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FiiB. 4, 1860.j The Leader and Saturday ...
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THE £ S, d. OF THE FO11EIGN OFFICE. fpWO...
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* Wo quote hero the full titles of these...
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.
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Transcript
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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.
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China. A Paper, Of The Moderate Dimensio...
inentary letter , exclaiming « Who '< l 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 ot his proceedings to Lord Malm * sbt : ky . ¦ This epistle ( No , TV m the Scries ) is quite a curiosity in its way—it is more than a yard aoiig . in large print , and Regius 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 m expressions of approval of the attempt to force the Peiho , accompanied with confessions that the failure must have a very
mischievous effect . . ... , Further letters give an account of the ignominious treatment experienced by the American Envoy at Pekin , and convey Lord John Russell ' s approval to Mr . Bruce ; ' . while the papers wind up with an extract from the Pel-in 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 aetors in this unfortunate ' iarce , they would richly deserve the epithet of
' unreasonable barbarians . " From beginning to end we see nothing but folly and infatuation . The design and the execution were alike bad . Lord Malmesbury , Mr . BitucE , arid 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 inta submission with empty boasts . As old nurses frig hten children by calling out in a gruff voice , " I m a-« omiug , " so Malmesbury , Bruce , arid Hope , by making a udise in chorus , were to terrify our enemies . As might 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 of animal to wear the . British Tjton ' s skiri . :
Fiib. 4, 1860.J The Leader And Saturday ...
FiiB . 4 , 1860 . j The Leader and Saturday Analyst * . 10 ^
The £ S, D. Of The Fo11eign Office. Fpwo...
THE £ S , d . OF THE FO 11 EIGN OFFICE . fpWO Reports have recently been presented by the loreign-1 office to both Houses of Parliament , by Her Maji : stv ' s command . * Both are the work of Her Majesty's Secretaries of Embassy arid Legation abroadi 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 excellencewe 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 a right to expect from them a groat deal of information , and that it should be carefully and correctly stated . It 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 n 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 deficiencies and errors .
We must say , indeed , of the most elaborate of all the reportsthat of Lord ' Chelsea , on the " Past history and present state of the wine trade in France , "—that the greater portion of it is a work of supererogation . His lordship was called on to advert specifically to the " effect produced on the commeroe of France by ( he vine disease , from its first appearance to the latest moment , " But to this subject scarcely a dozen pages arc devoted , out of a hundred and twenty-four that ///« very elaborate report occupies , , It consists of extracts from various works on the cultivation of tine vino in Prance , and of " a sunminry
of the principal results of an inquiry instituted in luwiee , in i' 849 , on the effects of home wine duties , laid before the National Assembly , in June , 1851 , " This eiumot enlighten us as to the disease , which first made its appearance in France in 1850 . Any second-rate literary workman might lmvo done this work as well ns the noble lord , at the ordinary payment for transition .
The noble lord , however , had an object in translating the French report summarily , and fastening on it twenty-four pages of commentary . " Sir Emerson Tennani ^ Permanent Lnde .. ' Secretary of the Board of . trade * " drew up a report " purporting to describe ' the condition of our wine trade in 1853 r 4 , as compared with the previous , years . " It was " never presented to parliament , " because , we " suppose , Sir Emebson ' s superiors , estimating it at its just value , suppressed it ; but the materials were embodied in a work , published by Sir Emerson in 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 Ejierson ' 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 extenso at the national expense . This would be an abuse of power and a waste of the public money even if Sir Emerson Tennant ' s avowedly anti-free-trade production had made ah impression on the public . In fact , however , his errors were pointed out when his work was published , and it was not reserved for Lord Chelsea and the Foreign-office to expose the contemptible shallowness of the Permanent Secretary , or the futility of his attempt to justify oiu- present wine duties .
Passing from this condemnation of threerfoui-ths of Lord Chelsea ' s report to the verbal arid other errors of the two volumes , we notice , at page 77 , a misprint of 1847 for 1857 ;—a very trifling error , but it serves to make us suspicious oi the many figures 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 which , the French wine" ¦ rowers ^ represented as complaining of low 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 we are about to point out .
We must first ask Mr . Hamilton , Secretary of Legation at Wurtemberg , to explain to English readers what he means by the phrase— " Ji considerable roll in tJiis particular industry in plied by the activity of some Swiss mercJtants" . Frenchmen . ' ¦ may probably suspect that the hon . gentleman , using their language instead ' of his -own , wrote ., " a ., considerable role is played ;" while the Foreign-office or the printer , not understanding French , converted it into the nonsense we have quoted . Secretaries of Legation should not forget , though they riiny converse in French , that they must write in English . Mr . Corbett , Secretary of Legation to Tuscany , informs the Parliament that " com and other grain" are imported into
Tuscany . What he mrans by corn which does not include grain , or by grain which does not include com , 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 . Coubett might mead 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 less than . £ 11 ] Os . per sack , and the yearly average value of the importation of such com into Tuscany is je 30 , !) 24 , 794 . A sack of five bushels of the best wheat would not cost more in England tlian 35 s ; The value , too , of
all the grain and Hour imported into our country , with nearly thirty times as . ninny people as Tuscany , is about £ 20 , 000 , 000 a year . According to the statement put forth by the Foreignoffice , Tuscany imports corn annunlly to the amount ot £ 10 , 000 , 000 more in value than Great Britain . So , her trad <\ with something more than one million of people , is put down as of the average value of £ 147 , 308 , 906 . We could but stare at reading such very extraordinary statements , but a little reflection convinced us that either Mr . Corbett , or the Foreign-ollice , or the printer , had converted lire , hoIs ,- \\\\<\ denierx into £ a . d ., and so represented tlio trade of Tuscany , Mid the price of corn and other grain , and of all other things iu that duchy , ns thirty times greater than their real price and value . This gross Coiihett
blunder pervades all the monetary statements in Mr . « report ; so that ' wo must divide dtl 5 , 834 , 507 by'SO to ntroertaiu that tho value of tlio straw hats exported from Tuscany in 1855 , put down at tho above aniaunt in tho report , was M Zl , ai 7 . Mr . Lowvheh , her Majesty's fcfocrctciry of Legation at the Court of St . Petersburg , informs tho people of England that " their internal trade is looked upon m of , secondary importance . Their view will hardly agree with hid . They know that their railways , and nil their vehicular poninmnication , i « to carry on their Internal ' trade . They will senrcoly believe that shipping carrying cargoes coastwise to the amount annually of ! J 4 ,. 000 , 00 « tons ' , can bo secondary to any trndts in the world . England is no more dependant , as he says , on hor foreign commerce , than on any other branch of her whole . wonderful industry ,
* Wo Quote Hero The Full Titles Of These...
* Wo quote hero the full titles of these reports : — Int . —• ' ltoporta of Her Majesty ' s Secretaries pf jSmbneflv and Log « tion , on -the Effcota of tho Vino Disoueo on thoOonimwoe of tho Countries in which 4 hey roelde / ' Iliey oonoorn , the UnStoa Stntee , TuBoany , Spain , Aw 9 tria , Sftrdiniu , and France . 2 nd .-r" Hopprta of Her Majesty'fl Secrotnrii ' B of Embaesy and Rogation , on ifho Manufaoturea and Oommorco of the Countries in vrhiqh they reeulo /' They concern the Nctherlapda , WuTtemburjr , Baden , TuBoany , Sa ^ e Oobonrjj and Qotha , Sweden , EusBia , Bavaria . Switsjerland , Belgium , Frankfort , Sardinia , Srtco Moiningen , Mexico , and Auatria . Thoy are nreaented to both Houaefi of Parliament , by command of Her Modesty , and are printed by Hnrriaon and Sona ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 4, 1860, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04021860/page/9/
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