On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    108 The Leader andSaturday Analyst. [Feb...

  • 

    CHINA. A PAPER, of the moderate dimensio...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    The Annexation Of Savoy. Rilhe Arms Of T...

    Frenchman to extend his frontier . What the uncle did by day , the genius of the nephew leads-him-to do safely by . , night , with smiling f { ice » half-shnt coaxing eyes , and waving , deprecar ting hand . Now , if England had bought only some fishing village opposite Corsica , what' a stir there would be in the European hive ! The . grand stand at Epsom just after the winner ' s number is run up would be nothing to it . We should have been called " the robbers of the world , " the " trading cheats of both "hemispheres , *' ' and other fine names too numerous to mention ; Ten thousand thousand hands would have gripped their swords and powder barrels the very night that news was proclaimed—would hare been carefully counted in many a Government arsenal ' cross the water .

    The Continent , drunk with French . enthusiasm , we could scarcely expect to care much for the glaciers and cascades , the vine patches and mountain forts of Savoy , But surely England , so-sensitive to every fresh sail that is ¦ unrolled in a French dockyard , ought more anxiously to watch this new stride of . French ambition . About us English there is but one story abroad—we are ambitious merchants , who , wanting to conquer a rich country , send out missionaries and factors—humble , piousj these agents of ours—so the slander goes ;—next ask room for fi warehouse : it is granted ; we fortify it ; we turn what was to be an open hand into the clenched fist of menace ; the people ' get alarmed and attack ixs , feeling themselves threatened ; ' we retaliate ; war ensues ; we take the country , and so England extends her 1

    righteous- ¦ em pire . It was so in India , it is so in China . " Les voleurs !" . is the ready chorus of voices , feet , and'hands in diligence , train , steamer , or hotel . Yet France has her periodical volcanic bursts of conquest , and without getting the ill name we have so unjustly got . Fortune is very capricious in labelling men with ill names . Let the prodigal son join the Temperance movement and save sovereigns in a stocking , he is still shrugged at if he gives once upon a time a quiet party : If the prudent son launch out suddenly into champagne suppers and chickenhazard , he is -only called generous arid hospitable . The world so likes to have her sons labelled black and white , that she may be saved the trouble of studying their dispositions . So Europe Avill persist in calling the robberies of France annexations , and the righteous progress of England rank felony .

    In this , as in all other commencements of foreign trouble , we have , as usual , to bitterly lament the apathy of our island race to Continental affairs . Befoi-e the Times' cry opens—and with it all mouths—you might as well speak to a dead man as to our intelligent public . Years ago men foretold the dangerous advances of Russia , and the certainty of our collision with that iceberg in the East . Now , the brave Circassian nation , through our heartless dull blindness , has perished , with it went one of the last great bulwarks between Russia and Tndia ; now , unnoticed by even a picquet of the Press , without a warning gun , France proposes to annex Savoy , and establish herself in a Mediterranean seaport . ¦ . _

    An old politician ( Lord Aberdeen ) , in the ZYwesofWednesday , sums up oil the dangers of the union with sagacious brevity The union is bad because—It cancels the tm \ ties of IS 15 , that provide that the gates of Italy and Switzerland should be always kept in the hands of neutral powers . . l Second / . ) / . It places the western cantons of Switzerland , Geneva , Vaud , and the Yallois at the mercy of France . Thirdly . It places Turin , the ; cnpital of the Italian monarchy , within u ' day ' s march of the French outposts , and converts Piedmont into a dependency of Franca , who , in cuso of opposition , could cover her ' roads iu forty-eigttt hours with Gallic troops .

    To have' Suyoy is , in fuct , * to have one foot on Switzerland , another on Piedmont , with both arms ready to hurl fire on the Italian plains . There is a rumour thnt the surrender of Savoy is the secret service money to be paid France for the surrender of Lombavdy , and that it is now oifered in payment by Sardinia , to obtain some still unfulfilled conditions from the Emperor of France . . 13 o it so : has France had no sufficient payment , in humbling ' and maiming Austria ; in bleeding her from a thousand veins P- —shall thnt stand for nothing in the account ? And what use is the Italian strong box to Piedmont if France is to keep the key , and allow no hand to come to it but its own ?

    We want to rouse no ungenerous suspicions of the Emperor , but he is fallible y and , countries are more tempting than sugarplums . 'Wo do not say ho will tread , out Swiss liberty , or fill Nice harbour with War ships ; but his successor , with more greed than sense , may j so why , not put such clangorous temptations out of his reach ? But wo shall see . The annexation is not yet formally proposed , and material guarantees may bo given against the consequences , which certainly at present seem to bo imminent ,

    108 The Leader Andsaturday Analyst. [Feb...

    108 The Leader andSaturday Analyst . [ Feb . 4 , 1860 .

    China. A Paper, Of The Moderate Dimensio...

    CHINA . A PAPER , of the moderate dimensions of fifty-four pages , has just been laid before Parliament , containing the " Correspondence with Mr . Bruce , Her Majesty ' s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in China , " and we see little in it to justify the idea that , the Government of the Celestial Empire Will-carry , out . the Treaty of Tien-tsin if they can possibly help it . Tt is very pleasant for Ministers to hold out the hope of an . amicable settlement of our quarrels , without important operations and serious fighting ; as , if the probable difficulties were confessed , neither Parliament nor people might feel able to take the affair as quietly < os ministerial comfort requires . But under any circumstances there is hope for the Cabinet ; Mr . Cobden is at Cannes , John Bright will scarcely play the Mandarin , and the great British public is decidedly of opinion that China is a " bore . " We are somew .,-at of the same way of thinking ; but journalists are not allowed to grow weary of any subject of national importance , and as neither the Foreign-office , nor Admiral HorE , nor Mr . Bruce , have entirely stopped the exportation of tea , we must take a . cup of that fragrant article , and get through the " Blue Book , " which in this instance is white , as easily as we can . The " Correspondence " begins on the . 1 st of March , 1859—it should have been 1 st of April , as more appropriate for the sapient Maxmesbury , who indited the first epistle , and the astute Bruce to whom it was addressed . The late Foreign Secretary writes in . . such ¦ a cumbersome , soporific stjde , that if Mr . Bruce had not had the pugnacity and pertinacity of his great ancestor Robert , from whom all modern Bruges are of course descended , ¦ he must have gone to sleep the moment lie received it ; and had he done so , we might have had no Chinese war at all . Solemnly and heavily did Lord Malmesbury instruct the envoy that he was to represent himself as a . penal infliction to be administered to the refrac ^ - tory Emperor . " Emperor good ; very little Bruce : Emperor naughty ; Bruce to be laid , on thick , " Thus runs Lord Malmesbury , who has the honour of having achieved something , new in diplomacy- ^ -the invention of an ambassador Bogey , or Bogey ambassador , a contrivance which might have immortalized his name but for one little accident—the failure of the scheme . His lordship's " Old Bogey" proved nothing better than an " Old Fogey , " and the Chinese Emperor would not be frightened at him at all . We cannot expect that many M . P . 's , or other human fractions of the body politic , will read the wonderful document in which Mr . Bruce was instructed to become a bugbear and a penal infliction ; but so charmed was the Tory Foreign Secretary with his novel idea , that he repeated it again and again in his wordy epistle . It occurs in the beginning , in the middle , and at the end ; and 3 \ tx . Bruce was commanded to promise to make himself scarce if things went on smoothly , but V instantly to exercise" the right of permanent residence at Pekin "if any difficulties were thrown in the way of communications between Hei * Majesty ' s minister and the central Government at Pekin , or any disposition shown to evade or defeat the objects of the treaty . " Chinese opposition , and the need of a sufficient naval power were contingencies contemplated by Lord Malmeshury , but no instructions were given concerning the employment of iorpe , as his lordship seemed quite confident that Mr . Bruce would succeed if he threatened the Emperor with visits . at his Court . He was to tell his Pekin Majesty that , if there was no controversy or attempts to evade the treaty , " the necessity for such visits to the capital will be rarp ; and' when they arc made , they will bo rather complimentary than for the transaction of business . " The last hit is admirable—the British peer threatening the Chinese Emperor with " business , "—declaring . that ho would give . him something to do , if he did not behave himself , is -a choice specimen of official humour and wit . Mr . Bruce having boen duly instructed in the « ' Bogey" business , proved that he was ^ just the man for the purpose , and he forthwith concerted with Sir Charles Van Stkauhenzee , K . C . B ., and Itear-Adiniral Hope , C . B ., a " powerful demonstration" and an " imposing force , " to consist of sundry vessels and . a whole " battalion of marine ' s and a company of engineers , " which were to overawe the batteries known to be erected at Tien-tsin , and strike terror into the hearts of 50 , 000 troops already under Sung-wang-yay , and 30 , 000 more in readiness to join him if required . Anticipating- resistance , Admiral Hopia applied to the general for a < few rtioio marines , and Mr . Bruce having told Commissioner Kweiliang that his resolution to proceed to Pekin was " inflexible , " and having made a requisition to Admiral Hopk for support , the latter plunged into the intensely stupid action in the Peiho , and encountered a serious defeat . When ( he mischief was dono , Mr . Bkuce wrote-to Admiral Hope a oompli *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 4, 1860, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04021860/page/8/