The Welshman

HOUSE OF COMMONS, THURSDAY Feb. 26. Mr. Gladstone announced his intention of making his motion on the subject of the tea duties, not, as he originally intended, on the question of the Speaker leaving the chair, but in the Committee of Ways and Means this day. Sir D. Norreys moved for leave to bring in a Bill for the better administration of the fiscal affairs of counties in Ireland. The motion was opposed by Mr. lhrne. Leave was, however, given to introduce the Bill. Mr. Cobden moved the following resolution — That this House has heard with concern of the con- flicts which have occurred between the British and Chinese authorities in the Canton river; and, without expressing an opinion as to the extent to which the Government of China may have afforded this country cause of complaint respecting the non-fulfilment of the Treaty of 1842, this House considers that the papers which have been laid upon the table fail te establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the Arrow; and that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the state of our commercial relations with China." Adverting to the extent to which the national conscience, he said, had been moved upon this question, and the large amount of sympathy felt with reference to the object of his motion, and premising that he had no motive but to arrive at a just decision, Mr. Cobden commenced with a brief narrative of the facts consequent upon the boarding of the lorcha Arrow, on the 8th of October, up to the date of the last advices and asked the House to inquire how all this devastation and warfare began, and who were the authors, and he asked it, he said, in defence of our own honour, and as if we had been dealing with a strong Power, and not a weak one. He contrasted the conduct of the British authorities at Hongkong with that which would have been pursued, he said, had the Government we dealt with been t Washington and the transaction had taken place at Charleston. lie cited the opinion expressed by Lord Lyndhurst, that, upon the principles of interna- tional law the Chinese Governor was right with reference to the Arrow, which was in no respect a British vessel and he urged, besides, other reasons why the whole proceeding "as illegal on our part. Admitting this, -and he defied contradiction upon this point,-look, he said, at the correspondence between Consul Parkes, a young man, and Yeh, the Governor of a province There was not the slightest indication on the part of the latter to insult our authorities on the contrary, while courtesy, forbearance, and temper appeared on his side, arrogance and presumption were manifest on the other. In short, Mr. Parkes seemed to have made up his mind not to be satisfied in spite of the logical arguments of Governor Yeh whose exposition of the law upon the question he considered worthy of Westminster-hall. He conscien- tiously believed, he said, that there had been a precon- ceived design to pick a quarrel with the Chinese, for which the whole world would cry shame upon us. The papers recently laid before the House Mr. Cobden treated contemptuously, as a garbled record of trumpery com- plaints against the Chinese. It was an insult, he said, to brrtig down such a book in order to make out a case for Lord Clarendon. On the other hand, he read letters, I some of them from Sir John Davis, testifying to the civility and inotlensive habits of the Chinese, and to the overheating conduct of our own countrymen in Ciiina, with whom Sir John said he found it more difficult to deal than with the Chinese and Mr. Cobden suggested reasons why this was likely to be the case,—that Englishmen carried with them a haughty demeanour and an infleisble bearing towards the natives of other countries. He strongly condemned the vast pretensions put forth by mercantile men in England, who demanded concessions from China in terms which he characterized as downright selfish violence. As to the admission of foreigners into Cantol1, he was of opinion that in the treaty of 1842 it was contemplated that foreigners should have free access to Canton but it would be found from the despatches o Sir George Bonham and Lord Palmerston that there were the best possible grounds for not persevering in this de- mand, the Cantonese being fierce, ungovernable, and hostile to Englishmen. This was, in his opinion, a chimera; it was an object not worth fighting for he be- lieved if this part of the treaty could be enforced to- morrow it would be of no use to us. In the last place, Mr. Cobden contended that Sir John Bowring had not only violated the principles of international law, but had acted contrary to his instructions, and even to express directions from his Government, and that this dirty squabble might lead to complications with other nations. Mr, Labouchere said, he did not comphill of this sub. ject having been brought before the House, since the question affected the reputation of the British nation. When the case was fairly and impartially considered, he was persuaded that the House would be of opinion that no blame justly attached to our local authorities at Canton, or to the Government at home, who could have pursued no other course than they had taken without betraying the interests intrusted to their care and lowering the British character in the eyes of the world. There was one fact of importance, he observed, on the face of the papers- namely, that these transactions had taken place, not in an obscure corner of the world, but before the great com- munity of merchants, who, he alarmed, had been libelled by the language employed towards them by Mr. Cobden. The French and American merchants had coincided with ours in their view of the conduct of the Chinese authorities, and Mr. Labouchere read a letter from the United States' Chief Superintendent of Trade, condemning the character and proceedings of the Canton authorities. lIe believed, he added, that for some time past the relations of the Chinese authorities at Canton with every European Go. vernmeut had become so thoroughly unsatisfactory as to be at length absolutely intolerable, and that the general opinion was that, at the price of a temporary interruption of commercial transactions, the Canton authorities should be restrainted from setting aside treaty obligations and committing acts of violence. After criticizing the form and terms of the motion, Mr. Labouchere insisted upon the British character of the lorcha, and that, when the outrage was committed, the Governor Yeh knew he was doing wrong. He denied that the British functionaries had evinced any want of forbearance, and that Consul Parkes had, as Mr. Cobden alleged, endeavoured to pick a quarrel with the Chinese his proceedings, on the contrary, had, he said, been gentle and moderate. As to the right of entry into Canton, this had been conceded by treaty, and, although it had been postponed from time to time, it had never been abandoned by the British Government, and he was not satisfied that it was an improper step on the part of Sir John Bowring, under the circumstances, to take this opportuni.y to press this stipulation. Mr. Cobden had said that Sir John had acted in violation of the express directions of Lord Grey to avoid any act of hostility against the local Government without authority from home but he (Mr. Labouchere) was of opinion that Sir John Bowring had not rendered himself liable to this im- puation, and lie read a dictum of Lord Stowell, that a commander sent to a distant State carried with him such a portion of sovereign service on which he was employed. I On the part of the Government at home he should regret, he said, if it had been so weak and pusillanimous as to fail in supporting oflicials placed in a difficult position, whose conduct had been applauded by the representatives of foreign nations. We were not, he observed, at war with the Court of Pekin, but with the local Government at Canton, and he hoped that the result of these hostilities would be to place the relations of Europe with China upon a safer and more satisfactory footing. Sir B. Lytton did not think that Mr. Labouchere had succeeded in giving a very satisfactory repfy to the power- ful arguments of Mr. Cobden, and he undertook to show how groundless was the position assumed by Mr. La- bouchere. For this purpose, he entered upon an argument of some length to show that, by the international law, since the treaty of Nankin the regulations of the Govern- ment of Hongkong could not confer upon the lorcha a British character but, assuming that it possessed such character, he contended that our officials were not justified in their proceedings. The language used by Consul Parkes in his correspondence with Commissioner Yeh he censured as repugnant to the rules of diplomatic inter- course and offensive, and be condemned with vehemence the hostilities carried on by our commanders upon the miserable plea of an alleged affront to our flag, for the refusal of an entry into Canton was not a tenable ground, it being a question whether the Emperor of China him- self could practically enforce that article of the treaty, or, if he could, whether the effect would not be pernicious. He charged the Ministers with an improper exercise of the authority of the Crown in this matter, for it was the duty of a wise Government to correct the over-zeal of its agents. Mr. J. Lloyd Daviearthoughfthere was no logical con- nection between the speech and the motion of the hon, member for the West Riding of Yorkshire. If the mo- tion had censurcd the Ministry, he (Mr. Davies) should have approved it. Instead of asking the House to condemn the Ministry for their sanction of the hostilities against China, the {hon. gentleman had simply moved for the appointment of a committee to consider our commer- cial relations with that country. He founded his oppo- sition to this motion upon the conduct of the hon mem- ber for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden) and those who sat with him three sessions ago. They then, representing themselves as embodying the opinions of England, sent delegates to the Emperor of Russia, and fortified him in those aggressive measures which led to the calamities of the Crimean war. (Hear, hear.) What was the parallel now ? The House was asked to appoint a committee no- minally to inquire into our commercial relations with China but its real effect would be to cripple our move ments and paralyse our efforts in China, to give nerve to our enemy, and, in fact, to weaken where we ought to give strength. Upon this ground, and this only, he should vote against the motion. (Hear, bear.) As to the measures taken by Sir J. Bowring, there was no denun- ciation uttered by the lion member (Mr. Cobden) or the hon. baronet (Sir E. Lytton). in which he did not fully coincide, but that was not the practical question before the House. To grant this committe would be to intimate to our representative and commanders in China that a sword was hanging over their heads, and would prevent their acting with the decision and promptitude which was necessary. If it were meant to assail the Ministry he could understand such an assault; but he was convinced that to appoint this committee would be a most evil measure. The warfare which had been carried on amounted almost to butchery, but he thought that the best course which the House could pursue would be to make such an impression upon the Government as would induce them to bring the war to a close, and then they might properly and dispassionately inquire whether the English authori- ties in China had acted with precipitancy, and bad jeo- pardised lives which they ought to have protected. He had intended to propose an amendment, but he had learned upon enquiry that that would have the effect of narrowing the discussion, and he should therefore content himself with voting against the resolutions. (Hear, hear.) Sir J. Ramsden observed, that the three points in this question put by Sir B. Lytton were short and clear, and must be decided by the evidence ;-first, was the Arrow a legally registered British vessel, owned by a British sub- ject, and entitled to British protection secondly, was the boarding of the Arrow and the forcible abstraction of patt of her crew a violation of the treaty; and, thirdly, were the proceedings of the British Consul in demanding an apology and reparation, and, when denied, adopting strong measures, justifiable under the circumstances ? Reason- ing upon the facts, he resolved the two first questions in the affirmative without heisitation and, with regard to the last, although he deplored the violent measures resorted to, and the destruction of life and property, he found no evidence of a single hasty or ill-consided act or of one angry expression on the part of the British officials. On the other hand, he read an atrocious proclamation, sup- posed to hve emanated from the Governor of Canton himself, and he asked Mr. Cobden whether sueh a do. cument would have proceeded from an American func- tionary ? Sir S. Herbert spoke in support of the motion. Sir E. Perry likewise supported the motion. The mo- tion he observed, raised two questions,—whether the British authorities were right in their demand upon the Chinese, and, if they had right upon their side, whether they were justified in resorting to extreme measures ? Applying principles of law to the facts, he argued that the Arrow could never claim the rights of a British ves- sel but, assuming that he was wrong in his law, he maintained that the hostilities were not justifiable, ati4c took a view similar to Mr. Cobden of the character of nie European mercantile community of Canton, whose inter- ests in provoking a breach with the local authorities ren- dered them, he said, unsafe guides. Mr. Gregson complained that Sir E. Perry had scan- dalised the mercantile community of Canton, who, he said, were as much addicted to peace as Mr Cobden could be. It had been fully understood, he said, by Chinese and Europeans that the Arrow carried a British flag. This, however, was only a continuation of insults which had been heaped upon us by the Chinese authorities for a number of years. He read a letter from British mer- chants long resident at Canton testifying to this fact, and approving the measures adopted by the British au- thorities. Lord J. Russell said he had every disposition to pay respect to the opinions and wishes of the British mer- chants at Canton at the same time, the House must not forget that it became them seriously to contemplate what had taken place, and to decide the question according to their opinion of the rights, the interests, and the honour of the country. With this view he had listened with great attention and anxiety to the statement of Mr. La- bouchere, hoping that the ambiguity which seemed to rest upon the policy of the Government might be dispelled, and some view might be afforded of a distinct policy to which Parliament might look for future security. In all these respects the speech of Mr. Labouchere had disap- pointed him. The question he considered under these three heads-first, the notionality of the Arrow second, the right to enter Canton third, the policy which the Government intended to pursue, and the object at which they aimed in hostilities. Neither of the two provoca- tions, he contended, afforded a sufficient ground for the extreme measures resorted to, which were not a proper mode of settling such a great question; and he thought Her Majesty's Government ought to have considered that the British officials had committed a serious offence, having, without sufficient cause, put in jeopardy amicable relations with a great and populous empire, and pro- ceeded to the solution of a question which a Secretary of State had expressly declared should not be decided with. out reference to the Government at home. And where was the affair to end ) He feared that, in the disorgan- ised state of China, a social resolution might be produced, and it might cease to be a country in which commercial operations could be advantageously carried on, The worst part of the case was that Sir John Bowring, while he declared that the vessel had lost all right to British pro- tection, set up that claim against the Chinese Commis- sioner, and required an apology to the British flag, as having been rightfully used. Much had been said about the j-restige of this country, but he had no wish to see its prestige maintained separated from character, honour, and reputation. Mr. Lowe observed that the argument that we could not by any municipal law give a right to Chinese subjects against their own Government proved too much, for the result wouid be that the greater portion of the British ships would not be within the treaty. He contended that the ordinance under which the lorcha was registered was legal in its inception; and as to the question whether the Chinese had violated the treaty, what an outcry would have been raised, he said, if the British Consul had, upon a paltry quibble, repudiated the British character of the vessel The real question, he contended, was not one of legality, but of the animus of the Chinese authorities, and it v" impossible to acquit them of a bad animus in the matter. Much as he deplored the consequences, it appeared to him that upon those authorities, not upon the British Government or its officials, rested the respon- sibility. On the motion that the debate be adjourned, Mr. Gibson stated that it had been the intention of Mr. Cobden to submit his motion in two distinct resolu- tions, but, through some mistake, its form had been al- tered, and it had been put as one resolution. After some discussion, the motion was altered to its original form, and the first part of the motion was moved as one of the resolutions. The debate was then adjourned until Friday. After some further business, the House adjourned at 20 minutes past 12 o'clock. I FRIDAY, FEB. 27. In reply to inquiries by Mr. Layard, Lord Pelmerston stated that he was authorised to say that there was no foundation whatever for the report of a treaty having been concluded between Russia and Persia, and that the negotiations through the Persian ambassador at Paris were still going on. On the motion that the House, at its rising, do adjourn until Monday, a short discussion took place upon a ques- tion put by Sir J. Fergusson as to the intentions of the Government respecting the officers of the Land Transport Corps, whose services were no longer required, to which an explanatory reply was given by Mr. F. Peel. Mr. Stafford called attention to the necessity of taking immediate steps for preventing importation of diseased cattle. The expediency of adopting prompt measures to avert from our shores this dreadful scourge was strongly urged by Lord Naas end Mr. Packe. Lord Palmerston said inquiries should be made, and proper precautions taken. The motion was agreed to. The adjourned debate upon Mr. Cobden's motion, now confined to a resolution that the papers laid upon the table failed to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorttd to at Canton, was resumed by Mr. Warren, who, disclaiming all factious motives in discussing what he regarded as a momentous question, insisted that it could not be condensed into a dry legal argument. The reason assigned for the war into which the country had been dragged with the empire of China he regarded as a flimsy pretext for carrying out what ap- peared to have been a long cherished design. He denied that the Chinese had given a fit occasion for war, and he challenged the law officers of the Crown to disprove the law laid down in the House of Lords upon the question. Commerce, he observed, was very good but what were the interests of commerce compared with national honour ? Hauag loaded into the matter dispassionately, he felt it to blfhis duty to affirm the resolution. The Lord Advocate admitted that the matters involved in thts discussion were most important, and well deserved the consideration of the Ho,&se, for they included individual justice towards those intrusted with great authority and who were obliged to act upon a great emergency, and the risk of inflicting irreparable injury upon the national in- terests by what might be said in Parliament. There were two question, he observed,- first, whether the proceedings of Sir John Bowring and his coadjutors were according to interactional law and, secondly, supposing they were legally right, whether their ulterior proceedings were justifiable under the circumstances. On the first question he undertook to say, and he argued upon the facts, that there was no ground for asserting that the international law had been transgressed by our authorities abroad. He contended that the Hongkong Ordinance of 1855 was a valid law as respected the Chinese, and that whether or not it was contrary to our municipal law had nothing to do with the question. The boarding of the lorcha was, no doubt, a preconcerted act, not a mistake, and he thought there were plain indications that the nationality of the vessel was known. The real question lay here,—was that a proceeding in good faith or not ? The act was considered by Sir John Bowring as an outrage and an insult, which consisted in the animus, and if it was regarded as an in- tentional and deliberate insult, he wanted to know what Sir John Bowring was to have done. The French and the American authorities in China approved his proceeding, and scarcely any practical man who had been to that country said that lie had acted wrong, for they knew the danger of overlooking the slightest intentional affront by such a Government as that of China. If this be a ques- tion of justic and morality, he said, that was another matter but if it be a mere question of policy he warned the House to pause before it put between us and China a barrier which might be far more dangerous than any yet offered. Mr. Whiteside asked the House to examine the argu- ments put forward by the Lord Advocate, and say whether, with all his ability, he had made out anything like a case on behalf of the Government. He maintained, in opposi. tion to the Lord Advocate, that the Hongkong Ordinance, not having been ratified at home, had no validity, and he controverted other positions of the learned lord upon the legal points in the question, investigating as be proceeded the perplexed history of the lorcha with an amusing minuteness. After inveighing against what he alleged to be duplicity, misstatements of law, and misrepresentations of facts on the part of the British officials, he disputed the conclusions of the Lord Advocate as to the animtts of the Chinese; and to his warning against overlooking small affronts he opposed another warning, not to be guilty of small infractions of international law, or trample on the weak and submit to the strong. The language of Sir John Bowring and Mr. Parkes, he affirmed, had been ar- rogant, insolent, overbearing, and domineering. Mr. Horsfall said it appeared to him that the whole question, as related to the Arrow, resolved itself into two points,—was she bonajide a British vessel or not? and did the Chinese believe her to be a British vessel at the time they committed the ourage ? He contended that the name and the flag sufficiently characterized the nationality of the vessel, and he believed the insult was complete and in- tended. Having noticed a few of the arguments used by Lord J. Russell, he repelled with some degree of warmth the charge of "selfish violence" which Mr. Cobden bad preferred against the merchants of Liverpool. He felt it to be his duty, he said, to vote against the motion, because he should otherwise be guilty of an act of great injustice because it would amount, in effect, to a vote of censure upon Sir J. Bowring and Admiral Seymour,—a most humane and gallant nian,-as well as upon Lord Claren- don and Her Majesty's Government and, although be differed from them upon many questions, he did not see anything to justify a vote of censure. Above all, he looked to the consequences which the adoption of the resolution might entail upon British property, British interests, and British life in China. Sir C. Napier was satisfied that Sir M. Seymour must have been convinced that the Arrow was a British vessel, and he considered that the demand for reparation was a reasonable one; that demand bad been refused, and Sir M. Seymour must have adopted the course he took, or have pocketed the affront, and borne the imputation of a want of courage and resolution. Sir J. Graham also paid a tribute to the Character of Sir M. Seymour, observing that all his presumptions would be in favour of the course he had pursued; but Sir Micbal had been subject to the discretion of the civil chief, Sir John Bowring, upon whom he (Sir James) thought it would be unjust to bear hardly, acknowledging, however, that he thought him more remarkable for self-confidence than for soundness of judgment. But the Government had identified themselves with all be had done and if he had erred it was not clear that he did not believe he was giving effect to the wishes of Her Majesty's Government. As to the law regardiiigitlie affair of the lorcha, the ques- tion, he thought, lay in a narrow compass, both as to ownership and as to the colonial Act, the provisions of Imperial Acts had been set aside, and, in his opinion, the license granted to the Arrow was invalid ab initio. If so, she was not a British vessel; the Chinese authorities had therefore a perfect right to board her, and there was con- clusive evidence that Sir J. Bowring was perfectly aware that, owing to the expiration of the license, the lorcha was not entitled to British protection. Yet he had in another part of the correspondence maintained the contrary, there- by knowingly practising a deception upon the Chinese Government, upon which he founded a demand for repara- tion. And not only had Sir John Bowring not. been censured for a falsehood which in an attorney would have been punished by his being struck off the rolls, but his acts had been approved by the Government. Then, as to the question of policy, the affair of the lorcha was evidently but a pretext; from the time of bis arrival at Hongkong Sir John Bowring had fretted under the peremptory prohi- bition isrped by successive home Governments against commencipg hostilities with the Chinese; but his (Sir James's) belief was that Sir John Bowring thought the opportunity had arri ved, in consequence of the affairs of the lorcha, to push the question of force. Mr. Labouchere had, indeed, recognized a new motive for hostilities,—the emancipation of the people of Canton from the cruel go- vernment of Commissioner Yeh. [Mr Labouchere here gave a different interpretation of what ho had said.] Sir James then dwelt upon the effect of the military and trtval operations upon the Cantonese, and he asked the House whether they were prepared to adopt the approbation of those transactions which had been expressed by Her Majesty's Government. He thought it was high time to arrest such proceedings. The resolution he considered to be temperate, measured and moderate in its terms, and therefore worthy of support but if his choice lay between the resolution and the being party to these transactions he could not doubt what was his duty. He would wash his hands of the innocent blood which he believed had been shed and he never gave a vote with a more conscientious conviction of its propriety than the vote he should give in favour of the motion. The Attorney-General began by analyzing the arguments employed upon this question in the House of Lords, which were reducible, he said, to these three propositions :—First, that the colonial ordinance, on which the registry of the lorcha depended, was at variance with an Imperial statute, and therefore utterly void second that, supposing the colonial ordinance valid, the register granted to the Arrow was defective and had expired third, that, even if the ordinance were valid and the register good and subsisting, it did not qualify Chinese to possess the vessel, or exempt it from the authority of the Emperor of China. All that had been heard in this and the other House, he observed, fell under these three heads, and he proceeded to discuss the several propositions. In an exposition of the law he maintained that the title of the Arrow to be considered a -British vessel did not rest upon the colonial ordinance, but upon the treaty with the Chinese, and that it was an error to suppose that the colonial ordinance was a viola'ion of the Imperial statute, which was inapplicable. Two things, therefore, he contended, were clear,-tbat it was wrong to suppose that the colonial register was inconsistent with the Imperial statute and that, assuming the register to have expired or to have been irregular, it was net competent to the Chinese to take advantage of those defects. The Attorney-General then addressed himself to the argument of Lord Lyndhurst on the question of international law, contending that the true point was whether a natural-born subject of China becoming a resident at the British colony of Hongkong, and therefore a British subject, might not by virtue of the treaty own a ship and receive a register which would entitle it to all the privileges of a British ship, and he argued upon authority in affirmance of the proposi- tion. All the three objections, he contended, were devoid of foundation, and it was bard, he said, to stigmatize poor Sir John Bowring, and hold him up to ridicule, as guilty of error in a question tespecting which Lord Lyndhurst was at variance with Lord Wensleydale, and Lord St. Leonard's and the Lord Chancellor were in direct opposi- tion. From all he bad seen he had observed a strong desire in Sir John Bowring to support the just rights of the Chinese. But in the matter of the lorcha he bad be- lieved the Chinese were actuated by a spirit of wanton insult, and he (Sir R. Bethel!) thought he had arrived at a correct conclusion. The debate was again adjourned. Some further business having been disposed of, the House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past 12 o'clock, until Mondav. MONDAY, MARCH 2. -1 The adjourned debate upon Mr. Cobden's resolution, that the papers on the table failed to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton, was resumed by Mr. R. Phillimore, who, after divesting the question of matters which he thought did not properly belong to it, including the right of entry into Canton, considered the main issues to be, whether the war was just in its origin and righteous in its continuance and, if not, what was the verdict which the House of Commons ought to give. He disputed the validity of the Arrow's register he denied that she carried a British flag at the time of her being boarded, as well as the British character of the vessel, which he maintained, in opposition to the Attorney-General, was not British in the sense of the Treaty, the rules of which, he said, were not laid down in accordance with the international law. But, assuming that the British autho- rities were right in regard to this vessel, he contended that the legal course of proceeding was by reprisals, seizing property in pledge that, moreover, full satisfaction had been rendered for the wrong, and th it it was not lawful to make war or even reprisals for the punishment of a nation apart from reparation. lie could see no evidence of malafides or intentional insult, on the part of the Chinese, that could justify hostilities, and, over and over again, Commissioner Yeh had disavowed any intention to affront the British flag. Sir G. Grey said, he was anxious to avoid the legal part of the question, which he was content to leave the House to determine upon the able, lucid, and convincing speech of the Attorney-General. Every one conversant with the trade of China, he observed, knew that these lorchas were essentially not Chinese, but suled under various European flags, as well as under native colours, and, with the assent of the Chinese authorities, enjoyed the benefit of their res- pective flags and, if the outrage in question had been overlooked, it would have been a virtual abandonment on the part of the British authorities of that protection which our flag had afforded for years. Animadverting upon what he regarded as an unfair use made by Mr. Cobden of a com- munication from Mr. Cook (whose letter he read), and upon other parts of the proceedings of Mr. Cobden in relation to this question, especially his depreciation of character, which he characterized as disingenuous, be defended Mr. Parkes against the sneers of Mr. Cobden, and Sir John Bowring against the strictures of Sir James Graham, observing that Sir John had, in fact, been appointed to the office of Pleni- potentiary in China by Lord Aberdeen's Government, of which Sir James himself was a member. Sir James, he observed, had laid the whole responsibility of these trans- actions upon the shoulders of Sir John Bowring, but, as in the whole of his proceedings Sir John had had the full con- currence of Sir Michael Seymour, the censures cast UDOIl Sir John Bowring were unfair, ungenerous, and unjust. The demand for the official reception of the British by the Chinese authorities, by virtue of the treaty, was made by Sir M. Seymour. In conclusion, Sir George warned the House to hesitate before it came to a vote that would have a prejudicial effect throughout the world, in comparison with which the defeat of a Ministry and the transfer of power to a combination of parties were of minor im- portance. Mr. Robertson, in opposing the motion, observed that the lorcha Arrow was oj foreign build, and, had there been no flag or name, there could have been no mistake. As to the animus, his experience of the Chinese authorities led him to believe that the affront was designedly intended. Fror:1 personal knowledge, as well as from authorities, he depicted the character of the Chinese officials and the people in colours very different from Mr. Cobden's portrai- ture. He thought access to the Chinese authorities at Canton was necessary the restriction was a degrading one, intended to lower us in the eyes of the people. He caution- ed the House against faltering and falling back, by passing a vote of censure upon the Government, the effects of which would be disastrous and would not be confined to Canton Sir J. Pakington thought Sir G. Grey had been altogether unsuccessful in his attempt to defend Sir John Bowring. He regretted that the Government did not repudiate the acts of Sir John and his co-officials, and at once recall them; he had heard, he said, no reason assigned for the approbation they had received, except the necessity of up- holding servants of the Crown; and he protested against the doctrine that they should be supported at all risks. Declining, like Sir G. Grey, to discus* the legal points, but, assuming that the lorcha was a British vessel, he believed, he said, that the verdict of the world would condemn the revenge taken for the act of the Chinese authorities as ex- cessive. The accusations against Sir John Bowring, he observed, were not limited to this affair; he had been charged by the Chamber of Commerce at Shanghai with having deliberately misrepresented the instructions he had received from the Foreign-office, thereby obtaining the con- sent of the merchants there to an arrangement to which they would not otherwise have assented. This was another reason why the Government should not have left British interests in China in the hands of Sir John Bowring. With regard to Sir M. Seymour, he believed that he considered it to be his duty to carry out the orders of his civil chief; but he could not conceal his opinion that he should not have shown himself so much the willing agent of a chief not competent to deal with matters of such importance. As to the revival of the demand to enter Canton, successive Secretaries of State had distinctly forbidden the enforce- ment of this claim by arms without the consent of the Home Government. Attempts had been made, he remarked, to justify our proceedings by the character of Comissioner Yeh but he hoped the verdict of the House would be in- fluenced by other considerations affecting the character of this country in the eyes of the world. Mr. Collier, in opposing the motion, insisted that the Chinese had been guilty of violating for fifteen years a solemn treaty-conduct which would not have been put up with in the case of a strong Power—and they were now presuming upon our forbearance, and trying how far they could go. Under the treaty, the lorcha, he argued, was fully entitled to be considered a British vessel; an outrage upon it was committed the application of Consul Parkes for redress and attonemeut was fair and reasonable, and the answer of Commissioner Yeh evaded the demand without denying the insult. If the consul had been satisfied, and proceeded no further, he and the Government would have been generally and severely blamed. If the House affirmed this resolution it would amount to a concession that we had been in the wrong from the beginning; the Chinese Government would be entitled to reparation, and would demand an abject apology. By negativing the resolution we only affirmed that when a treaty was violated and the British flag insulted we were bound to exact redress and reparation. Sir F. Thesiger, after a solemn appeal to the laws of truth, justice, and humanity, descended from his high ground in order to reply to the argument of the Attorney- General, who had argued that the question of the nationality of the lorcha depended, not upon the ordinance, but upon the supplement treaty of 1843. He (Sir Frederic), on the contrary, maintained that, from the very terms of the treaty, it had nothing whatever to do with the question that the proposition of the Attorney-General ought to be reversed, and that reliance must be placed upon the ordinance, and not upon the treaty, He then argued thai a register granted under the colonial ordinance, itself of doubtful legality, could give no right as against Chinese authority, disputing, in the course of his argument, the legal positions laid down by the Attorney-General upon thia pointy and contending tbat, the 110, been, treated fairly by that learned gentleman, who, he said, after giving the House a certain amount of intellectual leger e- main, had disappeared in a cloud of authorities. Sir Fre- deric then commented upon the conduct of Sir Bowring with reference to the alleged insult, which i John was determined to regard as deliberate and intentional. He urged that when a reprisal had been made upon a junk, there should have been an end of the affair but, although the insult to the British flag had been completely redressed. the British officials, by an after thought, resolved to compel their admission into Canton by force of arms- The papers before the House inspired him, he said, with sorrow, shame, and indignation, and would remain a lasting monument of, the bad faith of England. Sir W. Williams, in arguing against the resolution, ob- served that the superiority we assumed over Eastern nations was produced entirely by their own fault, they having separated themselves from the great family of mankind. He believed that the insult offered by the Chinese to our flag was a premeditated one. Mr. S. Herbert dismissed the legal technicalities by saying that he agreed with those who in the very papers themselves admitted that the Arrow was not a British vessel; that Kennedy was only the nominal master that the owners of the license were not British subjects, and that if the lorcha had been a British vessel the reparation obtained was far more than the occasion requiied. Thili had been confessed by Mr. Consul Parkes, and the officials thereupon cast about to find a pretext for exacting further satisfaction from the Chinese. Sir John Bowring, having got together a fleet, now thought circumstances were auspicious" for requiring the fulfilment of the article of the treaty stipulating for access to Canton, and, in spite of repeated prohibitions from home, demanded the immediate concession of a claim which had been suspended so many years. It had been said that all these transactions had had the general concurrence of Sir M. Seymour. But how was it obtained ? By what he characterised as false pretences employed by Sir John Bowring, who had made, he said, a disingenuous use of despatches from home. Mr. Herbert then censured the conduct of the Government in commend- ing the judgment, firmness, and moderation of those who had inflicted so much suffering upon the Cantonese, and their respect for private property. He, on the contrary, felt the deepest indignation at force exercised with so little mercy on pretexts so transparently fraudulent. Mr. Serjeant Shee said if the law, as laid down by LoM Derby and Lord Lyndhurst in one House, and learned members in the other, were correct, the treaty of 1843 was totally repealed. He, on the other hand, submitted that the law was correctly stated by the Attorney-General, and that the true construction of the treaty was that a Chinese ship, Chinese-built, Chinese-manned, the property of a Chenese resident at Hongkong, registered there, was, to all intents and purposes, a British ship. Chinese residents at Hongkong, since its cession, were to all intents and pur- poses, British subjects, and, independently of this, the nationality of the ship depended upon the residence of the owner. The debate was again adjourned. Certain bills having been advanced a stage, and some other business disposed of, the House adjourned at ten minutes past twelve o'clock. WEDNESDAY, MAncn 4. The adjourned debate on China was once more remraed. Mr. lloundell Palmer said, it being by no means difficult to justify a vote in support of the resolution proposed by Mr. Cobden, that the Chinese had given us no ground of complaint, it was indispensable that the Government should justify the beginning of hostilitiet by showing that the Chinese had been guilty of a violation of their duty towards Great Britain. It had been admitted that the British flAg by itself was wholly irrelevant to the question as to the nationality of the Arrow it must be shown that by the treaty she was an English merchant vessel, and if this were not.done there was uo justification whatever for the hostili- ties. A British lorcha without a British register was not a British vessel for he denied the position of the Attorney- General, that the vessel was British because the owner was resident at Hongkong. If this were true, by a parity of reasoning, an Englishman residing at Canton or Shanghai might impart a Chinese character to his ship, a doctrine which, as he argued at some length, would lead to absurd consequences. Then, was there any other ground besides ownership ? The British character could be impressed upon the vessel only by the colonial ordinance, and, assuming that ordinance to be legal, the register granted under it had expired, and he maintained that the expiry of the register was absolutely fatal to the case. There could be no mistake Sir John Bowring must have understood the matter; he knew and confessed that the protection under the register was gone. Upon the general question, much, he observed, had been said of the crimes of the Chinese, the vexations suffered by Englishmen in China. and the vices of the Chinese Government; but the true bearing of these remarks, in his opinion, was not that we should persevere in the course we had taken, but if we dealt with a people who were misgoverned, imperfectly civilized, and easily provoked to outrage and violence, that we should be more careful to exhibit an example of humanity and moderation in our conduct towards them, instead of asserting our power, and, after obtaining reasonable reparation, insisting upon further demands. Colonel Herbert contrasted the sentiments expressed by the Government resepecting public servants employed at a distance with the treatment experienced by the late Lord Raglan. Mr. Kendall expressed his conscientious belief that if the resolution passed it would cause more bloodshed. He could not forget, he said, who had driven us into the late war, and who had helped us out of it, and if we were now at war he wanted to know who were most likely to get us out of it. Mr. Kendall diverged into topics somewhat remote from the question, with the view of showing the evil effects which would, in his opinion, follow the displacement of the present First Minister. Mr. Gibson defended the agitation of this question upon constitutional grounds. When the papers were laid upon the table the executive Government invited the opinon of the House upon their conduct, and the resolution affirmed that the papers failed to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton. He noticed the objections to the resolutions, grounded upon the effect it would exert upon the people of Canton and upon the opinion of the European merchants in China, contending that it was not correct to impute to the general mercantile community of England the opinions of those who were connected with the opium and tea trades of China, and who might, he said, be swajed by their interests. Nothing more convinced him of the propriety of the resolution than that the great body of the Conservative party supported it. Applying himself more directly to the question, he asked why no attempt had been made to refer the matter to the Emperor of China, who might have reprimanded Commissioner Yeh ? Instead of this, hostilities were at once commenced, which made it difficult for the Emperor to do us justice. With regard to the nationality of the lorcha, be cited a dictum of Dr. Lushington, to the effect that it was not competent to any State, by its own regulations, at once to change the national character of a vessel to the detriment of other States, which confirmed, he said. the view taken by Lord Lyndhurst of this question, that this country had no right to convert a Chinese ship into a British ship. Mr. Osborne, premising that the question had been to obfuscated by the arguments of lawyers that it had got into a morass, invited the House to discuss it upon broader grounds. The real question, he said, rewlve itself into two points-first, were Sir John Bowring, Mr. Consul Parkes, and Sir M. Seymour justified in the course they had adopted after deliberate consideration, they being on the spot; secondly, were Her Majesty's Ministers worthy of censure for their approval and support of their officers ? After reading a ferocious proclamation issued by the local Government of Canton, ridiculing the proposal of Mr. Gib- son to refer the dispute to the Emperor of China, and cen- suring his reflections upon the merchants trading with China, he warned the House that the consequence of pas- sing a vote of censure upon the Government in this matter would be the presentation of a bill for damages by the Ame- rican and other merchants to the amount of five millions, besides the loss of life. He complained of the attacks up oil Sir John Bowring, who, he said, had been hunted aovrn, called a blunderer, a liar, and eveything but a thief. 'But it was not Sir John Bowring at Hongkong who was struck at, but the Minister in Downing-street; the real cajact wot to displace Lord Palmerston, to. throw over board the man who had brought us through the war, who never forIGok. friend, and had no enemy but those of his country, Mr. Henley remarked upon the desultory character ef Mr. Osborne's speech, which he proposed to avoid. The House, he said, were called upon to say whether the papers did or did not fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton. On the other hand, the Government had approved the judgment, ifrmness, and tao- deration of the British officials, and their respect for the lives and property of the Chinese. If there was any rea- sonable doubt, he admitted that they should have the be- nefit of it; but he protested against any inference in their favour being drawn from the character of the Chinese, which was foreign to the question. In the matter of the lorcha, be the Chinese right or wrong, was not the seiznre of the forts a sufficient reprisal and reparation ? He thought it was. But, after this, the case was complicated by ano- ther demand, the right of entry, under the treaty, into Canton and there was not anything in the papers which led him to the conclusion that it was either a justifiable demand or wise policy to endeavour to obtain its concession in the mode that was adopted. Much had been said of the effects which this resolution might have on the other siae of the water; but he must not be asked, he observed, to approve acts which no circumstances in human life could justify-downright, wilful, and deliberate untruth, and the bringing the horrors of war without proved necessity and without warning, upon non-combatants. Mr. E. Earerton said he should not enter into the legal merits of the question. Whether the Arrow was a British vessel or not whether Sir John Bowring had exercised a proper amount of modefation and discretion; whether the reparation was sufficient,-were matters he forbore to in. quire into. He asked his mind what would be the practi- cal effect of the resolution. He had heard from experienced persons that its effects would be dangerous in the extreme, and be believed that Sir G. Grey had not exaggerated when he said that British property and British life would be un- safe. These considerations induced him to give his vote against the motion and in favour of the Government. Mr. J. Pbillimore expressed his solemn and deliberate conviction that in point of law the Chinese were in the right, and that the pretence for calling the lorcha a Bnttsa ship was a manifest absurdity. It was apparent to him, from the perusal of the papers, that these grave disasters resulted from a sense of offended dignity in Sir John Bow- ring, who had succeeded in getting what he called a "a substantial grievance." Mr. Cochrane, in supporting the motion, described the condition of the city of Canton, which, he insisted-1 op- position to Mr. Osborne, had been bomed. Mr. T. Chambers opposed the motion ?????? ?  t tbo the House was called upon to do a judical .ot;t tile resolution was a vote of censure ana c°thing the Government at home, who bad DOt d,?nÐ tint It 10 plained of, and upon our repr?sentties in China. if .00, plained of, and upon our representatives ? ? Bowring at the time; it should conJlder tb. -charactele Dowring at the time; it with thetr the House should place itsseb& .u? td ??????tt. t.n with their Chinese and the historyof. '?"? "upport but the whole ?o?' -? alt the.e  tlal pOints. e had tttrn'ed  Ii ArroW. But it tial points. He had nved a £ thewc n| £ c rusion that,in almostfere rjgtt rto the »_^ Arrow. of law, we;