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    THE £ S. d. OF THE FOUEIGN OFFICE,

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    Tub 4 , 1 SG 0 . J The Leader and Saturday Analy st . 100

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    mentary letter , exclaiming " Who'd have thought it ? " . in reply to a " Couldn ' t help it" communication from the latter , and then the ¦ '" Envoy Plenipotentiary . " sat down to give an account of his proceedings to Lord > Ulm rsbt ; ry , This epis : le ( No . IV . in tho series ) is quite a-curiosity in its way—it is more , than a yard fon-o- in large print , and begins with an essay on the manners of the Chinese , and a . history of diplomatic communications with them ; after which it recapitulates a host of details , and ends in expressions of approval of the attempt to force the 1 eihp , accompanied with confessions that the failure must have a very

    mischievous effect . .... , , Further letters give ari account of the ignominious * treatment experienced by the American Envoy at Tefcin ,. aml eonvev Lord John Kussell ' s approval to Mr . Bruce ; while the papers wind up with an extract from the Pekin Gazette of the 14 th August , in which an imperial decree appeared , reciting the leading facts of our disaster , and declaring that " the English barbarians , violent , rebellious , and unreasonable as they are , have , on this occasion , received such a chastisement as will not fail to make them aware of the danger of offending the military dignity of China . " - , ,. ' Most assuredly , if all Englishmen were like the . chief actors in this unfortunate ' farce , they would richly deserve the epithet of

    *• ¦ unreasonable barbarians . " Prom beginning to end we see nothing but folly and infatuation . The design and the execution were alike bad . Lord Malmesbury , Mr : Bruce , and Admiral Hope , were all alike , in opacity of intelligence and obtusity of perception . They had but one ' idea among them , and that was a mad one—that the Chinese would be frightened , without adequate cause for alarm ; that they might be thrilled with idle threats , and bombarded into submission with empty boasts . As old nurses frighten children by calling out in a gruff voice , " I'm a-< -oming , " Malmesbury ; Bruce , and Hope , by making a noise in chorus , were to terrify our enemies . As might y have been expected , the plan did not succeed ; their " roar" was laughed at ; and the story ought to convey a lesson to John Bull not to permit any " sort pf animal to wear the British Lion ' s skin .

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    fpWO Reports have recently been presented by the loreign-I office ^ to both Houses of Parliament , by Her Majesty's command * Both are the . work of Him Majesty's Secretaries of Embassy and Legation abroad : one , a customary report , treats of the manufactures and commerce of the countries in which these gentlemen reside ; the other is a special report on the effects of the late vine disease . Each contains some useful information . It would indeed be strange , if the men whom , for their excellence , we send abroad to represent the nation , should

    not be able to instruct us on subjects connected with foreign countries . The public , and especially the parliament , have n right to expect from the&n a groat deal of information , and that it should be carefully and correctly stated . Tt is our intention , however , to show that some of these Secretaries of Embassy and Legation , and the Foreign-office , which supervises their labours and is responsible for them , perform their duty in a very slovenly and careless manner .. In this article we take no notice of the substantial information in these reports , confining ourselves to exposing some of their obvious dejficieneies and errors .

    We must say , indeed , of the most elaborate of all the reports — that of Lord ' CiiELSKA , on the " Past history and present state of the wine trade in Franco , "—that ; the greater portion of it is a work of supererogation . His lordship was called on to advert specifically to " tho " eiVeot produced on the commerce of France by die vine disease , from its , first appearance to tho latest moment . " But to this subject scarcely a , dozen pages arc devoted , out of a hundred and twenty-four that his very elaborate report occupies . It consists of extracts from various works on the cultivation of the vine in France , and of " a summary of the principal results of an inquiry instituted in France , in 4 849 , on the effects of home wine duties , laid before the National Assembly , iu June , 1851 . " This cannot , enlighten us ns to tho disease , which first inade its appearance in France in 1850 . Any second-rate literary workman might have done tin ' s work as well as the noble lord , at tho ordinary payment for translation .

    The noble lord , however , had an object in translating the French report summarily , and fastening on it twenty-four pages of commentary . '' Sir Emersox Tenxant , Permanent Un ;! e ; Secretary of the Board of Trade , " drew up a report " . purporting to descrilxj " the condition of our wine trade in 1853-4 ., as compared with the ' previous years . " . It \ vas " never presented to parliament , " because , we ' suppose , Sir Emerson ' s superiors , estimating it at its just value , suppressed it ; but the materials were embodied in a work , published by Sir Emerson iii 1855 , under the title of" Wine , its Uses , Taxation , etc . " Now the purpose of Lord Chelsea ' s translation and twenty-four pages of commentary is to criticise and refute Sir Emerson ' s conclusions . Thus we have one public servant going out of his way to criticise the labours of another , and the Foreign-office , instead of suppressing the attack on the work of the permanent Secretary of ¦ the Board of Trade , publishes it in- extefiso at the national expense . This would be an abuse of power and a waste of the public money even if Sir Emerson Teknant's avowedly anti-free-trade production had made an impression on the public . In fact , however , his errors were pointed out when his work was published , and it Avas not reserved for Lord Chelsea and the Foreign ^ ofnce to expose the contemptible shallownoss of the Permanent Secretary , or the futility of his -attempt to justify our present wine duties . Passing from this condemnation of three-fourths of Lord Chkxsea's report to the verbal and other errors of the two volumes , we notice ,, at page 77 , a ' misprint of 1847 for 1 S 57 ;—^ a very trifling error , but it serves to make us suspicious of the many figure ! the noble lord uses , the accuracy of which we cannot test . We notice , too , at page 54 , the omission by the critical lord of some words from the ' last ' sentence of the first paragraph that begins on the page , for want of whichthe _ French winegrowers are represented as complaining of tote prices , when the facts show that ' . they complain of the tax levied on them , whether the price be high or low . These are trifles compared to some errors which avc are about to point out . We must , first ask -Mr . Hamilton , Secretary of Legation at Wurtemberg , to explain to English readers what lie moans by the phrase— " A considerable roll in thin particular industry ik plied by the activity of some Swixs merchants . ''' 'Frenchmen may probably suspect that the hon . gentleman , Usingtheir language instead ' of his own , wrote ' ¦ a considerable role is played ;¦" while the Foreign-office 'Or- tlie printer , not understanding French , converted it into the iionsense we have quoted . Secretaries , of Legation should not forget , though they may converse in French , that they must write in English . Mr . Corbett , Secretary of Legation to Tuscany , informs the Parliament that " corn and other grain" are imported into Tuscany . What he mnans by corn which does not include grain , or by " gl'sun which does not include corn , the Foreign-office must explain . The Yankees mean maize when they say corn— -but their use of the word is not yet naturalized here . Hoping- to learn what Mr . Corhett mig ht mean by corn , we turned to a table , to which he refers , of the price at which corn is imported into Tuscany , and found to our utter astonishment—as maize is a low-priced grain—that this corn costs no loss than . ill l () s . per sack , and the yearly average value of the importation , of such corn into Tuscany is £ 30 , 024 , 794 . A sack of five bushels of the best wheat would not cost more in England than 35 s . Tho value , too , of all the grain and flour imported into our country , with nearly thirty times as many people ns Tuscany , is about ^ 20 , 000 , ()()<; a year . According to the statement put forth by tho Foreiguofiice , Tuscany imports com annually to tho . amount of * £ 10 , 000 , 000 more in value than Great Britain . So , her trade , with something more than one million of people , is put down as of the average value of £ 147 , 308 , D' () 0 . Wo cotild hilt stare at reading such very extraordinary statements , but a little reflection convinced uaJLhnt either Mr . Coiujktt , or tho Foreigiv-ofliee , or the printer , -had converted lire , , » yls , and denierx into £ h . d .., and so represented tho trade of Tuscany , and tho price of corn and other grain , and of all other things in that duchy , ( is thirty times greater than their real price and value , This gro . ss blunder pervades all the monetary statements in Mr . Qouhrtt ' s report ; so that we must divide X 15 ) 8 . 'J | . , 5 O 7 b . V . 'i <> to ascertain that the value of tho straw hats exported from Tuscany iu 1 S |> 5 , put down at thy above amount in the report , was £ 52 7 , 817 . Mr . Lowthkk , her Majesty ' s Secretary of Legation at the Court of St . Petersburg , infonus th « people of England that " their internal trade is looked nnoii as oi secondary importance . Their view wilt . hardly agrees with hiu . They know that their railways , and nil their vehicular coumiunioiition , is to carry on tlioir internal trade . . They will jroireuly believe that whipping carrying cargoes coaatwiae to the amount immiully ol' , ' } 4 , OO 0 , OO 0 tons ' , can bo secondary to any tnide iu tho world . England is no more dependant , aw ho « uys , on her foreign commerce , than on any other branch of her whole wonderful industry ,

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    * Wo quote hero the full titles of thoBO reports : — Ist .-- ' RcportB of Her Migcaty ' e Soorotivrjca pf Embasfly and Logution , on the Effcota of the Vino Diaoiuse on th « Commerce of the Countries in ivhioh they renido , " I'hey « onoorn tho United Stutca , Tuaoany , Spnin , AuatriiV ; i 3 urdir ) i « , fimrTrjuice . ' ¦ ' • ¦ tind .- ^ - '' lloportBof Her Mojoaty * B Seoretftrii'B of Embasay and Legation , on the Manufactures tvnd Oommcrco of tlio Countniea in vn \ iv \ i they rcaiflo , " They concern tho NQthcrlnndfl , WurtombwrB , BftdoPi Tuafiany , Snxo Cobourg and Ootlm , Sweden , Iluasia , Bftvariji . Switsserjftnd , Bolgiun ^ Fnuikfbrt , Surdinift , Brxxo Mciningen , Mexico , nnd / A . uatrin . Tl » oy « rc T > resontod to both IJouoeH of Pnrlfamon ^ by com m an d of Ho * M nicety , and are printed by IJnrrUon and Sone ,

    The £ S. D. Of The Foueign Office,

    THR : ' £ si . d . OF THE FOKEIGN OFFICE .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 4, 1860, page 109, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2332/page/9/