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. 13states 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-of the-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.
