming fire. 





                    DEFEAT OF THE PALMERSTON MINISTRY



                          New York Daily Tribune
                              March 25, 1857

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


After having raged for four nights, the Chinese debates subsided at
last in a vote of censure passed by the House of Commons on the
Palmerston Ministry.  Palmerston retorts to the censure by a "penal
dissolution." He punishes the Commons by sending them home.

The immense excitement prevailing on the last night of the debates,
within the walls of the House as well as among the masses who had
gathered in the adjoining streets, was due not only to the greatness of
the interests at stake, but still more to the character of the party on
trial.  Palmerston's administration was not that of an ordinary
Cabinet.  It was a dictatorship.  Since the commencement of the war
with Russia, Parliament had almost abdicated its constitutional
functions; nor had it, after the conclusion of peace, ever dared to
reassert them.  By a gradual and almost imperceptible declension, it
had reached the position of a Corps Legislatif, distinguished from the
genuine, Bonapartish article by false pretences and highsounding
pretensions only.  The mere formation of the Coalition Cabinet  denoted
the fact that the old parties, on the friction of which the movement of
the Parliamentary machine depends, had become extinct.  This impotence
of parties, first expressed by the Coalition Cabinet, the war helped to
incarnate in the omnipotence of a single individual, who, during half a
century of political life, had never belonged to any party, but always
used all parties.  If the war with Russia had not intervened, the very
exhaustion of the old official parties would have led to
transformation.  New life would have beenpoured into the Parliamentary
body by the infusion of new blood, by the admission to political rights
of at least some fractions of the masses of the people who are still
deprived of votes and representatives.  The war cut short this natural
process.  Preventing the neutralization of old Parliamentary
antagonisms from turning to the benefit of the masses, the war turned
it to the exclusive profit of a single man.  Instead of the political
emancipation of the British people, we have had the dictatorship of
Palmerston. War was the powerful engine by which this result was
brought about, and war was the only means of insuring it.  War had
therefore become the vital condition of Palmerston's dictatorship.  The
Russian war was more popular with the British people than the Paris
peace.  Why, then, did the British Achilles, under whose auspices the
Redan disgrace and the Kars surrender had occurred, not improve this
opportunity? Evidently because the alternative lay beyond his control.
Hence his Paris treaty, backed by his misunderstandings with the United
States, his expedition to Naples, his ostensible squabbles with
Bonaparte, his Persian invasion, and his Chinese massacres.

In passing a vote of censure upon the latter, the House of Commons cut
off the means of his usurped power.  Its vote was, therefore, not a
simple Parliamentary vote, but a rebelliona forcible attempt at the
resumption of the constitutional attributes of Parliament.  This was
the feeling which pervaded the House, and whatever may have been the
peculiar motives actuating the several fractions of the heterogeneous
majority -- composed of Derbyites, Peelites, Manchester men,
Russellites, and so-called Independents -- all of them were sincere in
asserting that it was no vulgar anti-Ministerial conspiracy which
united them in the same lobby.  Such, however, was the gist of
Palmerston's defence.  He covered the weakness of his case by an
argumenturn ad misericordiam, by presenting himself as the victim of an
unprincipled conspiracy.  Nothing could be more happy than Mr.
Disraeli's rebuke of this plea, so common to Old Bailey prisoners.

     "The First Minister," he said, "is of all men the man who cannot
     bear a coalition.  Why, sir, he is the arch-type of political
     coalitions without avowed principles.  See how his Government is
     formed.  It was only last year that every member of his Cabinet in
     this House supported a bill introduced, I think, by a late
     colleague.  It was opposed in the other House by a member of the
     Government who, to excuse his apparent inconsistency, boldly declared
     that when he took office the First Minister required no pledge
     from him on any subject whatever (Laughter).  Yet the noble Lord
     is alarmed and shocked at this unprincipled combination!  The
     noble Lord cannot bear coalitions!  The noble Lord has acted only
     with those among whom he was born and bred in politics (Cheers
     and laughter).  That infant Hercules ... (pointing at Lord
     Palmerston) was taken out of the Whig cradle, and how consistent
     has been his political life! (Renewed laughter).  Looking back
     upon the last half century, during which he has professed almost
     every principle, and connected himself with almost every party,
     the noble Lord has raised a warning voice to-night against
     coalitions, because he fears that a majority of the House of
     Commons, ranking in its numbers some of the most eminent members
     of the House-men who have been colleagues of the noble Lord-may
     not approve a policy with respect to China which has begun in
     outrage, and which, if pursued, will end in ruin. (Loud cheers). 
     That, sir, is the position of the noble Lord.  And what defence of
     that policy have we had from the noble Lord? Has he laid down a
     single principle on which our relations with China ought to
     depend? Has he enumerated a solitary political maxim which should
     guide us in this moment of peril and perplexity? On the contrary,
     he has covered a weak and shambling case by saying -- what? --
     that he is the victim of a conspiracy. (Cheers and laughter).  He
     did not enter into any manly or statesmanlike defence of his
     conduct. He reproduced petty observations made in the course of
     the debate which I thought really had become exhausted and
     obsolete, and then he turned round and said that the whole was a
     conspiracy!  Accustomed to majorities which have been obtained
     without the assertion of a single principle, which have, indeed,
     been the consequence of an occasional position, and which have, in
     fact, originated in the noble Lord's sitting on that bench without
     the necessity of expressing an opinion upon any subject, foreign
     or domestic, that can interest the heart of the country or
     influence the opinion of the nation, the noble Lord will at last
     find that the time has come when, if he be a statesman, he must
     have a policy (cheers); and that it will not do, the instant that
     the blundering of his Cabinet is detected, and every man
     accustomed to influence the opinion of the House unites in
     condemning it, to complain to the country that he is the victim of
     a conspiracy." (Cheers). 

It would, however, be quite a mistake to presume that the debates were
interesting because such passionate interests hinged upon them.  There
was one night's debate after another night's debate, and still no
division.  During the greater part of the battle the voices of the
gladiators were drowned in the hum and hubbub of private conversation. 
Night after night the placemen spoke against time to win another
twenty-four hours for intrigue and underground action.  The first night
Mr. Cobden made a clever speech.  So did Bulwer and Lord John Russell;
but the Attorney-General was certainly right in telling them that "he
could not for one moment compare their deliberations or their arguments
on such a subject as this with the arguments that had been delivered in
another place." The second night was encumbered by the heavy special
pleadings of the attorneys on both sides, the Lord-Advocate, Mr.
Whiteside and the Attorney-General.  Sir James Graham, indeed, made an
attempt to raise the debate, but he failed.  When this man, the virtual
murderer of the Bandiera, sanctimoniously exclaimed that "he would wash
his hands of the innocent blood which had been shed," a half-suppressed
ironical laugh re-echoed his pathos. The third night was still duller. 
There was Sir F. Thesiger, the Attorney-General in spe, answering the
Attorney-General in re, and Sergeant Shee endeavouring to answer Sir F.
Thesiger.  There was the agricultural eloquence of Sir John Pakington. 
There was General Williams of Kars, listened to with silence only for a
few minutes, but after those few minutes spontaneously dropped by the
House and fully understood not to be the man they had taken him for. 
There was, lastly, Sir Sidney Herbert.  This elegant scion of Peelite
statesmanship made a speech which was, indeed, terse, pointed,
antithetical, but girding at the arguments of the placemen rather than
producing new arguments of his own.  But the last night the debate rose
to a height compatible with the natural measure of the Commons. 
Roebuck, Gladstone, Palmetston and Disraeli were great, each in his own
way.

The difficult point was to get rid of the stalking-horse of the debate,
Sir J. Bowring, and to bring home the question to Lord Palmerston
himself, by making him personally responsible for the "massacre of the
innocents." This was at last done.  As the impending general election
in England will in the main revolve upon this point, it may not be
amiss to condense, in as short a compass as possible, the results of
the discussion.  The day after the defeat of the Ministry, and the day
before the ministerial announcement of the dissolution of the House of
Commons, the London Times ventured upon the following assertions:

     "the nation ... will be rather at a loss to know the precise
     question to be answered ... Has Lord Palmerston's Cabinet
     forfeited the confidence of the People on account of a series of
     acts committed'on the other side of the world six weeks before
     they were here even heard of, and by public servants appointed under a
     former administration?" 

(It was at Christmas when Ministers heard of the matter, and they were
at that time as ignorant as everybody else).

     "In fact, had the scene of the narrative been the moon, or had it
     been a chapter from the Arabian Nights, the present Cabinet could
     not have less to do with it ... Is Lord Palmerston's
     administration to be condemned and displaced for what it never did
     and could not do, for what it only heard of when everybody else
     heard of it, for what was done by men whom it did not appoint and
     with whom it has not, as yet, been able to hold any
     communication?" 

To this impudent rodomontade of a FaFer which has all along vindicated
the Canton massacre as a supreme stroke of Palmerstonian diplomacy, we
can oppose a few facts painfully elicited during a protracted debate,
and not once controverted by Palmerston or his subordinates.  In 1847,
when at the head of the Foreign Office, Lord Palmerston's first
dispatch on the admission of the British Hong-Kong authorities into
Canton was couched in menacing terms.  However, his ardours were damped
by Earl Grey, his colleague, the then Secretary for the Colonies, who
sent out a most peremptory prohibition to the officers commanding the
naval forces, not only at Hong Kong, but at Ceylon, ordering them,
under no circumstances, to allow any offensive movement against the
Chinese without express authority from England.  On the 18th August,
1849, however, shortly before his dismissal from the Russell Cabinet,
Lord Palmerston wrote the following dispatch to the British
Plenipotentiary at Hong Kong:

     "Let not the great officers of Canton nor the Government of Pekin
     deceive themselves ... The forbearance which the British
     Government has hitherto displayed, arises not from a sense of
     weakness, but from consciousness of superior strength.  The
     British Government well knows that if occasion required it,
     British military force would be able to destroy the town of
     Canton, not leaving one single house standing, and could thus
     inflict the most signal chastisement upon the people of that
     city."

Thus the bombardment of Canton occurring in 1856, under Lord Palmerston
as Premier, was foreshadowed in 1849 by the last missive sent to
Hong-Kong by Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary of the Russell
Cabinet.  All the intervenin Governments have refused to allow any
relaxation of the prohibition put upon the British representatives at
Hong-Kong against pressing their admission into Canton.  This was the
case with the Earl of Granville under the Russell Ministry, the Earl of
Malmesbury under the Derby Ministry, and the Duke of Newcastle under
the Aberdeen Ministry.  At last, in 1852, Dr. Bowring, till then Consul
at Canton, was appointed Plenipotentiary.  His appointment, as Mr.
Gladstone states, was made by Lord Clarendon, Palmerston's tool,
without the knowledge or consent of the Aberdeen Cabinct. When Bowring
first mooted the question now at issue, Clarendon, in a dispatch dated
July 5, 1854, told him that he was right, but that he should wait till
there were naval forces available for his purpose.  England was then at
war with Russia.  When the question of the Arrow arose, Bowring had
just heard that peace had been established, and in fact nava forces
were being sent out to him.  Then the quarrel with Yeh was picked.  On
the i oth of January, after having received an account of all that had
passed, Clarendon informed Bowring that "Her Majesty's Government
entirely approved the course which has been adopted by Sir M. Seymour
and yourself." This approbation, couched in these few words, was not
accompanied by any further instructions.  On the contrary, Mr. Hammond,
writing to the Secretary of the Admiralty, was directed by Lord
Clarendon to express to Admiral Seymour the Government's admiration of
"the moderation with which he had acted, and the respect which he had
shown for the lives and properties of the Chinese."

There can, then, exist no doubt that the Chinese massacre was planned
by Lord Palmerston himself.  Under what colours he now hopes to rally
the electors of the United Kingdom is a question which I hope you will
allow me to answer in another letter, as this has already exceeded the
proper limits.





                             RUSSIA AND CHINA



                          New York Daily Tribune
                              April 7, 1857

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


In the matter of trade and intercourse with China, of which Lord
Palmerston and Louis Napoleon have undertaken the extension by force,
no little jealousy is evidently felt of the position occupied by
Russia.  Indeed, it is quite possible that without any expenditure of
money or exertion of military force Russia may gain more in the end, as
a consequence of the pending quarrel with the Chinese, than either of
the belligerent nations.

The relations of Russia to the Chinese Empire are altogether peculiar. 
While the English and ourselves -- for in the matter of the pending
hostilities the French are but little more than amateurs, as they
really have no trade with China -- are not allowed the privilege of a
direct communication even with the Viceroy of Canton, the Russians
enjoy the advantage of maintaining an Embassy at Peking.  It is said,
indeed, that this advantage is purchased only by submitting to allow
Russia to be reckoned at the Celestial Court as one of the tributary
dependencies of the Chinese Empire.  Nevertheless it enables Russian
diplomacy, as in Europe, to establish an influence for itself in China
which is by no means limited to purely diplomatic operations.  Being
excluded fiom the maritime trade with China, the Russians are free from
any interest or involvement in past or pending disputes on that
subject; and they also escape that antipathy with which from time
immemorial the Chinese have regarded all foreigners approaching their
country by sea, confounding them, and not entirely without reason, with
the piratical adventurers by whom the Chinese coasts seem ever to have
been infested.  But as an indemnity for this exclusion from the
maritime trade, the Russians en . oy an inland and overland trade
peculiar to themselves, and in which it seems impossible for them to
have any rival.  This traffic, regulated by a treaty made in 1787,
during the reign of Catharine H., has for its principal, if not indeed
its sole seat of operations, Kiachta, situate on the frontiers of
southern Siberia and of Chinese Tartary, on a tributary of the Lake
Baikal, and about a hundred miles south of the city of Irkutsk.  This
trade, conducted at a sort of annual fair, is managed by twelve
factors, of whom six are Russians and six Chinese, who meet at Kiachta,
and fix the rates -- since the trade is entirely by barter -- at which
the merchandise supplied by either party shall be exchanged.  The
principal articles of trade are, on the part of the Chinese, tea, and
on the part of the Russians, cotton and woollen cloths.  This trade, of
late years, seems to have attained a considerable increase.  The
quantity.of tea sold to the Russians at Kiachta, did not, ten or twelve
years ago, exceed an average of forty thousand chests; but in 1852 it
amounted to a hundred and seventy-five thousand chests, of which the
larger part was of that superior quality well known to continental
consumers as caravan tea, in contradistinction from the inferior
article imported by sea.  The other articles sold by the Chinese were
some small quantities of sugar, cotton, raw silk and silk goods, but
all to very limited amounts.  The Russians paid about equally in cotton
and woollen goods, with the addition of small quantities of Russian
leather, wrought metals, furs and even opium.  The whole amount of
goods bought and sold-which secm in the published accounts to be stated
at very moderate prices-reached the large sum of upward of fifteen
millions of dollars.  In 1857 owing to the internal troubles of China
and the occupation of the road from the tea provinces by bands of
marauding rebels, the quantity of tea sent to Kiachta fell off to fifty
thousand chests, and the whole value of the trade of that year was but
about six millions of dollars.  In the two following years, however,
this commerce revived, and the tea sent to Kiachta for the fair Of 1855
did not fall short of a hundred and twelve thousand chests.

In consequence of the increase of this trade, Kiachta, which is
situated within the Russian frontier, from a mere fort and fair-ground,
has grown up into a considerable city.  It has been selected as the
capital of that part of the frontier region, and is to be dignified by
having a military commandant and a civil governor.  At the same time a
direct and regular postal communication for the transmission of
official dispatches has lately been established between Kiachta and
Peking, which is distant from it about nine hundred miles. 

It is evident that, should the pending hostilities result in
suppression of the maritime trade, Europe might receive it entire
supply of tea by this route.  Indeed, it is suggested tha even with the
maritime trade open, Russia, may, upon the completion of her system of
railroads, become a powerful competitor with the maritime nations for
supplying th European markets with tea.  These railroads will supply
direct communication between the ports of Cronstadt and Libau and the
ancient city of Nijni Novgorod in the interior of Russia, the residence
of the merchants by whom the trade at Kiachta is carried on.  The
supply of Europe with tea by this overland route is certainly more
probable than the employment of our projected Pacific Railroad for that
purpose Silk, too, the other chief export of China, is an article of
suc small bulk in comparison to its cost, as to make its transports
tion by land by no means impossible; while this Chines traffic opens an
outlet for Russian manufactures, such as it cannot elsewhere attain.

We may observe, however, that the efforts of Russia are by no means
limited to the development of this inland trade.  It is several years
since she took possession of the banks of th River Amur, the native
country of the present ruling race in China.  Her efforts in this
direction received some check an interruption during the late war, but
will doubtless be revive and pushed with energy.  She has possession of
the Kuril Islands and the neighbouring coasts of Kamchatka.  Already
she maintains a fleet in those seas, and will doubtless improve any
opportunity that may offer to obtain a participation in the maritime
trade with China. This, however, is of little consequence to her
compared with the extension of that overland trade of which she
possesses the monopoly.





                            WHOSE ATROCITIES?



                          New York Daily Tribune
                              April 10, 1857

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


A FEW YEARS since, when the frightful system of torture in India was
exposed in Parliament, Sir James Hogg, one of the Directors of the Most
Honourable East India Company, boldly asserted that the statements made
were unfounded.  Subsequent investigation, however, proved them to be
based upon facts which should have been well known to the Directors,
and Sir James had left him to admit either "wilful ignorance" or
"criminal knowledge" of the horrible charge laid at the Company's
doors.  Lord Palmerston, the present Premier of England, and the Earl
of Clarendon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seem just now to be
placed in a similar unenviable position.  At the late Lord Mayor's
banquet, the Premier said, in his speech, while attempting to justify
the atrocities committed upon the Chinese:

     "If the Government had, in this case, approved of unjustifiable
     proceedings, they had undoubtedly followed a course which deserved
     to incur the censure of Parliament and of the country.  We were
     persuaded, however, on the contrary, that these proceedings were
     necessary and vital.  We felt that a great wrong had been
     inflicted on our country.  We felt that our fellow countrymen in a
     distant part of the globe had been exposed to a series of insults,
     outrages and atrocities which could not be passed over in silence
     (Cheers).  We felt that the treaty rights of this country had been
     broken, and that those locally charged with the defence of our
     interests in that quarter of the world were not only justified,
     but obliged to resent those outrages, so far as the power in their
     hands would enable them to do so.  We felt that we should be
     betraying the trust which the citizens of the country had reposed
     in us if we had not approved of the proceedings which we thought
     to be right, and which we, if placed in the same circumstances,
     should have deemed it our duty to have pursued (Cheers)."

Now, however much the people of England and the world at large may be
deceived by such plausible statements, his Lordship himself certainly
does not believe them to be true, of if he does, he has betrayed a
wilful ignorance almost as unjustifiable as "criminal knowledge." Ever
since the first report reached us of English hostilities in China, the
Government journals of England and a portion of the American Press have
been heaping wholesale denunciations upon the Chinese -- sweeping
charges of violation of treaty obligations -- insults to the English
flag -- degradation of foreigners residing on their soil, and the like;
yet not one single distinct charge has been made or a single fact
instanced in support of these denunciations, save the case of the
lorcha Arrow, and, with respect to this case, the circumstances have
been so misrepresented and glossed over by Parliamentary rhetoric as
utterly to mislead those who really desire to understand the merits of
the question.

The lorcha Arrow was a small Chinese vessel, manned by Chinese, but
employed by some Englishmen.  A licence to carry the English flag had
been temporarily granted to her, which licence had expired prior to the
alleged "insult".  She is said to have been used to smuggle salt, and
had on board of her some very bad characters -- Chinese pirates and
smugglers -- whom, being old offenders against the laws, the
authorities had long been trying to arrest.  While lying at anchor in
front of Canton -- with sails furled, and no flag whatever displayed --
the police became aware of the presence on board of these offenders,
and arrested them -- precisely such an act as would have taken place
here had the police along our wharves known that river-thieves and
smugglers were secreted in a native or foreign vessel near by.  But, as
this arrest interfered with the business of the owners, the captain
went to the English Consul and complained.  The Consul, a young man
recently appointed, and, as we are informed, a person of a quick and
irritable disposition, rushes on board in propria persona, gets into an
excited parley with the police, who have only discharged their simple
duty, and consequently fails in obtaining satisfaction.  Thence he
rushes back to the Consulate, writes an imperative demand for
restitution and apology to the Governor-General of the Kwangtung
Province, and a note to Sir John Bowring and Admiral Seymour at Hong
Kong, representing that he and his country's flag have been insulted
beyond endurance, and intimating in pretty broad terms that now is the
time for a demonstration against Canton, such as had long been waited
for.

Gov. Yeh politely and calmly responds to the arrogant demands of the
excited young British Consul'.  He states the reason of the arrest, and
regrets that there should have been any misunderstanding in the matter;
at the same time he unqualifiedly denies the slightest intention of
insulting the English flag, and sends back the men, whom, although
lawfully arrested, he desired not to detain at the expense of so
serious a misunderstanding.  But this is not satisfactory to Mr. Consul
Parkes-he must have an official apology, and a more formal restitution,
or Gov. Yeh must abide the consequences.  Next arrives Admiral Seymour
with the British fleet, and then commences another correspondence,
dogmatic and threatening on the side of the Admiral; cool,
unimpassioned, polite, on the side of the Chinese official.  Admiral
Seymour demands a personal interview within the walls of Canton.  Gov. 
Yeh says this is contrary to all precedent, and that Sir George Bonham
had agreed that it should not be required.  He would readily consent to
an interview, as usual, outside the walled town if necessary, or meet
the Admiral's wishes in any other way not contrary to Chinese usage and
hereditary etiquette.  But this did not suit the bellicose
representative of British power in the East.

Upon the grounds thus briefly stated -- and the official accounts now
before the people of England fully bear out the statement -- this most
unrighteous war has been waged.  The unoffending citizens and peaceful
tradesmen of Canton have been slaughtered, their habitations battered
it to the ground, and the claims of humanity violated, on the flimsy
pretence that "English life and property are endangered by the
aggressive acts of the Chinese!" The British Government and the British
people -- at least, those who have chosen to examine the question --
know how false and hollow are such charges.  An attempt has been made
to divert investigation from the main issue, and to impress the public
mind with the idea that a long series of injuries, preceding the case
of the lorcha Arrow, form of themselves a sufficient casus belli.  But
these sweeping assertions are baseless.  The Chinese have at least
ninety-nine injuries to complain of to one on the part of the English.

How silent is the press of England upon the outrageous violations of
the treaty daily practiced by foreigners living in China under British
protection!  We hear nothing of the illicit opium trade, which yearly
feeds the British treasury at the expense of human life and morality. 
We hear nothing of the constant bribery of sub-officials, by means of
which the Chinese Government is defrauded of its rightful revenue on
incoming and outgoing merchandise.  We hear nothing of the wrongs
inflicted "even unto death" upon misguided and bonded emigrants sold to
worse than Slavery on the coast of Peru, and into Cuban bondage.  We
hear nothing of the bullying spirit often exercised against the timid
nature of the Chinese, or of the vice introduced by foreigners at the
ports open to their trade.  We hear nothing of all this and of much
more, first, because the majority of people out of China care little
about the social and moral condition of that country; and secondly,
because it is the part of policy and prudence not to agitate topics
where no pecuniary advantage would result.  Thus, the English people at
home, who look no further than the grocer's where they buy their tea,
are prepared to swallow all the misrepresentations which the Ministry
and the Press choose to thrust down the public throat.

Meanwhile, in China, the smothered fires of hatred kindled against the
English during the opium war have burst into a flame of animosity which
no tenders of peace and friendship will be very likely to quench.  For
the sake of Christian and commercial intercourse with China, it is in
the highest degree desirable that we should keep out of this quarrel,
and that the Chinese should not be led to regard all the nations of the
Western World as united in a conspiracy against them.





                       SOME OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE



                          New York Daily Tribune
                              June 2, 1857

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


AMONG THE papers relating to China which Lord Palmerston has laid
before Parliament, we find some extracts from the correspondence
between our Dr. Parker and Mr. Commissioner Yeh, in which we must say
that our Doctor seems to come off second best. Thus, the Doctor wrote
to complain of the bread-poisoning at Hong Kong to which Yeh replied as
follows:

     "I received your Excellency's communication of the 16th ult. on
     the 2nd inst., and observe what it contains: That the American
     Consul, who had arrived at Macao from Hong Kong, informed you
     personally that two or three days before, certain Chinese people
     in Hong Kong had mixed poison in the bread which they furnished
     the public, without distinction of country, of which all had
     eaten, and had been made seriously ill, and that it was not yet
     known whether they would survive.

     "On reading this, I was very greatly surprised.  The Chinese and
     Americans have usually been on good terms, and the trade between
     China and other countries has heretofore been conducted amicably;
     but the English have now, for several months, in a most unprovoked
     manner, brought their troops and engaged in hostilities, and
     repeatedly setting fire to the shops and dwellings of people, and
     destroying a very great number of buildings, and have ruined some
     entire families.  Doubtless there are many Chinese whose hatred
     against the English has been much increased by this; but to poison
     people in this underhand manner is an act worthy of detestation:
     still, as it all occurred in Hong Kong it is impossible for me to
     examine into all the facts.  The act is owing to the unnumbered
     evils which have been inflicted upon the Chinese by the English;
     and the natives of the surrounding districts have taken this way
     of revenging their private wrongs.

     "The Americans having never injured the Chinese, there is, of
     course, nothing to mar the good feeling existing between them. 
     Tour Excellency might with propriety, issue admonitory
     exhortations for the Americans quietly to attend to their own
     business, and there can be no question but the Chinese will always
     treat them in a proper manner.  What could induce them to think of
     secretly poisoning them? -- a point worthy of your consideration. 
     For this I reply -- at the same time wishing you stable peace."

Nothing could be better put than the suggestion we have placed in
italics, that Dr. Parker and his countrymen would do much better to
mind their own business than to be mixing themselves up in the quarrel
which the English had picked.

Instead, however, of falling in with this piece of good advice, Dr.
Parker must needs write a letter to Yeh, in which he undertakes to
justify himself and the American authorities for siding with the
English Of this letter the following is an extract:

     "Were the undersigned called upon to pass judgment upon the
     question who is right and who is wrong in the present controversy,
     he might wish to inquire if it had not been right, when the
     occasion for serious complaint arose, for the high officers of the
     two Governments to have met face to face, and according to reason
     and justice have settled the matter, and thus have prevented the
     vast destruction of property and effusion of blood which have been
     in consequence of your Excellency's failing to do so.  He might,
     also, perchance, inquire into the truth of the statements
     regarding what had transpired in former years in relation to the
     subject of the entree of the City of Canton, which differs widely
     from what the undersigned, who has long resided in China,
     apprehends to be the facts of the case.

     "The undersigned may be allowed, in the spirit of true friendship,
     to express to your Excellency his belief that the fountain of all
     difficulties between China and foreign nations is the
     unwillingness of China to acknowledge England, France, America and
     other great nations,of the West as her equals and true friends,
     and treat them accordingly.  So far as respects this grave matter
     the American Government is sensible that the English are in the
     right, and does choose to cooperate with them."

Yeh's answer is not given, but it can hardly be supposed that he failed
to make the retort to which the Doctor had exposed himself.  The Doctor
knows perfectly well, nobody better, that the true cause of the present
and former difficulties between the Chinese and the English was and is,
not as he pretends "the unwillingness of China to acknowledge England,
France, America and other great nations of the West as her equals," but
the unwillingness of the Chinese authorities to allow their subjects to
be poisoned with opium for the pecuniary benefit of the British East
India Company and a few unprincipled British, American and French
traders.  How is it possible for the Chinese to regard these "great
nations of the West" "as their true friends, and to treat them
accordingly," when they find that the principal business of these great
nations in China has been and is to sell and spread the use of opium, a
poisonous drug introduced by these foreigners within a century
past-before which time it was utterly unknown to the Chinese -- and the
use of which increases with a frightful rapidity, fatal at once to the
morals, the pecuniary welfare and the health of the Flowery Empire? 
When these "great nations" shall have first proved themselves "true
friends" by joining with the Chinese authorities to put an end to this
wicked traffic, it will be quite time to complain that the Chinese are
unwilling to recognize them in that character.

Other Chinese officials seem not inferior to Ych in the matter of
diplomatic correspondence.  On the 9th of December [1856] Sir John
Bowring sent to the Viceroy of Fukien, etc., a statement of his
complaints against Yeh, requesting that the Court of Peking be advised
of the same.  In his reply the Viceroy says:

     "The document forwarded to me being in English, its contents are
     unknown to me, and I have no means of deciphering them.

     "In conclusion, it is my duty to add that our two nations having
     been on friendly terms for many years, I am still in hopes that by
     due observance on either side of the Treaty of Peace that was to
     last for ever, it will be their good fortune to strengthen the
     amicable relations heretofore existing between them."

The Viceroy of another province, to whom a similar letter was sent,
replied as follows:

     "I rejoice in your Excellency's professions of peace; but it would
     only do harm to the interests of peace, to which you profess
     yourself so friendly, were I to tell the Emperor that, because of
     Yeh's act, you have precipitately broken the peace that the Treaty
     said was to last for ever.  Another reason against my addressing
     the throne is, that Yeh, and he alone, is competent to deal with
     commercial questions; and this can be nothing else, being a
     question with foreigners."

The following Imperial edict of the 27th December [1856] does not
evince any present disposition on the part of the Emperor to give way
to the demands of the English:

     "We have this day instructed Ych, that if the English barbarians
     turn from their present course of their own motion, anger (or
     hate) need not be carried to extremity; but if they dare to
     persist in their extravagance and obstinacy, peace is not to be
     negotiated by a conciliatory movement on our part, as this would
     open the way to demands for other concessions of importance. 
     Yeh-mingchin has been very long in charge of the Kwang provinces,
     and is so thoroughly cognizant with barbarian affairs that he will
     be able in all probability to devise a proper course of proceeding.

     "It occurs to us that the seaboard of Kiangsu, Chekiang and
     Fukien, is ground with which the steamers of these barbarians are,
     by long experience, well acquainted, and as precaution should be
     taken to defend (that coast) also against the barbarians, who,
     when they find themselves unable to work their will in the Canton
     province, may attempt to disturb other ports along it, we command
     Eleang, Chaou, and Ilo, to give instruction privily to the local
     authorities, in the event of barbarian ships approaching (their
     jurisdiction), to take such steps as will render them secure,
     without sound or sign (that may attract attention).  If they come
     to explain the circumstances of the rupture at Canton, they must
     be so silenced by reasonable arguments that no loop-hole be left
     them; and seeing this, they maybe minded to fall back from their
     undertaking as hopeless.  But (the authorities referred to) are
     riot in any way to take the alarm, as this would disturb and
     perplex the public mind."





                               PERSIA-CHINA



                          New York Daily Tribune
                              June 5, 1857

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THE English have just concluded an Asiatic war, and are entering upon
another.  The resistance offered by the Persians, and that which the
Chinese have so far opposed to British invasion, form a contrast worth
our attention.  In Persia, the European system of military organization
has been engrafted upon Asiatic barbarity; in China, the rotting
semicivilization of the oldest State in the world meets the Europeans
with its own resources.  Persia has been signally defeated, while
distracted, half-dissolved China has hit upon a system of resistance
which, if followed up, will render impossible a repetition of the
triumphal marches of the first Anglo-Chinese war.

Persia was in a state similar to that of Turkey during the war of 
1828-9 against Russia.  English, French, Russian officers had in turns
tried their hands at the organization of the Persian army.  One system
had succeeded another, and each in its turn had been thwarted by
thejealousy, the intrigues, the ignorance, the cupidity and corruption
of the Orientals whom it was to form into European officers and
soldiers.  The new regular army had never had an opportunity of trying
its organization and strength in the field.  Its only exploits had been
confined to a few campaigns against Kurds, Turcomans and Afghans, where
it served as a sort of nucleus or reserve to the numerous irregular
cavalry of Persia.  The latter did most of the actual fighting; the
regulars had generally but to impose upon the enemy by the
demonstrative effect of their seemingly formidable arrays.  At last,
the war with England broke out.

The English attacked Bushire, and met with a gallant though ineffective
resistance.  But the men who fought at Bushire were not regulars; they
were composed of the irregular levies of the Persian and Arab
inhabitants of the coast.  The regulars were only concentrating, some
sixty miles off, in the hills.  At last they advanced.  The
Anglo-Indian army met them half way; and, though the Persians used
their artillery with credit to themselves, and formed their squares on
the most approved principles, a single charge of one single Indian
cavalry regiment swept the whole Persian army, guards and line, from
the field.  And to know what these Indian regular cavalry are
considered to be worth in their own service, we have only to refer to
Capt.  Nolan's book on the subject. They are, among Anglo-Indian
officers, considered worse than useless, and far inferior to the
irregular Anglo-Indian cavalry.  Not a single action can Capt. Nolan
find where they were creditably engaged.  And yet, these were the men,
six hundred of whom drove ten thousand Persians before them!  Such was
the terror spread among the Persian regulars that never since have they
made a stand anywhere-the artillery alone excepted.  At Moharnmerah,
they kept out of harm's way, leaving the artillery to defend the
batteries, and retired as soon as these were silenced; and when, on a
reconnaissance, the British landed three hundred riflemen and fifty
irregular horse, the whole of the Persian host marched off, leaving
baggage, stores and guns in the possession of the -- victors you cannot
call them -- the invaders.

All this, however, neither brands the Persians as a nation of cowards,
nor condemns the introduction of European tactics among Orientals.  The
Russo-Turkish wars of 1809-12 and 1828-9 offer plenty of such examples.
The principal resistance offered to the Russians was made by the
irregular levies both from the fortified towns and from the mountain
provinces.  The regulars, wherever they showed themselves in the open
field, were at once upset by the Russians, and very often ran away at
the first shot; while a single company of Arnaut irregulars, in a
ravine at Varna, successfully opposed the Russian siege operations for
weeks together.  Yet, during the late war the Turkish regular army have
defeated the Russians in every single engagement from Oltenitza and
Citate to Kars and to Ingur.

The fact is that the introduction of European military organization
with barbaric nations is far from being completed when the new anny has
been subdivided, equipped and drilled after the European fashion.  That
is merely the first step towards it.  Nor will the enactment of some
European military code suffice; it will no more ensure European
discipline than a European set of drill-regulations will produce, by
itself, European tactics and strategy.  The main point, and at the same
time the main difficulty, is the creation of a body of officers and
sergeants, educated on the modern European system, totally freed from
the old national prejudices and reminiscences in military matters, and
fit to inspire life into the new formation.  This requires a long time,
and is sure to meet with the most obstinate opposition from Oriental
ignorance, impatience, prejudice, and the vicissitudes of fortune and
favour inherent to Eastern courts.  A Sultan or Shah is but too apt to
consider his army equal to anything as soon as the men can defile in
parade, wheel, deploy and form column without getting into hopeless
disorder.  And as to military schools, their fruits are so slow in
ripening that under the instabilities of Eastern Governments they can
scarcely ever be expected to show any.  Even in Turkey, the supply of
educated officers is but scanty, and the Turkish army could not have
done at all, during the late war, without the great number of renegades
and the European officers in its ranks.

The only arm which everywhere forms an exception is the artillery. 
Here the Orientals are so much at fault and so helpless that they have
to leave the whole management to their European instructors.  The
consequence is that, as in Turkey so in Persia, the artillery was far
ahead of the infantry and cavalry.

That under these circumstances the Anglo-Indian army, the oldest of all
Eastern armies organized on the European system, the only one that is
subject not to an Eastern, but an exclusively European government, and
officered almost entirely by Europeans-that this army, supported by a
strong reserve of British troops and a powerful navy, should easily
disperse the Persian regulars, is but a matter of course.  The reverse
will do the Persians the more good the more signal it was.  They will
now see, as the Turks have seen before, that European dress and
parade-drill is no talisman in itself, and, maybe, twenty years hence,
the Persians will turn out as respectable as the Turks did in their
late victories.

The troops which conquered Bushire and Mohammerah will, it is
understood, be at once sent to China.  There they will find a different
enemy.  No attempts at European evolutions, but the irregular array of
Asiatic masses, will oppose them there.  Of these they no doubt will
easily dispose; but what if the Chinese wage against them a national
war, and if barbarism be unscrupulous enough to use the only weapons
which it knows how to wield?

There is evidently a different spirit among the Chinese now to what
they showed in the war of  1840 to '42.  Then, the people were quiet;
they left the Emperor's soldiers to fight the invaders, and submitted
after a defeat with Eastern fatalism to the power of the enemy.  But
now, at least in the southern provinces, to which the contest has so
far been confined, the mass of the people take an active, nay, a
fanatical part in the struggle against the foreigners.  They poison the
bread of the European community at Hong Kong by wholesale, and with the
coolest premeditation. (A few loaves have been sent to Liebig for
examination.  He found large quantities of arsenic pervading all parts
of them, showing that it had already been worked into the dough.  The
dose, however, was so strong that it must have acted as an emetic, and
thereby counteracted the effects of the poison). They go with hidden
arms on board trading steamers, and, when on the journey, massacre the
crew and European passengers and seize the boat.

They kidnap and kill every foreigner within their reach. The very
coolies emigrating to foreign countries rise in mutiny, and as if by
concert, on board every emigrant ship, and fight for its possession,
and, rather than surrender, go down to the bottom with it, or perish in
its flames.  Even out of China, the Chinese colonists, the most
submissive and meek of subjects hitherto, conspire and suddenly rise in
nightly insurrection, as at Sarawak; or, as at Singapore, are held down
by main force and vigilance only.  The piratical policy of the British
Government has caused this universal outbreak of all Chinese against
all foreigners, and marked it as a war of extermination. 

What is an army to do against a people resorting to such means of
warfare? Where, how far, is it to penetrate into the enemy's country,
how to maintain itself there?  Civilizationmongers who throw hot shells
on a defenceless city and add rape to murder, may call the system
cowardly, barbarous, atrocious; but what matters it to the Chinese if
it be only successful? Since the British treat them as barbarians, they
cannot deny to them the full benefit of their barbarism.  If their
kidnappings, surprises, midnight massacres are what we call cowardly,
the civilization-mongers should not forget that according to their own
showing they could not stand against European means of destruction with
their ordinary means of warfare.

In short, instead of moralizing on the horrible atrocities of the
Chinese, as the chivalrous English press does, we had better recognize
that this is a war pro aris et focis, a popular war for the maintenance
of Chinese nationality, with all its overbearing prejudice, stupidity,
learned ignorance and pedantic barbarism if you like, but yet a popular
war.  And in a popular war the means used by the insurgent nation
cannot be measured by the commonly recognized rules of regular warfare,
nor by any other abstract standard, but by the degree of civilization
only attained by that insurgent nation.

The English are this time placed in a difficult position.  Thus far,
the national Chinese fanaticism seems to extend no farther than over
those southern provinces which have not adhered to the great rebellion.
@1) Is the war to be confined to these?  Then it would certainly lead
to no result, no vital point of the empire being menaced.  At the same
time, it would be a very dangerous war for the English if the
fanaticism extends to the people of the interior.  Canton may be
totally destroyed and the coasts nibbled at in all possible points, but
all the forces the British could bring together would not suffice to
conquer and hold the two provinces of Kwangtung and Kwang-si.  What,
then, can they do further? The country north of Canton, as far as
Shanghai and Nanking, is in the hands of the Chinese insurgents, whom
it would be bad policy to offend; and north of Nanking the only point
of attack on which might lead to a decisive result is Peking.  But
where is the army to form a fortified and garrisoned base of operations
on the shore, to overcome every obstacle on the road, to leave
detachments to secure the communications with the shore, and to appear
in anything like formidable strength before the walls of a town the
size of London, a hundred miles from its landing place?  On the other
side, a successful demonstration against the capital would shake to its
ground -- works the very existence of the Chinese Empire -- accelerate
the upsetting of the Manchu dynasty and pave the way, not for British,
but for Russian progress.

The new Anglo-Chinese war presents so many complications that it is
utterly impossible to guess the turn it may take.  For some months the
want of troops, and for a still longer time the want of decision, will
keep the British pretty inactive except, perhaps, on some unimportant
point, to which under actual circumstances Canton too may be said to
belong.

One thing is certain, that the death-hour of Old China is rapidly
drawing nigh.  Civil war has already divided the South from the North
of the Empire, and the RebelKing seems to be as secure from the
Imperialists (if not from the intrigues of his own followers) at
Nanking, as the Heavenly Emperor from the rebels at Peking.  Canton
carries on, so far, a sort of independent war with the English, and all
foreigners in general; and while British and French fleets and troops
flock to Hong Kong, slowly but steadily the Siberian-line Cossacks
advance their stanitzas from the Daurian mountains to the banks of the
Amur, and the Russian marines close in by fortifications the splendid
harbours of Manchuria. The very fanaticism of the southern Chinese in
their struggle against foreigners seems to mark a consciousness of the
supreme danger in which Old China is placed; and before many years pass
away we shall have to witness the death struggles of the oldest empire
in the world, and the opening day of a new era for all Asia.





                             [TRADE OR OPIUM?]



                          New York Daily Tribune
                            September 20, 1858
                           
                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THE NEWS of the new treaty wrung from China by the allied
Plenipotentiaries has, it would appear, conjured up the same wild
vistas of an immense extension of trade which danced before the eyes of
the commercial mind in 1845, after the conclusion of the first Chinese
war.  Supposing the Petersburg wires to have spoken truth, is it quite
certain that an increase of the Chinese trade must follow upon the
multiplication of its emporiums? Is there any probability that the war
Of 1857-8 will lead to more splendid results than the war of 1839-42? 
So much is certain that the Treaty Of 1842, instead of increasing
American and English exports to China, proved instrumental only in
precipitating and aggravating the commercial crisis of 1847.  In a
similar way, by raising dreams of an inexhaustible market and by
fostering false speculations, the present treaty may help preparing a
new crisis at the very moment when the market of the world is but
slowly recovering from the recent universal shock. Besides its negative
result, the first opium-war succeeded in stimulating the opium trade at
the expense of legitimate commerce, and so will this second opium-war
do if England be not forced by the general pressure of the civilized
world to abandon the compulsory opium cultivation in India and the
armed opium propaganda to China.  We forbear dwelling on the morality
of that trade, described by Montgomery Martin, himself an Englishman,
in the following terms:

     "Why, the 'slave trade' was merciful compared with the 'opium
     trade'.  We did not destroy the bodies of the Africans, for it was
     our immediate interest to keep them alive; we did not debase their
     natures, cormpt their minds, nor destroy their souls.  But the
     opium seller slays the body after he has corrupted, degraded and
     annihilated the moral being of unhappy sinners, while, every hour
     is bringing new victims to a Moloch which knows no satiety, and
     where the English murderer and Chinese suicide vie with each other
     in offerings at his shrine."

The Chinese cannot take both goods and drug; under actual
circumstances, extension of the Chinese trade resolves into extension
of the opium trade; the growth of the latter is incompatible with the
development of legitimate commercethese propositions were pretty
generally admitted two years ago.  A Committee of the House of Commons,
appointed in 1847 to take into consideration the state of British
commercial intercourse with China, reported thus:

     We regret "that the trade with that country has been for some
     time in a very unsatisfactory condition, and that the result of
     our extended intercourse has by no means realized the just
     expectations which had naturally been founded on afreer access to
     so magnificent a market.... We find that the difficulties of the
     trade do not arise from any want of demand in China for articles
     of British manufacture or from the increasing competition of other
     nations.... The payment for opium ... absorbs the silver to the
     great inconvenience of the general traffic of the Chinese; and tea
     and silk must in fact absorb the rest." 

The Friend of China, Of July 28, I 849, generalizing the same
proposition, says in set terms:

     "The opium trade progresses steadily.  The increased consumption
     of teas and silk in Great Britain and the United States would
     merely result in the increase of the opium trade; the case of the
     manufacturers is hopeless."

One of the leading American merchants in China reduced, in an article
inserted in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, for January, 1850, the whole
question of the trade with China to this point:  "Which branch of
commerce is to be suppressed, the opium trade or the export trade of
American or English produce?"  The Chinese themselves took exactly the
same view of the case.  Montgomery Martin narrates: "I inquired of the
Taoutai at Shanghai which would be the best means of increasing our
commerce with China, and his first answer to me, in the presence of
Capt. Balfour, Her Majesty's Consul, was: 'Cease to send us so much
opium, and we will be able to take your manufactures.'"

The history of general commerce during the last eight years has, in a
new and striking manner, illustrated these positions; but, before
analysing the deleterious effects on legitimate commerce of the opium
trade, we propose giving a short review of the rise and progress of
that stupendous traffic which, whether we regard the tragical
collisions forming, so to say, the axis round which it turns, or the
effects produced by it on the general relations of the Eastern and
Western worlds, stands solitary on record in the annals of mankind. 
Previous to 1767 the quantity of opium exported from India did not
exceed 200 chests, the chest weighing about 133lbs.  Opium was legally
admitted in China on the payment of a duty of about $3 per chest, as a
medicine; the Portuguese, who brought it from Turkey, being its almost
exclusive importers into the Celestial Empire.  In I773, Colonel Watson
and Vice-President Wheeler -- persons deserving to take a place among
the Hermentiers, Palmers and other poisoners of world-wide fame --
suggested to the East India Company the idea of entering upon the opium
traffic with China. Consequently, there was established a depot for
opium in vessels anchored in a bay to the southwest of Macao.  The
speculation proved a failure.  In 1781 the Bengal Government sent an
armed vessel, laden with opium, to China; and, in I794, the Company
stationed a large opium vessel at Whampoa, the anchorage for the port
of Canton.  It seems that Whampoa proved a more convenient depot than
Macao, because, only two years after its selection, the Chinese
Government found it necessary to pass a law which threatened Chinese
smugglers of opium to be beaten with a bamboo and exposed in the
streets with wooden collars around their necks.  About 1798, the East
India Company ceased to be direct exporters of opium, but they became
its producers.  The opium monopoly was established in India; while the
Company's own ships were hypocritically forbidden from trafficking in
the drug, the licences it granted for private ships trading to China
containing a provision which attached a penalty to them if freighted
with opium of other than the Company's own make.  In 1800, the import
into China had reached the number of 2,000 chests.  Having, during the
eighteenth century, borne the aspect common to all feuds between the
foreign merchant and the national custom-house, the struggle between
the East India Company and the Celestial Empire assumed, since the
beginning of the nineteenth century, features quite distinct and
exceptional; while the Chinese Emperor, in order to check the suicide
of his people, prohibited at once the import of the poison by the
foreigner, and its consumption by the natives, the East India Company
was rapidly converting the cultivation of opium in India, and its
contraband sale to China, into internal parts of its own financial
system.

While the semi-barbarian stood on the principle of morality, the
civilized opposed to him the principle of self.  That a giant empire,
containing almost one-third of the human race, vegetating in the teeth
of time, insulated by the forced exclusion of general intercourse, and
thus contriving to dupe itself with delusions of Celestial
perfection-that such an empire should at last be overtaken by fate on
[the] occasion of a deadly duel, in which the representative of the
antiquated world appears prompted by ethical motives, while the
representative of overwhelming modern society fights for the privilege
of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest markets-this,
indeed, is a sort of tragical couplet stranger than any poet would ever
have dared to fancy.






                         FREE TRADE AND MONOPOLY



                          New York Daily Tribune
                            September 25, 1858

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


IT WAS the assumption of the opium monopoly in India by the British
Government which led to the proscription of the opium trade in China. 
The cruel punishments inflicted by the Celestial legislator upon his
own contumacious subjects, and the stringent prohibition established at
the Chinese custom-houses proved alike nugatory.  The next effect of
the moral resistance of the Chinaman was the demoralization, by the
Englishman, of the Imperial authorities, custom-house officers and
mandarins generally.  The corruption that ate into the heart of the
Celestial bureaucracy, and destroyed the bulwark of the patriarchal
constitution, was, together with the opium chests, smuggled into the
Empire from the English storeships anchored at Whampoa.

Nurtured by the East India Company, vainly combated by the Central
Government at Pekin, the opium trade gradually assumed larger
proportions, until it absorbed about $2,500,000 in 1816.  The throwing
open in that year of the Indian commerce, with the single exception of
the tea trade, which still continued to be monopolized by the East
India Company, gave a new and powerful stimulus to the operations of
the English contrabandists.  In 1820, the number of chests smuggled
into China had increased to 5,147; in 182I to 7,000, and in 1824 to
12,639. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government, at the same time that it
addressed threatening remonstrances to the foreign merchants, punished
the Hong Kong merchants, known as their abettors, developed an unwonted
activity in its prosecution of the native opium consumers, and, at its
custom-houses, put into practice more stringent measures.  The final
result, like that of similar exertions in 1794, was to drive the opium
depots from a precarious to a more convenient basis of operations. 
Macao and Whampoa were abandoned for the Island of Lin-Tin, at the
entrance of the Canton River, there to become manned.  In the same way,
when the Chinese Government temporarily succeeded in stopping the
operations of the old Canton houses, the trade only shifted hands, and
passed to a lower class of men, prepared to carry it on at all hazards
and by whatever means.  Thanks to the greater facilities thus afforded,
the opium trade increased during the ten years from 1824 to 1834 from
12,639 to 21,785 chests.

Like the years 1800, 1816 and 1824, the year 1834 marks an epoch in the
history of the opium trade.  The East India Company then lost not only
its privilege of trading in Chinese tea, but had to discontinue and
abstain from all commercial business whatever.  It being thus
transformed from a mercantile into a merely government establishment,
the trade to China became completely thrown open to English private
enterprise which pushed on with such vigour that, in 1837, 39,000
chests of opium, valued at $25,000,000, were successfully smuggled into
China, despite the desperate resistance of the Celestial Government. 
Two facts here claim our attention: First, that of every step in the
progress of the export trade of China since 1816, a disproportionately
large part progressively fell upon the opium-smuggling branch; and
secondly, that hand in hand with the gradual extinction of the
ostensible mercantile interest of the Anglo-Indian Government in the
opium trade grew the importance of its fiscal interest in that illicit
traffic.  In 1837 the Chinese Government had at last arrived at a point
where decisive action could no longer be delayed.  The continuous drain
of silver, caused by the opium importations, had begun to derange the
exchequer, as well as the moneyed circulation of the Celestial Empire. 
Heu Nailzi, one of the most distinguished Chinese statesmen, proposed
to legalize the opium trade and make money out of it; but after a full
deliberation, in which all the high officers of the Empire shared, and
which extended over a period of more than a year's duration, the
Chinese Government decided that, "On account of the injuries it
inflicted on the people, the nefarious traffic should not be
legalized." As early as 1830, a duty of 25 per cent would have yielded
a revenue Of $3,850,000. In 1837, it would have yielded double that
sum, but then the Celestial barbarian declined, laying a tax sure to
rise in proportion to the degradation of his people.  In 1853, Hien
Fang, the present Emperor, under still more distressed circumstances,
and with the full knowledge of the futility of all efforts at stopping
the increasing import of opium, persevered in the stern policy of his
ancestors.  Let me remark, en Passant, that by persecuting the opium
consumption as a heresy the Emperor gave its traffic all the advantages
of a religious propaganda.  The extraordinary measures of the Chinese
Government during the years 1837, 1838 and 1839, which culminated in
Commissioner Lin's arrival at Canton, and the confiscation and
destruction, by his orders, of the smuggled opium, afforded the pretext
for the first Anglo-Chinese war, the results of which developed
themselves in the Chinese rebellion, the utter exhaustion of the
Imperial exchequer, the successful encroachment of Russia from the
North, and the gigantic dimensions assumed by the opium trade in the
South.  Although proscribed in the treaty with which England terminated
a war, commenced and carried on in its defence, the opium trade has
practically enjoyed perfect impunity since 1843.  The importation was
estimated, in 1856, at about $35,000,000, while in the same year, the
Anglo-Indian Government drew a revenue Of $25,000,000, just the sixth
part of its total State income, from the opium monopoly. The pretexts
on which the second opium war has been undertaken are of too recent
date to need any commentary.

We cannot leave this part of the subject without singling out one
flagrant self-contradiction of the Christianity-canting and
civilization-mongering British Government.  In its imperial capacity it
affects to be a thorough stranger to the contraband opium trade, and
even to enter into treaties proscribing it.  Yet, in its Indian
capacity, it forces the opium cultivation upon Bengal, to the great
damage of the productive resources of that country; compels one part of
the Indian ryots to engage in the poppy culture; entices another part
into the same by dint of money advances; keeps the wholesale
manufacture of the deleterious drug a close monopoly in its hands;
watches by a whole army of official spies its growth, its delivery at
appointed places, its inspissation and preparation for the taste of the
Chinese consumers, its formation into packages especially adapted to
the conveniency of smuggling, and finally its conveyance to Calcutta,
where it is put up at auction at the Government sales, and made over by
the State officers to the speculators, thence to pass into the hands of
the contrabandists who land it in China.  The chest costing the British
Government about 250 rupees is sold at the Calcutta auction mart at a
price ranging from 1,210 to 1,600 rupees.  But, not yet satisfied with
this matter-of-fact complicity, the same Government, to this hour,
enters into express profit and loss accounts with the merchants and
shippers, who embark in the hazardous operation of poisoning an empire.

The Indian finances of the British Government have, in fact, been made
to depend not only on the opium trade with China, but on the contraband
character of that trade.  Were the Chinese Government to legalize the
opium trade simultaneously with tolerating the cultivation of the poppy
in China, the Anglo-Indian exchequer would experience a serious
catastrophe. While openly preaching free trade in poison. it secretly
defends the monopoly of its manufacture.  Whenever we look closely into
the nature of British free trade, monopoly is pretty generally found to
lie at the bottom of its "freedom."






                           TRADE AND THE TREATY



                          New York Daily Tribune
                             October 5, 1858

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THE UNSUCCESSFUL issue, in a commercial point of view, of Sir Henry
Pottinger's Chinese treaty, signed on August 29, 1842, and dictated,
like the new treaties with China, at the cannon's mouth, is a fact now
recollected even by that eminent organ of British Free Trade, the
London Economist.  Having stood forward as one of the staunchest
apologists of the late invasion of China, that journal now feels itself
obliged to "temper" the sanguine hopes which have been cultivated in
other quarters.  The Economist considers the effects on the British
export trade of the treaty of 1842, "a precedent by which to guard
ourselves against the result of mistaken operations." This certainly is
sound advice.  The reasons, however, which Mr. Wilson alleges in
explanation of the failure of the first attempt at forcibly enlarging
the Chinese market for Western produce, appear far from conclusive.

The first great cause pointed out of the signal failure is the
speculative overstocking of the Chinese market, during the first three
years following the Pottinger treaty, and the carelessness of the
English merchants as to the nature of the Chinese demand.  The English
exports to China which, in 1836, amounted to 1,326,000, had fallen in
1842 to 969000

Their rapid and continued rise during the following six years is
shown by these figures:

        1842      969,000
        1843    1,456,000
        1844    2,305,000
        1845    2,295,000

Yet in 1846 the exports did not only sink below the level of 1836, but
the disasters overtaking the China houses at London during the crisis
of 1847 proved the computed value of the exports from 1843 to 1846,
such as it appears in the official return tables, to have by no means
corresponded to the value actually realized.  If the English exporters
thus erred in the quantity, they did not less so in the quality of the
articles offered to Chinese consumption.  In proof of the latter
assertion, the Economist quotes from Mr. W. Cooke, the late
correspondent of the London Times at Shanghai and Canton, the following
passages:

     "In 1843, 1844 and 1845, when the northern ports had just been
     opened, the people at home were wild with excitement.  An eminent
     firm at Sheffield sent out a large consignment of knives and
     forks, and declared themselves prepared to supply all China with
     cutlery... They were sold at prices which scarcely realized their
     freight.  A London house, of famous name, sent out a tremendous
     consignment of pianofortes, 'which shared the same fate.' What
     happened in the case of cutlery and pianos occurred also, in a
     less noticeable manner, 'in the case of worsted and cotton
     manufactures.' ...Manchester made a great blind effort when the
     ports were opened, and that effort failed.  Since then she has
     fallen into an apathy, and trusts to the chapter of accidents."

Lastly, to prove the dependence of the reduction, maintenance or
improvement of the trade, on the study of the wants of the consumer,
the Economist reproduces from the same authority the following return
for the year 1856:

                                    1845.        1846.         1856.
        Worsted Stuffi (pieces)    13,569        3,415         7,428
        Camlets                    13,374        8,034         4,470
        Long ells                  91,531       75,784        96,642
        Woollens                   62,731       56,996        38,553
        Printed Cottons           100,615       8x,150       281,784
        Plain Cottons           2,998,126    1,859,740     2,817,624
        Cotton Twist lbs        2,640,098    5,324,050     5,579,600

Now all these arguments and illustrations explain nothing beyond the
reaction following the overtrade of 1843-45, It is a phenomenon by no
means peculiar to the Chinese trade, that a sudden expansion of
commerce should be followed by its violent contractions, or that a new
market, at its opening. should be choked by British oversupplies; the
articles thrown upon it being not very nicely calculated, in regard
either to the actual wants or the paying powers of the consumers.  In
fact, this is a standing feature in the history of the markets of the
world.  On Napoleon's fall, after the opening of the European
continent, British exports proved so disproportionate to the
continental faculties of absorption that "the transition from war to
peace" proved more disastrous than the continental system itself. 
Canning's recognition of the independence of the Spanish colonies in
America was also instrumental in producing the commercial crisis of
1825 Wares calculated for the meridian of Moscow were then dispatched
to Mexico and Colombia.  And in our own day, notwithstanding its
elasticity, even Australia has not escaped the fate common to all new
markets, of having its powers of consumption as well as its means of
payment over-stocked.  The phenomenon peculiar to the Chinese market is
this: that since its opening by the treaty of 1842, the export to Great
Britain of tea and silk, of Chinese produce, has continually been
expanding, while the import trade into China of British manufactures
has, on the whole, remained stationary.  The continuous and increasing
balance of trade in favour of China might be said to bear an analogy to
the state of commercial balance between Russia and Great Britain; but
then, in the latter case, everything is explained by the protective
policy of Russia, while the Chinese import duties are lower than those
of any other country England trades with.  The aggregate value of
Chinese exports to England, which before 1842 might be rated at about
IC.7,000,000, amounted in 1856 to the sum of about IC 9,500,000. While
the quantity of tea imported into Great Britain never reached more than
50,000,000 lbs. before 1842, it had swollen in 1856 to about 90,000,000
lbs.  On the other hand, the importance of the British import of
Chinese silks only dates from 1852.  Its progress may be computed from
the following figures:

                      1852.      1853.      1854.      1855.      1856.
 Silk imp'd lbs   2,418,343  2,838,047  4,576,706  4,436,962  3,723,693
 Value                ....       ....  3,318,II2  3,013,396  3,676,116

Now take, on the other hand, the movement of the

           BRITISH EXPORTS TO CHINA
           VALUED IN POUNDS STERLING.

           1834     842,852
           1835    1,074,708
           1836    1,326,388
           1838    1,204,356

For the period following the opening of the market in 1842 and the
acquisition of Hong Kong by the British, we find the following returns:

           1845   2,359,000
           1846    1,200,000
           1848    1,445,950
           1852    2,508,399
           1853    1,749,597
           1854    1,000,716
           1855    1,122,241
           1856    upward of 2,000,000

The Economist tries to account for the stationary and relatively
decreasing imports of British manufacture into the Chinese market by
foreign competition, and Mr. Cooke is again quoted to bear witness to
this proposition.  According to this authority, the English are beaten
by fair competition in the Chinese market in many branches of trade. 
The Americans, he says, beat the English in drills and sheetings.  At
Shanghai in 1856 the imports were 221,716 pieces of American drills,
against 8,745 English, and 14,420 of American sheetings, against 1,240
English.  In woollen goods, on the other hand, Germany and Russia are
said to press hardly on their English rivals.  We want no other proof
than this illustration to convince us that Mr. Cooke and the Economist
are both mistaken in the appreciation of the Chinese market.  They
consider as limited to the Anglo-Chinese trade features which are
exactly reproduced in the trade between the United States and the
Celestial Empire.  In 1837, the excess of the Chinese exports to the
United States over the imports into China was about 860,000.  During
the period since the treaty of 1842, the United States have received an
annual average of 2,000,000 in Chinese produce, for which we paid in
American merchandise 900,000.  Of the 1,602,849 to which the
aggregate imports into Shanghai, exclusive of specie and opium,
amounted in 1855, England supplied 1,122,24I, America 272,708, and
other countries 207,900; while the exports reached a total of
12,603,540, of which 6,405,040 were to England, 5,396,406 to
America, and 102,088 to other countries.  Compare only the American
exports to the value of 272,708 with their imports from Shanghai
exceeding 5,000,000. If, nevertheless, American competition has, to
any sensible degree, made inroads on British traffic, how limited a
field of employment for the aggregate commerce of foreign nations the
Chinese market must offer.

The last cause assigned to the trifling importance the Chinese import
market has assumed since its opening in 1842, is the Chinese
revolution, but notwithstanding that revolution, the exports to China
relatively [swelled] in 1851-52, in the general increase of trade, and,
during the whole of the revolutionary epoch, the opium trade, instead
of falling off, rapidly obtained colossal dimensions.  However that may
be, this much will be admitted, that all the obstacles to foreign
imports originating in the disordered state of the empire must be
increased, instead of being diminished, by the late piratical war, and
the fresh humiliations heaped on the ruling dynasty.

It appears to us, after a careful survey of the history of Chinese
commerce, that, generally speaking, the consuming and paying powers of
the Cclestials have been greatly overestimated.  With the present
economical framework of Chinese society, which turns upon diminutive
agriculture and domestic manufactures as its pivots, any large import
of foreign produce is out of the question.  Still, to the amount of
L8,000,000, a sum which may be roughly calculated to form the aggregate
balance in favour of China, as against England and the United States,
it might gradually absorb a surplus quantity of English and American
goods if the opium trade were suppressed.  This conclusion is
necessarily arrived at on the analysis of the simple fact that the
Chinese finances and monetary circulation, in spite of the favourable
balance of trade, are seriously deranged by an import of opium to the
amount of about 7,000,000.

John Bull, however, used to plume himself on his high standard of
morality, prefers to bring up his adverse balance of trade by
periodical war tributes extorted from China on piratical pretexts.  He
only forgets that the Carthegenian and Roman methods of making foreign
people pay, are, if combined in the same hands, sure to clash with and
destroy each other.





                      THE BRITISH AND CHINESE TREATY



                          New York Daily Tribune
                             October 15, 1858

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THE OFFICIAL summary of the Anglo-Chinese treaty, which the British
Ministry has at last laid before the public, adds, on the whole, but
little to the information that had already been conveyed through
different other channels. The first and the last articles comprise, in
fact, the points in the treaty of exclusively English interest.  By the
first article, "the Supplementary Treaty and general regulations of
trade," stipulated after the conclusion of the treaty of Nanking, are
"abrogated." That supplementary treaty provided that the English
Consuls residing at Hong Kong, and the five Chinese ports opened to
British commerce, were to cooperate with the Chinese authorities in
case any English vessels should arrive within the range of their
consular jurisdiction with opium on board.  A formal prohibition was
thus laid upon English merchants to import the contraband drug, and the
English Government, to some degree, constituted itself one of the
Custom-House officers of the Celestial Empire.  That the second opium
war should end in removing the fetters by which the first opium war
still affected to check the opium traffic, appears a result quite
logical, and a consummation devoutly called for by that part of the
British mercantile public which chanted most lusty applause to
Palmerston's Canton fireworks.  We are, however, much mistaken if this
official abandonment oil the part of England of her hypocritical
opposition to the opium trade is not to lead to consequences quite the
reverse of those expected.  By engaging the British Government to
cooperate in the suppression of the opium traffic, the Chinese
Government had recognized its inability to do so on its own account.

The Supplementary Treaty of Nanking was a supreme and rather desperate
effort at getting rid of the opium trade by foreign aid.  This effort
having failed, and being now proclaimed a failure, the opium traffic,
being now, so far as Eng. land is concerned, legalized, little doubt
can remain that the Chinese Government will try a method alike
recommended by political and financial considerations -- viz: legalize
the cultiva. tion of the poppy in China, and lay duties on the foreign
opium imported.  Whatever may be the intentions of the present Chinese
Government, the very circumstances in which it finds itself placed by
the treaty of Tientsin, show all that way.

That change once effected, the opium monopoly of India, and with it the
Indian Exchequer, must receive a deadly blow, while the British opium
traffic will shrink to the dimensions of an ordinary trade, and very
soon prove a losing one.  Till now, it has been a game played by John
Bull with loaded dice.  To have baffled its own object seems,
therefore, the most obvious result of the opium war No. II. 

Having declared "a just war" on Russia, generous England desisted, at
the conclusion of peace, from demanding any indemnity for her war
expenses.  Having, on the other hand, all along professed to be at
peace with China itself, she, accordingly, cannot but make it pay for
expenses incurred, in the opinion of her own present Ministers, by
piracy on her own part.  However, the first tidings of the fifteen or
twenty millions of pounds sterling to be paid by the Celestials proved
a quieter to the most scrupulous British conscience, and very pleasant
calculations as to the beneficial effects of the Sycee silver upon the
balance of trade, and the metal reserve of the Bank of England, were
entered into by the Economist and the writers of money articles
generally.  But alas! the first impressions which the Palmerstonian
press had given itself so much trouble to produce and work upon, were
too tender to bear the shock of real information.

A "separate article provides that a sum of two millions of taels" shall
be paid "on account of the losses sustained by British subjects through
the misconduct of the Chinese authorities at Canton; and a further sum
of two millions of taels on account of " the expenses of the war. Now,
these sums together amount to 1,334,000 only, while in 1842, the
Emperor of China had to pay 4,200,000, of which 1,200,000 was
indemnity for the contraband opium confiscated, and 3,000,000 for the
expenses of the war.  To come down from 4,200,000, with Hong Kong into
the bargain, to a simple 1,334,000, seems no thriving trade after all;
but the worst remains still to be said.  Since, says the Chinese
Emperor, yours was no war with China, but a "provincial war" with
Canton only, try yourselves how to squeeze out of the province of
Kwangtung the damages which your amiable war steamers have compelled me
to adjudge to you.  Meanwhile, your illustrious Gen.  Straubenzee may
keep Canton as a material guaranty, and continue to make the British
arms the laughing-stock even of Chinese braves.  The doleful feelings
of sanguine John Bull at these clauses, which the small booty of
1,334,000 is encumbered with, have already vented themselves in
audible groans.  

    "Instead," says one London paper, "of being able to withdraw our 53
    ships-of-war, and see them return triumphant with millions of Sycee
    silver, we may look forward to the pleasing necessity of sending an
    army of 5,000 men to recapture and hold Canton, and to assist the
    fleet in carrying on that provincial war which the Consul's deputy
    has declared.  But will this provincial war have no consequences
    beyond driving our Canton trade to other Chinese ports? ... Will
    not the continuation of it [the provincial war] give Russia a large
    portion of the tea trade?  May not the Continent, and England
    herself, become dependent on Russia and the United States for their
    tea?"

John Bull's anxiety as to the effects of the "provincial war" upon the
tea trade is not quite gratuitous.  From Macgregor's Commercial Tariffi
it may be seen that in the last year of the former Chinese war, Russia
received 120,000 chests of tea at Kiachta.

The year after the conclusion of peace with China the Russian demand
fell off 75 per cent, amounting to 30,000 only.  At all events, the
costs still to be incurred by the British in distraining Kwangtung are
sure so to swell the wrong side of the balance that this second China
war will hardly be self-paying, the greatest fault which, as Mr.
Emerson justly remarks, anything can be guilty of in British
estimation.

Another great success of the English invasion is contained in Art- 51,
according to which the term "barbarian" "shall not be applied" to the
British Government or to British subjects "in any Chinese official
document issued by the Chinese authorities." The Chinese authorities
styling themselves Celestials, how humble to their understanding must
not appear John Bull, who, instead of insisting on being called divine
or Olympian, contents himself with weeding the character representing
the word barbarian out of the official documents. 

The commercial articles of the Treaty give England no advantage not to
be enjoyed by her rivals, and, for the present, dissolve into shadowy
promises, for the greater part not worth the parchment they are written
on.  Art. 10 stipulates:

     "British merchant ships shall have authority to trade upon the
     Great River (Yang-tse), but in the present disturbed state of the
     Upper and Lower Valley, no port is to be opened for trade with the
     exception of Chin-kiang, which is to be opened in a year from the
     signature of the Treaty.  When peace is restored, British vessels
     are to be "admitted to trade at such ports as far as Hankow, not
     exceeding three in number, as the British Minister, after
     consultation with the Chinese Secretary of State, may determine."

By this article, the British are in fact excluded from the great
commercial artery of the whole empire, from "the only line," as The
Morning Starjustly remarks, "by which they can push their manufactures
into the interior." If they will be good boys, and help the Imperial
Government in dislodging the rebels from the regions now occupied by
them, then they may eventually navigate the great river, but only to
particular harbours.  As to the new seaports opened, from "all" the
ports as at first advertised, they have dwindled down to five ports,
added to the five ports of the Treaty of Nanking, and, as a London
paper remarks, "they are generally remote or insular." Besides, at this
time of the day, the delusive notion of the growth of trade being
proportionate to the number of ports opened, should have been exploded.
Consider the harbours on the coasts of Great Britain, or France, or the
United States; how few of them have developed themselves into real
emporiums of commerce? Before the first Chinese war, the English traded
exclusively to Canton.  The concession of five new ports, instead of
creating five new emporiums of commerce, has gradually transferred
trade from Canton to Shanghai, as may be seen from the following
figures, extracted from the Parliamentary Blue Book on the trade of
various places for 1856-57. At the same time, it should be recollected
that the Canton imports include the imports to Amoy and Pochow, which
are transhiped at Canton.

               British import trade to         British export trade to
                  Canton.    Shanghai.            Canton.    Shanghai.

       1844   $15,500,000   $2,500,000        $17,900,000   $2,300,000
       1845    10,700,000    5,100,000         27,700,000    6,000,000
       1846     9,900,000    3,800,000         15,300,000    6,400,000
       1847     9,600,000    4,300,000         15,700,000    6,700,000
       1848     6,500,000    2,500,000          8,600,000    5,000,000
       1849     7,900,000    4,400,000         11,400,000    6,600,000
       1850     6,800,000    3,900,000          9,900,000    8,000,000
       1851    10,000,000    5,400,000         13,200,000   11,600,000
       1852       M00,000    4,600,000          6,500,000   11,400,000
       1853     4,000,000    3,900,000          6,500,000   13,300,000
       1854     3,300,000    1,100,100          6,000,000   11,700,000
       1855     3,600,000    3,400,000          2,900,000   19,900,000
       1856     9,100,000    6,200,000          8,200,000   23,800,000

The "commercial clauses" of the treaty "are unsatisfactory," is a
conclusion arrived at by the Daily Telegraph, Palmerston's most abject
sycophant; but it chuckles at "the brightest point in the programme,"
viz: "that a British Minister may establish himself at Peking, while a
Mandarin will install himself in London, and possibly invite the Queen
to a ball at Albert Gate." However John Bull may indulge this fun,
there can be no doubt that whatever political influence may be
exercised at Peking will fall to the part of Russia, which, by dint of
the last treaty, holds a new territory, being as large as France, and,
in great part, on its frontier, 8oo miles only distant from Peking.  It
is by no means a comfortable reflection for John Bull that he himself,
by his first opium war, procured Russia a treaty yielding her the
navigation of the Amur and free trade on the land frontier, while by
his second opium war he has helped her to the invaluable tract lying
between the Gulf of Tartary and Lake Baikal, a region so much coveted
by Russia that from Czar Alexey Michaelovitch down to Nicholas, she has
always attempted to get it. So deeply did the London Times feel that
sting that, in its publication of the St. Petersburg news, which
greatly exaggerated the advantages won by Great Britain, good care was
taken to suppress that part of the telegram which mentioned Russia's
acquisition by treaty of the valley of the Amur.






                           THE NEW CHINESE WAR



                          New York Daily Tribune
                             October 1, 1859

                                   by
                                KARL MARX

 
A Cabinet Council is announced for to-morrow in order to decide upon
the course to be taken in regard to the Chinese catastrophe. The
lucubrations of the French Moniteur and the London Times leave no doubt
as to the resolutions arrived at by Palmerston and Bonaparte.  They
want another Chinese war.  I am informed from an authentic source that
at the impending Cabinet Council Mr. Milner Gibson, in the first
instance, will contest the validity of the plea for war; in the second
instance, will protest against any declaration of war not previously
sanctioned by both Houses of Parliament; and if his opinion be
overwhelmed by a majority of votes, will secede from the Cabinet, thus
again giving the signal for a new onslaught on Palmerston's
administration and the break up of the Liberal coalition that led to
the ousting of the Derby Cabinet.  Palmerston is said to feel somewhat
nervous as to the intended proceedings of Mr. Milner Gibson, the only
one of his colleagues whom he is afraid of, and whom he has
characterized more than once as a man peculiarly able "in picking
holes."  It is possible that simultaneously with this letter you may
receive from Liverpool the news of the results of the Ministerial
Council.  Meanwhile the real bearing of the case in question may be
best judged, not from what has been printed, but from what has been
wilfully suppressed by the Palmerston organs in their first
publicationsof thenews conveyed by the last overland mail.

First, then, they suppressed the statement that the Russian treaty had
already been ratified, and that the Emperor of China had given
instructions to his mandarins to receive and escort the American
Embassy to the capital for the exchange of the ratified copies of the
American treaty. These acts were suppressed with a view to stifle the
suspicion that would naturally arise, that the English and French
Envoys, instead of the Court of Peking, are responsible for meeting
obstacles in the transaction of their business which were not
encountered either by their Russian or American colleagues.  The other,
still more important, fact that was at first suppressed by The Times,
and the other Palmerston organs, but is now avowed on their part, is
that the Chinese authorities had given notice of their willingness to
conduct the English and French Envoys to Peking; that they were
actually in waiting to receive them at one of the mouths of the river,
and offered them an escort if they only consented to leave their
vessels and troops.  Now, as the treaty of Tien-tsin contains no clause
granting to the English and French the right of sending a squadron of
men-of-war up the Pejho, it becomes evident that the treaty was
violated, not by the Chinese, but by the English, and that on the part
of the latter there existed the foregone conclusion to pick a quarrel
just before the period appointed for the exchange of the ratifications.
Nobody will fancy that the Hon.  Mr. Bruce  acted on his own
responsibility in thus baffling the ostensible end aimed at by the last
Chinese war, but that, on the contrary, he only executed secret
instructions received from London.  Now, it is true that Mr. Bruce was
dispatched, not by Palmerston, but by Derby; but, then I have only to
remind you that during the first administration of Sir Robert Peel,
when Lord Aberdeen kept the seals of the Foreign Office, Sir Henry
Bulwer, the English Ambassador at Madrid, picked a quarrel with the
Spanish Court, resulting in his expulsion from Spain, and that, during
the debates in the House of Lords on this " untoward event,", it was
proved that Bulwer, instead of obeying the official instructions of
Aberdeen, had acted up to the secret instructions of Palmerston, who
then sat on the Opposition benches.

A manoeuvre has also been carried out during these last days in the
Palmerstonian press, which leaves no doubt, at least to those
acquainted with the secret history of English diplomacy during the last
thirty years, as to the real author of the Peiho catastrophe and the
impending third AngloChinese war.  The Times intimates that the guns
planted on the forts of Taku which caused such havoc among the British
squadron were of Russian origin, and were directed by Russian officers.
Another Palmerstonian organ is still more plain spoken.  I quote:

     "We now perceive how closely the policy of Russia is interwoven
     with that of Peking; we detect great movements on the Amur; we
     discern large Cossack armies manoeuvring far beyond Lake Baikal,
     in the frozen dreamland on the twilight borders of the Old World;
     we trace the course of innumerable caravans; we espy a special
     Russian envoy" (Gen. Mouravieff, the Governor of Eastern Siberia)
     "making his way, with secret designs, from the remoteness of
     Eastern Siberia to the secluded Chinese metropolis; and well may
     public opinion in this country bum at the thought that foreign
     influences have had a share in procuring our disgrace and the
     slaughter of our soldiers and sailors."

Now, this is one of Lord Palmerston's old tricks.  When Russia wanted
to conclude a treaty of commerce with China, he drove the latter by the
opium war into the arms of her northern neighbour.  When Russia
requested the cession of the Amur, he brought it about by the second
Chinese war, and now that Russia wants to consolidate her influence at
Peking, he extemporizes the third Chinese war.  In all his transactions
with the weak Asiatic States, with China, Persia, Central Asia, Turkey,
it has always been his invariable and constant rule to ostensibly
oppose Russia's designs by picking a quarrel, not with Russia, but with
the Asiatic State, to estrange the latter from England by piratical
hostilities, and by this roundabout way drive it to the concessions it
had been unwilling to yield to Russia.  You may be sure that on this
occasion the whole past Asiatic policy of Palmerston will be again
sifted, and I draw, therefore, your attention to the Afghan papers
ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on the 8th June, 1859. 
They throw more light on Palmerston's sinister policy, and the
diplomatic history of the last thirty years, than any documents ever
before printed.  The case is, in a few words, this:

In 1838 Palmerston commenced a war against Dost Mohammed, the ruler of
Cabul, a war that led to the destruction of an English army, and was
commenced on the plea of Dost Mohammed having entered into a secret
alliance against England with Persia and Russia.  In proof of this
assertion, Palmerston laid, in 1839, before Parliament, a Blue Book,
chiefly consisting of the correspondence of Sir A. Burnes, the British
envoy at Cabul, with the Government at Calcutta.  Burnes had been
assassinated during an insurrection at Cabul against the English
invaders, but, distrustful of the British Foreign Minister, had sent
copies of some of his official letters to his brother, Dr. Burnes, at
London.  On the appearance, in 1839, of the "Afghan papers," prepared
by Palmerston, Dr. Burnes accused him of having "garbled and forged the
dispatches of the late Sir A. Burnes," and, in corroboration of his
statement, had some of the genuine despatches printed.  But it was only
last summer that the murder came out.  Under the Derby Ministry, on the
motion of Mr. Hadfield, the House of Commons ordered all the Afghan
papers to be published infull,  and this order has been executed in
such a form as to constitute a demonstration, to the meanest capacity,
of the truth of the charge of garbling and forgery, in the interest of
Russia.  On the title-page of the Blue Book appears the following:

     "Note. -- The correspondence, only partially given in former
     Returns, is here given entire, the omitted passages being marked
     by brackets, [ ] ."

The name of the official, which appears as a guaranty for the fidelity
of the return, is "J. W. Kaye, Secretary in Political and Secret
Departments," Mr. Kaye being the upright historian of the War in
Afghanistan. Now, to illustrate the real relations of Palmerston with
Russia, against which he pretended to have set up the Afghan war, one
instance may suffice for the present.  The Russian agent, Vickovitch,
who came to Cabul in 1837, was the bearer of a letter from the Czar to
Dost Mohammed, Sir Alexander Burnes obtained a copy of the letter, and
sent it to Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India.  In his own
despatches, and various documents inclosed by him, this circumstance is
referred to over and over again.  But the copy of the Czar's letter was
expunged altogether from the papers presented by Palmerston in 1839,
and in every despatch in which it is referred to, such alterations were
made as were necessary to suppress the circumstance of the connection
of the "Emperor of Russia" with the mission to Cabul.  This forgery was
committed in order to suppress the evidence of the Autocrat's
connection with Vickovitch, whom, on his return to St. Petersburg, it
suited Nicholas to formerly disavow.  For instance, at page 82 of the
Blue Book will be found the translation of a letter to Dost Mohammed,
which reads now as follows, the brackets showing the words originally
suppressed by Palmerston:

     "An ambassador on the part of [the] Russia [an Emperor] came [from
     Moscow] to Tehran, and has been appointed to wait on the Sirdars
     at Candahar, and thence to proceed to the presence of the
     Ameer.... He is the bearer of [confidential messages from the
     Emperor and of the] letters from the Russian ambassador at Tehran.
     The Russian ambassador recommends this man to be a most trusty
     individual, and to possess full authority to make any
     negotiations, [on the part of the Emperor and himself], etc.,
     etc."

These, and similar forgeries committed by Palmerston in order to
protect the honour of the Czar, are not the only curiosity exhibited by
the "Afghan papers." The invasion of Afghanistan was justified by
Palmerston on the ground that Sir Alexander Burnes had advised it as a
proper means for baffling Russian intrigues in Central Asia.  Now Sir
A. Burnes did quite the contrary, and consequently all his appeals on
behalf of Dost Mohammed were altogether suppressed in Palmerston's
edition of the "Blue Book;" the correspondence being by dint of
garbling and forgery, turned quite to the reverse of its original
meaning.  Such is the man now about to enter on a third Chinese war, on
the ostensible plea o thwarting Russia's designs in that quarter.






                         ANOTHER CIVILIZATION WAR



                          New York Daily Tribune
                               October 1859

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THAT THERE is to be another civilization war against the Celestials
seems a matter now pretty generally settled with the English press. 
Still, since the meeting of the Cabinet CounciI on Saturday last, a
remarkable change has come over those very papers that were foremost in
the howl for blood.  At first, the London Times, in an apparent trance
of patriotic fury, thundered at the double treachery committed -- by
cowardly Mongols who lured on the bonhomme of the British Admiral by
studiously falsifying appearances and screening their artillery -- by
the Court of Peking, which, with deeper Machiavelianism, had set those
Mongol ogres to their damnable practical jokes.  Curious to say,
although tossed on a sea of passion, The Times had, in its reprints,
contrived to carefully expunge from the original reports all points
favourable to the doomed Chinaman.  To confound things may be the work
of passion, but to garble them seems rather the operation of a cool
head.  However that be, on Sept. 16, just one day before the meeting of
the Ministers, The Times veered round, and, without much ado, cut one
head off its Janus-headed impeachment.  "We Jear," it said, "that we
cannot accuse the Mongols who resisted our attack on the forts of the
Peiho of treachery"; but then, to make up for that awkward concession,
it clung the more desperately to the deliberate and perfidious
violation of a "solemn treaty" by "the Court of Peking."  Three days
later, after the Cabinet Council had been held, The Times, on further
consideration, even found "no roomfir doubt that if Mr. Bruce and M. de
Bourboulon had ... solicited the Mandarins to conduct them to Peking,
they would have been permitted to effect the ratification" of the
treaty.  What, then, remains there of the treachery of the Court of
Peking? Not a shadow even, but in its place there remain two doubts on
the mind of The Times.  "It is," it says, "perhaps doubtful whether, as
a military measure, it was wise to try with iuch a squadron, our way to
Peking.  It is still more doubtful whether, as a diplomatic measure, it
was desirable to use force at all." Such is the lame conclusion of all
the indignation bluster indulged in by the "leading organ," but, with a
logic of its own, it drops the reasons for war without dropping the war
itself. Another semi-Governmental paper, The Economist, which had
distinguished itself by its fervent apology for the Canton bombardment,
seems to take a more economical and less rhetorical view of things now
that Mr. J. Wilson has got his appointment of Chancellor of the
Exchequer for India The Economist brings two articles on the subject,
the one political, the other economical; the first one winding up with
the following sentences:

     "Now, all these things considered, it is obvious that the article
     of the treaty which gave our Ambassador a right of visiting or
     residing at Peking, was one literally forced upon the Chinese
     Government; and if it were thought absolutely essential to our
     interests that it should be observed, we think there was much room
     for the display of consideration and patience in exacting its
     fulfilment.  No doubt it may be said that with such a Government
     as the Chinese, delay and patience are interpreted as a sign of
     fatal weakness, and is therefore the most unsound policy we could
     pursue.  But how jar are we entitled, on this plea, to vary the
     principles on which we should assuredly act toward any civilized
     nation in our treatment of these Oriental Governments? When we
     have wrung out an unwelcome concession from their fears, it may be
     perhaps the most consistent policy to wring out, also from their
     fears, the immediate execution of the bargain in the way most
     convenient to ourselves.  But if we fail in so doing -- if, in the
     meantime, the Chinese overcome their fears, and insist, with a
     suitable display of force, on our consulting them as to the mode
     to be taken for giving our treaty effect -- can we justly accuse
     them of treachery?  Are they not rather practising upon us our own
     methods of persuasion? The Chinese Government may -- and it is
     very likely that it is so -- have intended to entrap us into this
     murderous snare, and never have purposed to execute the treaty at
     all.  If this should prove to be so, we must and ought to exact
     reparation.  But it may also prove that the intention to defend
     the mouth of the Peiho against the recurrence of such a violent
     entry as was made good by Lord Elgin in the previous year, was not
     accompanied by any desire to break faith on the general articles
     of the treaty.  As the hostile initiative came entirely from our
     side, and it was, of course, at any moment competent to our
     commanders to retire from the murderous fire, opened only for the
     defence of the forts, we cannot certainly prove any intention of
     breaking faith on the part of China.  And, till proof of a
     deliberate intention to break the treaty reaches us -- we think we
     have some reason to suspend our judgment, and ponder whether we
     may not have been applying to our treatment of barbarians, a code
     of principles not very widely different from that which they have
     practised towards ourselves."

In a second article on the same subject, The Economist dwells on the
importance, direct and indirect, of the English trade to China. In the
year 1858, the British exports to China had risen to 2,876,000, while
the value of the British imports from China had averaged upward of
cg,000,000 for each of the last three years, so that the aggregate
direct trade of England with China may be put down at about
ci2,000,000.  But beside these direct transactions there are three
other important trades with which, less or more, England is intimately
connected in the circle of exchanges, the trade between India and
China, the trade between China and Australia, and the trade between
China and the United States.  "Australia," says The Economist, "takes
from China large quantities of tea annually, and has nothing to give in
exchange which finds a market in China.  America also takes large
quantities of tea and some silk of a value far exceeding that of their
direct exports to China." Both these balances in favour of China have
to be made good by England, who is paid for this equalization of
exchanges by the gold of Australia and the cotton of the United States.
 England, therefore, independently of the balance due by herself to
China, has also to pay to that country large sums in respect to gold
imported from Australia and cotton from America.  Now this balance due
to China by England, Australia, and the United States d from China to
India, as a setby China to India, on account of arked, en passant, that
the imports never yet reached the amount of l,000,000 sterling while
the exports to China from India realize the sum of nearly 10,000,000.
The inference The Economist draws from these economical observations
is, that any serious interruption of the British trade with China would
"be a calamity of greater magnitude than the mere figures of our own
exports and imports might at first sight suggest," and that the
embarrassment consequent upon such a disturbance would not be felt in
the direct British tea and silk trade only, but must also "affect" the
British transactions with Australia and the United States.  The
Economist is, of course, aware of the fact that during the last Chinese
war, the trade was not so much interfered with by the war as had been
apprehended; and that, at the port of Shanghai, it was even not
affected at all.

But then, The Economist calls attention to "two novel features in the
present dispute" which might essentially modify the effects of a new
Chinese war upon trade -- these two novel features being the "imperial"
not "local character of the present conflict, and the" signal success
which, for the first time, the Chinese have effected against European
forces. How very different sounds this language from the war cry The
Economist so lustily shouted at the time of the Lorcha affair.

The Ministerial Council, as I anticipated in my last letter, witnessed
Mr. Milner Gibson's protest against the war, and his menace of seceding
from the Cabinet, should Palmerston act up to the foregone conclusions
betrayed in the columns of the French Moniteur.  For the moment
Palmerston prevented any rupture of the Cabinet, and the Liberal
Coalition, by the statement that the force indispensable for the
protection of British trade should be gathered in the Chinese waters,
while before the arrival of more explicit reports on the part of the
British Envoy, no resolution should be taken as to the war question. 
Thus the burning question was put off.  Palmerston's real intention
however trans ires throu the columns of his mob-organ The Daily
Telegraph, which in one of its recent numbers says:

     "Should any event lead to a vote unfavourable to the Government in
     the course of next year, an appeal will certainly be made to the
     constituencies.... The House of Commons will test the result of
     their activity by a verdict on the Chinese question, seeing that
     to the professional malignants; headed by Mr. Disraeli must be
     added the Cosmopolitans who declare that the Mongols were
     thoroughly in the right."

The fix in which the Tories are hemmed up, by having allowed themselves
to become inveigled into the responsible editorship of events planned
by Palmerston and enacted by two of his agents, Lord Elgin and Mr.
Bruce, (Lord Elgin's brother) I shall, perhaps, find another occasion
for remarking upon.





                            THE NEW CHINESE WAR



                          New York Daily Tribune
                             October 18, 1859

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


IN A former letter I asserted that the Peiho conflict had not sprung
from accident, but, on the contrary, been beforehand prepared by Lord
Elgin, acting upon Palmerston's secret instructions, and fastening upon
Lord Malmesbury, the Tory Foreign Minister, the project of the noble
Viscount, then seated at the head of & opposition benches. Now, first,
the idea of the "accidents" in China arising from "instructions" drawn
up by the present British Premier is so far from being new that, during
the debates on the Lorcha war, it was suggested to the House of Commons
by so well informed a penonage as Mr. Disraeli, and, curious to say,
confirmed by no less an authority than Lord Palmerston himself.  On
February 3, 1857, Mr. Disraeli warned the House of Commons in the
following terms:

     "I cannot resist the conviction that what has taken place in China
     has not been in consequence of the alleged pretext, but is, in
     fact, in consequence of instructions received from home, some
     considerable time ago.  If that be the case, I think the time has
     arrived when this House would not be doing its duty unless it
     earnestly considered whether it has any means of controlling a
     system, which if pursued, will be one, in my mind, fatal to the
     interests of this country." 

And Lord Palmerston most coolly replied: 
 
     "The right hon. gentleman says the course of events appeared to be
     the result of some system predetermined by the Government at home.
     Undoubtedly, it was."

In the present instance, a cursory glance at the Blue Book, entitled:

     "Correspondence relative to the Earl of Elgin's special missions
     to China and Japan, 1857-59, will show how the event that occurred
     at the Peiho on the 25th June was already recorded by Lord Elgin
     on the 2nd of March.  Page 484 of the said correspondence, we find
     the following two dispatches.

     THE EARL OF ELGIN TO REAR-ADMIRAL SIR MICHAEL SEYMOUR.
     Furious, March 2, 1859.

     "SIR: With reference to my dispatch to your Excellency of the 17th
     ult., I would beg leave to state that I entertain some hope that
     the decision come to by her Majesty 5 S Government on the subject
     of the permanent residence of a British Ambassador at Pekin, which
     I communicated to your Excellency in a conversation yesterday, may
     induce the Chinese Government to receive, in a becoming manner,
     the representative of her Majesty, when he proceeds to Pekin for
     the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty of Tien-tsin.  At
     the same time, it is no doubt possible that this hope may not be
     realized, and, at any rate, I apprehend that her Majesty's
     Government will desire that the Ambassador, when he proceeds to
     Tien-tsin, be accompanied by an imposing force.  Under these
     circumstances, I would venture to submit for your Excellency's
     consideration, whether it would not be expedient to concentrate at
     Shanghai at the earliest convenient period, a sufficient fleet of
     gunboats for this service, as Mr. Bruce's arrival in China cannot
     be long delayed.  I have, etc.              ELGIN and KINCARDINE."

     THE EARL OF MALMESBURY TO THE EARL OF ELGIN.
     FOREIGN OFFICE, May 2, 1859.

     "My LORD: I have received your Excellency's dispatch of the 7th of
     March, 1859, and I have to inform you that her Majesty's
     Government approve of the note, of which a copy is therein
     inclosed, and in which your Excellency announced to the Imperial
     Commissioners that her Majesty's Government would not insist upon
     the residence of her Majesty's Minister being permanently fixed at
     Pekin.

     "Her Majesty's Government also approve of your having suggested to
     Rear-Admiral Seymour that a fleet of gunboats should be collected
     at Shanghai in order to accompany Mr. Bruce up the Peiho.

     "I am, etc.  MALMESBURY 

Lord Elgin, then, knows beforehand that the British Goverment "will
desire" that his brother, Mr. Bruce, be accompanied by "an imposing
force" of "gunboats" up the Pciho, and he orders Admiral Seymour to
make ready "for this service." The Earl of Malmesbury, in his dispatch
dated May 2, approved of the suggestion intimated by Lord Elgin to the
Admiral.  The whole correspondence exhibits Lord Elgin as the master,
and Lord Malmesbury as the man.  While the former constantly takes the
initiative and acts upon the instructions originally received from
Palmerston, without even waiting for new instructions from Downing
Street, Lord Malmesbury contents himself with indulging "the desires"
which his imperious subaltern anticipates him to feel.  He nods assent
when Elgin states that the treaty being not yet ratified, they had not
the right to ascend any Chinese river; he nods assent, when Elgin
thinks they ought to show much forbearance towards the Chinese in
regard to the execution of the article of the treaty relating to the
embassy to Pekin; and, nothing daunted, he nods assent when in direct
contradiction to his own former statements, Elgin claims the right to
enforce the passage of the Pciho by an "imposing fleet of gunboats." He
nods assent in the same way that Dogberry nodded assent to the
suggestions of the sexton.

The sorry figure cut by the Earl of Malmesbury and the humility of his
attitude, are easily understood if one calls to mind the cry raised on
the advent of the Tory Cabinet by the London Times and other
influential papers, as to the grea peril threatening the brilliant
success which Lord Elgin, under the instructions of Palmerston, was
about to secure in China, but which the Tory Administration, if for
pique only, and in order to justify their vote of censure on
Palmerston's Canton bombardment, were likely to baffle.  Malmesbury
allowed himself to be intimidated by that cry.  He had, moreover,
before his eyes and in his heart the fate of Lord Ellenborough, who had
dared openly to counteract the India policy of the noble Viscount, and
in reward for his patriotic courage, was sacrificed by his own
colleagues of the Derby Cabinet.  Consequently, Malmesbury resigned the
whole initiative into the hands of Elgin, and thus enabled the latter
to execute Palmerston's plan on the responsibility of his official
antagonists, the Tories.  It is this same circumstance which for the
present has put the Tories in a very dismal alternative as to the
course to be taken in regard to the Peiho affair.  Either they must
sound the war trumpet with Palmerston, and thus keep him in office, or
they must turn their backs on Malmesbury, upon whom they heaped such
sickening flatteries-, during the late Italian war.

The alternative is the more trying since the impending third China war
is anything but popular with the Britisb mercantile classes.  In 1857
they bestrode the British lion, because they expected great commercial
profits from a forcible opening of the Chinese market.  At this moment,
they feel, on the contrary, rather angry at seeing the fruits of the
treaty obtained, all at once snapped away from their hold.  They know
that affairs look menacing enough in Europe and India, without the
further complication of a Chinese war on a grand scale.  They have not
forgotten that, in 1857, the imports of tea fell by upward of 24
millions of pounds, that being the article almost exclusively exported
from Canton, which was then the exclusive theatre of war, and they
apprehend that this interruption of trade by war may now be extended to
Shanghai and the other trading ports of the Celestial Empire.  After a
first Chinese war undertaken by the English in the interest of opium
smuggling, and a second war carried on for the defence of the lorcha of
a pirate, nothing was wanted for a climax but a war extemporized for
the purpose of pestering China with the nuisance of permanent Embassies
at its capital.





                             TRADE WITH CHINA



                          New York Daily Tribune
                             December 3, 1859

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


AT A time when very wild views obtained as to the impulse American and
British commerce were sure to receive from the throwing open, as it was
called, of the Celestial Empire, we undertook to show, by a somewhat
elaborate review of Chinese foreign commerce since the commencement of
this century, that those high-flown anticipations had no solid ground
to stand upon.  Quite apart from the opium trade, which we proved to
grow in an inverse ratio to the sale of' Western manufactures, we found
the main obstacle to any sudden expansion of the import trade to China
in the economical structure of Chinese society, depending upon the
combination of minute agriculture with domestic industry.  We may now,
in corroboration of our former statements, refer to the Blue Book
entitled, Correspondence Relative to Lord Elgin's Special Missions to
China and Japan.

Wherever the real demand for commodities imported into Asiatic
countries does not answer the supposed demand which in most instances
is calculated on such superficial data as the extent of the new market,
the magnitude of its population, and the vent foreign wares used to
find at some outstanding seaports -- commercial men, in their eagerness
at securing a larger area of exchange, are too prone to account for
their disappointment by the circumstance that artificial arrangements,
invented by barbarian Governments, stand in their way, and may,
consequently, be cleared away by main force.  This very delusion has,
in our epoch, converted the British merchant, for instance, into the
reckless supporter of every Minister who, by piratical aggressions,
promises to extort a treaty of commerce from the barbarian.  Thus the
artificial obstacles foreign commerce was supposed to encounter on the
part of the Chinese authorities, formed, in fact, the great pretext
which, in the eyes of the mercantile world, justified every outrage
committed on the Celestial Empire.  The valuable information contained
in Lord Elgin's Blue Book will, with every unprejudiced mind, go far to
dispel such dangerous delusions.

The Blue Book contains a report, dated in 1852, of Mr. Mitchell, a
British agent at Canton, to Sir George Bonham, from which we quote the
following passage:

     "Our Commercial Treaty with this country (China) has now (1852)
     been nearly ten years in full work, every presumed impediment has
     been removed, one thousand miles of new coast have been opened up
     to us, and four new marts established at the very thresholds of
     the producing districts, and at the best possible points upon the
     seaboard.  And yet, what is the result as far as the promised
     increase in the consumption of our manufactures is concerned? 
     Why, plainly this: That at the end of ten years the tables of the
     Board of Trade show us that Sir Henry Pottinger found a larger
     trade in existence when he signed the Supplementary Treaty in 1843
     than his Treaty itself shows us at the end of 1850! -- that is to
     say, as far as our home manufactures are concerned, which is the
     sole question we are now considering."

Mr. Mitchell admits that the trade between India and China, consisting
almost exclusively in an exchange of silver for opium, has been greatly
developed since the treat), of 1842, but, even in regard to this trade,
he adds:

     "It developed itself in as fast a ratio, from 1834 to 1844, as it
     has done from the latter date to the present, which latter period
     may be taken as its working under the supposed protection of the
     Treaty; while, on the other hand, we have the great fact staring
     us in the face, in the Tables of the Board of Trade, that the
     export of our manufacturing stuffs to China was less by nearly
     three-quarters of a million sterling at the close of 1850 than it
     was at the close of 1844."

That the treaty Of 1842 had no influence at all in fostering the
British export trade to China will be seen from the following tabular
statement:

        DECLARED VALUE IN POUNDS STERLING

                            1849      1850      1851      1852      1853
        Cotton Goods   1,001,283 1,020,915 1,598,829 1,905,321 1,408,439
        Woollen Goods    370,878   404,797   373,399   434,616   203,875
        Other articles   164,948   148,433   189,040   163,662   137,289
        ----------------------------------------------------------------
        Total          1,537,109 1,574,145 2,161,268 2,503,599 1,749,597

                            1854      1855      1856      1857
        Cotton Goods     640,820   883,985 1,544,235 1,731,909
        Woollen Goods    156,959   134,070   268,642   286,852
        Other articles   202,937   259,889   403,246   431,221
        ------------------------------------------------------
        Total          1,000,716 1,277,944 2,216,123 2,449,982

Now, comparing these figures with the Chinese demand for British
manufactures in 1843, stated by Mr. Mitchell to have amounted to
1,750,000, it will be seen that in five out of the last nine years the
British exports fell far below the level of 1843, and in 1854 were only
10-17 of what they had been in 1843.  Mr. Mitchell, in the first
instance, explains this startling fact by some reasons which appear too
general to prove anything in particular.  He says:

     "The habits of the Chinese are so thrifty, and so hereditary, that
     they wear just what their fathers wore before them; that is to
     say, just enough and no more of anything, no matter how cheap it
     may be offered them.  No working Chinaman can afford to put on a
     new coat which shall not last him at least three years and stand
     the wear and tear of the roughest drudgery during that period. 
     Now, a garment of that description must contain at least three
     times the weight of raw cotton which we put into the heaviest
     goods we import to China; that is to say, it must be three times
     as heavy as the heaviest drills and domestics we can afford to
     send out here."

Absence of wants, and predilection for hereditary models of, dress, are
obstacles which civilized commerce has to encounter in all new markets.
As to the thickness and strength ofdrills, might British and American
manufacturers not adapt their wares to the peculiar requirements of the
Chinese?  But here, we come to the real point at issue.  In 1844, Mr.
Mitchell sent some samples of the native cloth of every quality to
England, with the prices specified.  His correspondents assured him
that they could not produce it in Manchester, and much iess ship it to
China, at the rates quoted.  Whence this inability in the most advanced
factory system of the world to undersell cloth woven by hand in the
most primitive looms?  The combination we have already pointed to, of
minute agriculture with domestic industry, solves the riddle.  We quote
again from Mr. Mitchell:

     "When the harvest is gathered, all hands in the farmhouse, young
     and old together, turn to carding, spinning, and weaving this
     cotton; and out of this home-spun stuff a heavy and durable
     material, adapted to the rough handling it has to go through for
     two or three years, they clothe themselves, and the surplus they
     carry to the nearest town, where the shopkeeper buys it for the
     use of the population of the towns, and the boat people on the
     rivers.  With this homespun stuff, nine out of every ten human
     beings in this country are clothed, the manufacture varying in
     quality from the coarsest dungaree to the finest nanking, all
     produced in the farm-houses, and costing the producer literally
     nothing beyond the value of the raw material, or rather of the
     sugar which he exchanged for it, the produce of his own husbandry.
     Our manufacturers have only to contemplate for a moment the
     admirable economy of this system, and, so to speak, its exquisite
     dovetailing with the other pursuits of the farmer, to be
     satisfied, at a glance, that they have no chance whatever in the
     competition, as far as the coarser fabrics are concerned.  It is,
     perhaps, characteristic of China alone, of all countries in the
     world, that the loom is to be found in every well-conditioned
     homestead.  The people of all other countries content themselves
     with carding and spinning, and at that point stop short, sending
     the yarn to the professional weaver to be made into cloth.  It was
     reserved for the thrifty Chinaman to carry the thing out to
     perfection.  He not only cards and spins his cotton, but he weaves
     it himself, with the help of his wives and daughters, and farm
     servants, and hardly ever confines himself to producing for the
     mere wants of his family, but makes it an essential part of his
     season's operations to produce a certain quantity of cloth for the
     supply of neighbouring towns and rivers.

     "The Fui-kien farmer is thus not merely a farmer, but an
     agriculturist and a manufacturer in one.  He produces this cloth
     literally for nothing, beyond the cost of the raw material: lie
     produces it, as shown, under his own roof-tree, by the hands of
     his women and farm servants; it costs neither extra labour nor
     extra time.  He keeps his domestics spinning and weaving while his
     crops are growing, and after they are harvested, during rainy
     weather, when out-of-door labour cannot be pursued.  In short, at
     every available interval throughout the year round, does this
     model of domestic industry pursue his calling, and engage himself
     upon something useful."

As a complement of Mr. Mitchell's statement may be considered the
following description Lord Elgin gives of the rural population he met
with during his voyage up the Yang-tse-kiang:

     "What I have seen leads me to think that the rural population of
     China is, generally speaking, well-doing and contented.  I worked
     very hard, though with only indifferent success, to obtain from
     them accurate information respecting the extent of their holdings,
     the nature of their tenure, the taxation which they have to pay,
     and other kindred matters.  I arrived at the conclusion that, for
     the most part, they hold their lands, which are of very limited
     extent, in full property from the Crown, subject to certain annual
     charges of no very exorbitant amount, and that these advantages,
     improved by assiduous industry, supply abundantly their simple
     wants, whether in respect of food or clothing." 

It is this same combination of husbandry with manufacturing industry,
which, for a long time, withstood, and still checks, the export of
British wares to East India; but there that combination was based upon
a peculiar constitution of the landed property which the British, in
their position as the supreme landlords of the country, had it in their
power to undermine, and thus forcibly convert part of the Hindu
self-sustaining communities into mere farms, producing opium, cotton,
indigo, hemp, and other raw materials, in exchange, for British stuffi.
In China the English have not yet wielded this power, nor are they
likely ever to do so.





                             ENGLISH POLITICS



                          New York Daily Tribune
                            February 14, 1860

                                   by
                                KARL MARX


THE MOST interesting topics touched upon in the Parliarnentary address
debates were the third Chinese war, the commercial treaty with France,
and the Italian complication.  The Chinese question, it ought to be
under-stood, involves not only an international question, but also a
constitutional question of vital import.  The second Chinese war,
undertaken on the arbitrary behest of Lord Palmerston, having led first
to a vote of censure against his Cabinet, and then to a forcible
dissolution of the House of Commons -- the new House, although elected
under his own auspices, was never called upon to cashier the sentence
passed by its predecessor.  To this very nroment Lord Palmerston's
second Chinese war stands condemned by a Parliamentary verdict.  But
this is not all.

On the 16th of September, 1859, the account of the repulse on the Peiho
was received in England.  Instead of summoning Parliament, Lord
Palmerston addressed himself to Louis Bonaparte, and conversed with the
autocrat on a new AngloFrench expedition against China.  During three
months, as Lord Grey says, the British ports and arsenals "have
resounded with the din of preparation," and measures were taken for
dispatching artillery, stores, and gun-boats to China, and for sending
large forces of not less than io,000 men, in addition to the naval
forces.  The country having thus been fairly embarked in a new war, on
the one hand by a treaty with France, on the other by a vast
expenditure incurred without any previous communication to Parliament,
the latter, on its meeting, is coolly asked "to thank Her Majesty for
having informed them of what had happened and of the preparations that
were being made for an expedition to China." In what different style
could Louis Napoleon himself have addressed his own corps legislatif,
or the Emperor Alexander his senate?

In the debate on the Address in the House of Commons in 1857, Mr.
Gladstone, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to
the Persian war, had indignantly exclaimed:

     "I will say, without fear of contradiction, that the practice of
     commencing wars without associating Parliament with the first
     measures is utterly at variance with the established practice of
     the country, dangerous to the Constitution, and absolutely
     requiring the intervention of this House, in order to render the
     repetition of so dangerous a Proceeding utterly impossible."

Lord Palmerston has not only repeated the proceeding, "so dangerous to
the Constitution"; he has not only repeated it this time with the
concurrence of the sanctimonious Mr. Gladstone, but as if to try the
strength of ministerial irresponsibility, wielding the rights of
Parliament against the Crown, the prerogatives of the Crown against
Parliament, and the privileges of both against the people -- he had the
boldness to repeat the dangerous proceeding within the same sphere of
action.  His one Chinese war being censured by the Parliament, he
undertakes another Chinese war in spite of Parliament.  Still, in both
Houses, only one man mustered courage enough to make a stand against
this ministerial usurpation; and, curious to say, that one man
belonging not to the popular, but to the aristocratic branch of the
Legislature.  The man is Lord Grey.  He proposed an amendment to the
Address in answer to the Queen's Speech to the purport that the
expedition ought not to have been entered upon before the sense of both
Houses of Parliament was taken.  

The manner in which Lord Grey's amendment was met, both by the
spokesman of the ministerial party and leader, Her Majesty's
opposition, is highly characteristic of the political crisis which the
representative institutions of England are rapidly approaching.  Lord
Grey conceded that, in a formal sense, the Crown enjoyed the
prerogative of entering upon wars, but since ministers were interdicted
from spending one single farthing on any enterprise without the revious
sanction of Parliament, it was the constitutional law and practice that
the responsible representatives of the Crown should never enter upon
warlike expeditions before notice having been given to Parliament, and
the latter been called to make provision for defraying the expenditure
which might be thus incurred. Thus, if the council of the nation
thought fit, it might check, in the beginning, any unjust or impolitic
war contemplated by ministers. His Lordship then quoted some examples
in order to show how strictly these rules were formerly adhered to. In
1790, when some British vessels were seized by the Spaniards on the
north-west coast of America, Pitt brought down to both Houses a message
from the Crown calling for a vote of credit to meet the probable
expenses. Again, in December 1826, when the daughter of Don Pedro
applied to England for assistance against Ferdinand VII. of Spain, who
intended an invasion of Portugal to the benefit of Don Miguel, Canning
brought down a similar message notifying to Parliament the nature of
the case and the amount of expenditure likely to be incurred. In
conclusion Lord Grey. broadly intimated that the Ministry had dared to
raise taxes upon the country without the concurrence of Parliament,
since the large expenditure alreadv incurred must have been defrayed
one way or an other, and could not have been defrayed without
encroaching upon money-grants provided for entirely different demands.

Now which sort of rcplv did Lord Grey elicit on the part of the
cabinet? The Duke of Newcastle, who had been foremost in protesting
against the lawfulness of Palmerston's second Chinese war, answered, in
the first instance, that "the very wholesome practice" had arisen of
late years of  "never moving an amendment to the Address ... unless
some at party object "was to be attained. Consequently, Lord Grey being
not prompted by factious motives, An pretending not to aspire to put
Ministers out in order to put himself in what for the life of the Duke
of Newcastle, could he mean by infringing upon that " very wholesome
practice of late years?"  Was he crotchety enough to fancy that they
were to break lances except for great party objects?  In the second
instance, was it not notorious that the constitutional practice, so
anxiously adhered to by Pitt and Canning, had been over and over again
departed from by Lord Palmerston?  Had that noble Viscount not carried
on a war of his own in Portugal in 1831, in Greece in 1850, and, as the
Duke of Newcastle might have added, in Persia, in Afghanistan and in
many other countries?  Why, if Parliament had allowed Lord Palmerston
to usurp to himself the right of war and peace and taxation during the
course of thirty years, why, then, should they all at once try to break
from their long servile tradition?  Constitutional law might be on the
side of Lord Grey, but prescription was undoubtedly on the side of Lord
Palmerston.  Why call the noble Viscount to account at this time of the
day, since never before had he been punished for similar "wholesome"
innovations?  In fact, the Duke of Newcastle seemed rather indulgent in
not accusing Lord Grey of rebellion for his attempt at breaking through
Lord Palmerston's prescriptive privilege of doing with his own -- the
forces and the money of England -- as he liked.

Equally original was the manner in which the Duke of Newcastle
endeavoured to prove the legality of the Peiho expedition.  There
exists an Anglo-Chinese treaty of 1843 by dint of which England enjoys
all the rights conceded by the Celestials to the most favoured nations.
Now Russia, in her recent treaty with China, has stipulated for the
right of sailing up the Peiho.  Consequently, under the treaty of 1843,
the English had a right to such passage.  This, the Duke of Newcastle
said, he might insist upon "without any great special pleading." Might
he, indeed!  On the one side there is the ugly circumstance that the
Russian treaty was only ratified, and, consequently dates its actual
existence only from an epoch posterior to the Peiho catastrophe.  This,
of course, is but a slight husteron proteron.  On the other hand, it is
generally known that a state of war suspends all existing treaties.  If
the English were at war with the Chinese at the time of the Peiho
expedition, they, of course, could appeal neither to the treaty Of
1843, nor to any other treaty whatever.  If they were not at war,
Palmerston's Cabinet has taken upon itself to commence a new war
without the sariction of Parliament.

To escape the latter power of the dilemma, poor Newcastle asserts that
since the Canton bombardment, for the last two years, "England had
never been at peace with China." Consequently the Ministry had pushed
on hostilities, not recommenced them, and consequently he might,
without special pleading, appeal to the treaties effective only during
a time of peace.  And to heighten the beauty of this queer sort of
dialectics, Lord Palmerston, the chief of the Cabinet, asserts at the
same time, in the House of Commons, that England all this time over
"had never been at war with China." They were not so now.  There were,
of course, Canton bombardments, Peiho catastrophes, and Anglo-French
expeditions, but there was no war, since war had never been declared,
and since, to this moment, the Emperor of China had allowed
transactions at Shanghai to proceed in their usual course.  The very
fact of his having broken, in regard to the Chinese, through all the
legitimate international forms of war, Palmerston pleads as a reason
for dispensing also with the constitutional forms in regard to the
British Parliament, while his spokesman in the House of Lords, Earl
Granville, "with regard to China," disdainfully declares "the
consultation of Parliament by Government" to be "a purely technical
point." The consultation of Parliament by Government a purely technical
point!

What difference, then, does still remain between a British Parliament
and a French Corps Ligislatif?  In France, it is, at least, the
presumed heir of a national hero who dares to place himself in the
place of the nation, and who at the same time openly confronts all the
dangers of such usurpation.  But, in England, it is some subaltern
spokesman, some worn-out place-hunter, some anonymous nonentity of a
so-called Cabinet, that, relying on the donkey power of the
Parliamentary mind and the bewildering evaporations of an anonymous
press, without making any noise, without incurring any danger, quietly
creep their way to irresponsible power.  Take on the one hand the
commotions raised by a Sulla; take on the other the fraudulent
business-like manceuvres of the manager of a joint stock bank, the
secretary of a benevolent society, or the clerk of a vestry, and you
will understand the differencebetween imperialist usurpation in France
and ministerial usurpation in England!

Lord Derby, fully aware of the equal interest both factions have in
securing ministerial impotence and irresponsibility. could, of course,
"not concur with the noble Earl (Grey) in the strong views which he
takes of the laches of Government." He could not quite concur in Lord
Grey's complaint that the Government ought to have called Parliament
together, to have consulted them on the Chinese question," but he
"certainly would not support him by his vote should he press the
amendment to a division."

Consequently, the amendment was not pressed to a division, and the
whole debate, in both Houses, on the Chinese war evaporated in
grotesque compliments showered by both factions on the head of Admiral
Hope for having so gloriously buried the English forces in the mud. 


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