Free Trade by Force: Civilization against Culture in the Great China Debate of 1857

Erik Ringmar, NCTU, Taiwan

Europe, Europeans like to believe, is not only a continent but also a civilization.1 We share norms and values which are more important than we are. Spreading our civilization has for this reason become an important goal. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. It has been difficult to make some of the people who do not share in the blessings of European civilization understand the importance of this project. Although they may agree in general regarding the relevance of European norms and values, they see the attempt to spread them as a hostile act of civilizational imperialism. And of course they are right Europeans really do think they are better than others and that the world would be a better place if everyone was like them. This civilizational smugness is as much alive today as ever, and it continues to involve Europeans in conflicts with the rest of the world. This chapter retraces the history of the idea of a civilizing mission as it pertains to one country Great Britain. Britain is interesting not only because of its hegemonic economic power and its large empire, but also since the country initially was quite skeptical of civilizational goals. It was really only in the last decades of the nineteenth-century that Britain took on what Rudyard Kipling in 1899 described as the white mans burden.2 By critics of imperialism, this mission was always 1 This chapter draws on my current research on European imperialism in China in the nineteenth-century, to be published as Liberal Barbarism: The European Destruction of the Palace of the Emperor of China (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2011). I am grateful to Jozef Btora, Yana Zuo, and to an audience at the City University, Hong Kong, for comments on a previous version. Originally written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the White Mans Burden was reworked and published in 1899, with the subtitle, The United States and the Philippine Islands. See "The White Man's Burden." 1

seen as a cynical cover for a self-serving policy of plunder. Surely it was supremely arrogant of British officials to speak for civilization as a whole? Surely other societies, especially those with a long and venerable history, deserved to be treated with more respect? And surely it landed the British government in a tragic contradiction when they concluded that civilization best could be spread by means of war? These were the precise points raised by critics from both Houses of Parliament when they met to discuss the governments handling of relations with China in late February and early March 1857. By this time, Britain had for over half a century sought to convince the Chinese to open up its markets to international trade. British diplomatic delegations, dispatched in 1793, 1816 and 1834, had all been rebuffed by the Chinese, and although a war the First Opium War had resulted in some Chinese concessions, British merchants wanted more. And more was exactly what John Bowring, the new governor of Hong Kong, was going to give them. In October, 1856, in blatant disregard for his instructions and without official authorization from home, he started a new war with the Chinese. What Bowring demanded was a China completely open to the world. Free trade was going to be forced on the Chinese. Such a policy, he was convinced, was not only to the advantage of British merchants but also to the advantage of China itself. Only by prying China open would the country come to enjoy the benefits of European civilization. It was Bowrings actions which parliament discussed in February and March, 1857. Bowrings war provided a reason for reviewing Britains relationship with China but also with the rest of the non-European world. In these debates, as never before or after, the options available to Britain were laid out at great length. And not everyone sided with Bowring. In the end he was censored by the House of

McClure's Magazine 12 (Feb. 1899). 2

Commons, and Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, was forced to resign. In the subsequent electoral campaign the same debate continued in the country at large. In the election the Chinese election of 1857 Palmerston was returned with a great majority and most of his critics were defeated. The people had spoken and their verdict was that free trade indeed could be forced and civilization spread by military means. Arguably, this is still a conclusions reached by many Europeans. Despite the loss of colonies, and a concomitant scaling back of far-reaching military commitments, Europeans have found it hard to let go of their civilizational goals. Indeed Britain still reserves the right to engage in unprovoked wars in order to defend them as evidenced by Tony Blairs active support of the American intervention in Iraq in 2003. If we ever are to liberate ourselves from this superiority complex, we need to rethink our relationship with non-European parts of the world. A first step in this process of self-liberation is to return to the arguments presented in the Great China Debate of 1857.

culture vs. civilization

At its core the Great China Debate concerned the relationship between culture and civilization. Culture is necessarily local, it is embedded in a certain time and place; the boundaries of cultures are drawn around societies and nations. Civilizations, by contrast, spread across cultural boundaries and are shared between societies. Civilization, moreover, implies a hierarchy of values. While the alternative to one societys culture is the culture of another society, the alternative to civilization is an inferior and threatening state of barbarism. Thus, while cultures often can live side by side with each other, no peaceful coexistence is possible between civilization and its alternatives. Civilization is always under threat and must be protected, not only because it represents our way of life, but above all because it represents

superior human values. Identifying oneself as the carrier of civilization is thus to put oneself in an adversarial posture vis--vis the rest of the world. For civilization to survive, we must either kill the savages, control, or civilize them. In European history, France was always the great civilizing power.3 During the ancien rgime, French civilization spread in the form of fashion as European elites adopted the language, clothes and manners of the Parisian court. After 1789, French civilization libert, galit, fraternit inspired revolutionaries across Europe, and those who did not heed the call were usually shaken up by the civilizing mission of Napoleons armies. Throughout the nineteenth-century, French politicians, Alexis de Tocqueville prominently among them, continued to insist that the ideas which the French state represented had an obvious, universal, appeal.4 Germany, by contrast, was the country of Kultur.5 Lacking a common state, their common culture was instead what united all Germans, and once a German state was created, it invested heavily in maintaining and strengthening this shared heritage. When Germany belatedly adopted the language of civilization such as when fighting the Herero in South-West Africa or the Russians during World War II the rhetoric was unconvincing and the policy obviously self-serving.6 British politicians and thinkers, for their part, were traditionally highly skeptical of civilizational aims.7 Edmund Burke was famously scathing of the French revolution which he saw as an assault on French culture by the proponents of empty civilizational goals. True to this outlook, he was instrumental in putting 3 4 5 6 Brett Bowden, The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 26-30. Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton University Press, 2006), 248. Bowden, Empire of Civilization, 34-40. On the Herero, see Philipp Prein, Guns and Top Hats: African Resistance in German South West Africa, 1907-1915, Journal of Southern African Studies, 20:1, 1994:99-122. Pitts, A Turn to Empire, 26-100; Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 153-189. 4

Warren Hastings on trial for crimes committed against the culture and people of India.8 Traditional British liberals were equally weary of civilizational crusades. As Jeremy Bentham explained, what makes the greatest number of people happy is unlikely to be the same in all societies, and colonies are a mercantilist mistake.9 Free exchange will eventually spread some values and ways of life further than others, but this is an unintended consequence of exchange and not its goal.10 All that classical British liberals wanted to do was to peacefully go about their business. It was only in the middle of the nineteenth-century, in a break with both conservative and liberal traditions, that Britain came to embrace the idea of a formal empire engaged in a civilizing mission.11 In the middle of the nineteenthcentury, a new breed of politicians and colonial administrators emerged for whom it was obvious not only that British society was superior to other societies, but that they represented a civilization, and that it was incumbent upon them to spread the blessings of this civilization to others less fortunate than themselves. By taking on the white mans burden Britain transformed both its relations to the world outside of Europe and its understanding of itself.

John Bowring and the walls of Guangzhou

We have received the following telegraph dispatches from Trieste, The Times reported on December 29, 1856: a serious collision has taken place between Britain and the Chinese authorities at Canton (Guangzhou).12 On October 8, the

8 9

10 11 12

Pitts, A Turn to Empire, 71-77 Jeremy Bentham, Essays on the Influence of Time and Place in Matters of Legislation, in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 1, ed. John Bowring (London: W. Trait, 1843). Pitts, A Turn to Empire, 107-114. The work of the Mills, especially James, is crucial here. Ibid, 123-133. Bombardment of Canton, The Times (London, December 29, 1856), 22563 edition. The following two quotes are from the same source. For an account see J. Y. Wong, Deadly Dreams: Opium and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 84-108. 5

Arrow, a ship under British registration, was boarded by the Chinese, the Union Jack hauled down and 12 crew men arrested. When British authorities in Hong Kong demanded an apology, the Chinese insisted they had done nothing wrong, and thus the matter was placed in the hands of Admiral Seymour. Hostile action began on October 24 when the forts guarding Guangzhou harbor were taken and the navy opened fire on the city. On the 29th the city-walls were breached, and on November 3rd and 4th the city was repeatedly bombarded. Property to a large amount was destroyed by fire and commerce was at a standstill. War between China and Britain the Second Opium War had begun. In the middle of the nineteenth-century, China still had limited intercourse with the rest of the world: foreigners were not allowed to settle in the country, to trade freely or to preach their religion; the Chinese had no permanent diplomatic missions and little official interest in the rest of the world. Hoping to open China up to international intercourse, not least to Indian-grown opium, the British had already fought a war the First Opium War, 1839-42 concluded through the Treaty of Nanjing, which granted foreigners trading rights in five Chinese ports and gave Britain a permanent foothold in Hong Kong.13 Yet the Chinese authorities seemed to be dragging their feet. Although foreigners, according to the agreement, should have had unimpeded access to Guangzhou, the Chinese, citing the violently anti-foreign sentiments of the population, refused to comply. And considering that a flourishing trade could continue outside of the city-walls, the British authorities had grudgingly agreed to this arrangement.14 This state of affairs was not good enough for John Bowring, the new governor of Hong Kong, and when he took up his post in 1854 he sought to convince the Chinese to live by the agreement. Back in London, Bowring had established himself

13 14

See, for example, Wong, Deadly Dreams, 25, 28-31. See Palmerstons statement from July 20, 1848, quoted by Lord Derby in House of Lords, 24 February 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1172. 6

as a man of letters and a translator of poetry. Acquiring a knowledge of the main European languages, he published a string of anthologies of Russian, Polish, Serbian, Czech and Hungarian verse.15 Getting to know Jeremy Bentham in the 1820s, he joined the Westminster Review as an editor, and wrote on literature but also extensively on matters of free trade. Bowring soon became Bentham's confidante, his literary executor, and the, sometimes unreliable, editor of his Collected Works in eleven volumes.16 To Bowring the free-trade doctrine was merely one aspect of a more general principle of free communication which he applied to every aspect of social life. Communication is civilization in activity, he explained. He who can communicate cheaply and rapidly with all his fellows must be elevated by the very fact of that communication.17 Indefatigably, Bowring canvassed support for his chosen causes. In the 1820s he was elected foreign secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace, and in 1838 he was, together with Richard Cobden and John Bright, a founding member of the Anti-Corn Law League.18 His translations of poetry too were a part of this larger project: thanks to Bowrings efforts, speakers of even small European languages would be able to communicate their ideas freely with the much larger English-speaking world.19 In 1835, after several unsuccessful attempts, Bowring became a member of parliament, but, having lost money in the railway mania of the 1840s, he was forced to look for a more lucrative position. In 1848 he was made Consul in 15 See Arthur Prudden Coleman, John Bowring and the Poetry of the Slavs, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 84, no. 3 (May 31, 1941): 431-459. On the unreliability of Bowring as an editor, see Pitts, A Turn to Empire, 296297. Quoted David Todd, John Bowring and the Global Dissemination of Free Trade, The Historical Journal 51, no. 02 (2008):388. Bowrings defense of free communication went as far as to reject quarantine regulations put in place during outbreaks of contagious diseases. Ibid, 374. Coleman, Poetry of the Slavs, 431. 7

16 17

18 19

Guangzhou and in 1854 Governor of Hong Kong and British plenipotentiary in the East. Arriving in China, Bowring was appalled by the Chinese attitude to outsiders. By restricting intercourse with the rest of the world, the Chinese had assured their own backwardness and stagnation. Besides, they limited the opportunities for everyone else. As many British merchants convinced themselves, if they only could gain access to the potentially enormous Chinese market their fortunes would be made. The country constituted a market so vast that all the mills of Lancashire could not make stocking-stuff sufficient for one of its provinces.20 Bowring quickly identified himself as the person who was going to open the door to this endless emporium. Writing increasingly emotional dispatches both to London and the Chinese, the gates of Guangzhou became the symbol of everything he opposed.21 And, as befitting Benthams editor, his demands embodied a profoundly Benthamite logic. Compare the Panopticon, Benthams notorious blueprint for a prison, in which a central inspector, by making the prisoners perfectly visible and himself perfectly invisible, easily could control any number of inmates.22 In Guangzhou, central inspection was exactly what Bowring was denied. Walls, after all, block visibility, and blocked visibility allows secrets to be kept and prejudices to spread. Not surprisingly, the Chinese were famous both for their walls and for their inscrutability. They had no interest in Bowring, the British or their manufactures. Bowring, in other words, started out as a British liberal of the classical type. Like Bentham, his mentor, he believed civilization would spread quite naturally as a 20 21 22 According to a skeptical report: W.H. Mitchell, Parliamentary Papers, 33, 1859, Session 2, 2571:243-251. See House of Commons, Correspondence Relative to Entrance into Canton, 1850-1855 (London: 1857). Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon; or, the Inspection-House: Containing the Idea of a New Principle of Construction Applicable to Any Sort of Establishment, in Which Persons of Any Description Are to Be Kept Under Inspection; and in Particular to Penitentiary-Houses,, in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 4, ed. John Bowring (London: W. Trait, 1843), 37-172. 8

consequence of free exchange Bowring was simultaneously a member both of the Anti-Corn Law League and the Peace Society. Once in China, however, he came into contact with people who denied these truths. A classical liberal, working from first principles, would have had to accept this state of affairs, but to Bowring the commercial potential of the seemingly unlimited Chinese market was too much of a temptation. The transfer to China had transformed his liberalism into a more aggressive type. When the Arrow was seized by the Chinese authorities on October 8, 1856, he had just the pretext he had been looking for. When no apology was forthcoming from the Chinese authorities, he coxed the Navy into action.

the Great China Debate of 1857

When news of the war in China reached London, Bowrings conduct was discussed in both Houses of Parliament during no fewer than six session between February 24 and March 3, 1857. Bowrings critics were well-prepared and eloquent, and he was attacked from all sides the right, the left and the center. As his detractors insisted, Bowring had acted immorally, illegally, and in blatant contradiction with the instructions he had received from London. A government which condoned such conduct must be censored by parliament. In the Lords it was Edward Smith Stanley, the 14th Earl of Derby, who first raised the issue.23 Derby was the leader of the Conservative opposition and himself a former Prime Minister. He feared public opinion and regarded parliament, elected by a restricted franchise, as the only legitimate voice of the British people. In the 1840s he had defended the protectionist Corn Laws on the grounds that they served as a bulwark against social change. Like all proper English aristocrats, Derby loved horse-racing, and he helped establish the rules which still regulate the

23

Thomas E. Kebbel, Life of the Earl of Derby, K.G. (London: W.H. Allen & Co, 1893), 303-332. 9

sport.24 It may indeed have been his sense of fair-play which prompted him to raise the question of Bowrings conduct: I am an advocate, as he put it, for perplexed and bewildered barbarism against the arrogant demands of overweening, self-styled civilization.25 And the fact that he had to launch this defense in front of an English audience did not deter him in the least since he trusted in the sense of equity and justice and of humanity of his fellow lords. In the House of Commons it was Richard Cobden who led the attack. He was in all respects the opposite of Derby: a radical and a self-made man, a founding member of the Anti-Corn Law League and the most vocal proponent of free trade both in and outside of parliament. Cobden believed in all the radical causes: a broadened franchise, abolition of the church rates, and Catholic emancipation. He was also active in the peace movement and a supporter of disarmament and negotiated settlements of international conflicts. On the question of the new China war, however, he and Derby drew identical conclusions: Britains reputation in the world required them to stand up for justice and for the Chinese. Combining forces, Derby and Cobden began with the question of the Arrow. It should be perfectly evident, they insisted, that Bowring's conduct was outrageous. The ship, first of all, was not British. Built by the Chinese, with a Chinese owner and a Chinese crew, the only thing British about it was the hired hand a 20 something run-away apprentice who served as its nominal captain.26 Our officials in Hong Kong acted in contradiction with our own laws when they registered this ship as a British vessel. As everyone knew, the only reason this practice persisted was to protect illicit trade and the Arrow was a notorious salt and opium smuggler.27 Even more damagingly, Lord Derby continued, at the time 24 25 26 The Times, July 11, 1857, issue 22729. Lord Derby, House of Lords, 24 February, 1856, Hansard, vol 144, cc1155. The Englishman on-board, as he very candidly admits in his deposition, was only the nominal master. Lord Derby, House of Lords, 24 February 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1167. Wong, Deadly Dreams, 58. 10

27

of the arrest the Arrow's registration had lapsed and the ship was for that reason no longer entitled to British protection.28 While Bowring acknowledged as much when dealing with British officials, he had continued, in correspondence with the Chinese, to demand an apology. I ask you, said Derby, turning to his fellow lords, whether in your hearts and consciences you are satisfied to rest a declaration of war, or still more, war without a declaration, upon such a flimsy case?29 If we fail to censor Bowrings conduct, as Cobden concluded, we make ourselves party to his guilt. What I ask is, that we shall inquire who were the authors of this war, and why it was commenced? and that I ask not in the interest of the Chinese, but for the defence of our own honour.30 The second issue concerned access to the city of Guangzhou. Here the accusations against Bowring were equally serious. It was true, Derby acknowledged, that the Nanjing Treaty had granted foreign powers unimpeded access to five Chinese ports, including Guangzhou, but given the hostility of the inhabitants, it had been wise of British authorities not to press the point. For practical purposes the question was immaterial since Britain just as easily could trade outside of the city-walls. Our trade with China is flourishing, Cobden noted, not least since China, in contrast to everywhere else in the world, sets tariffs at a flat 5 percent rate. I only wish that we had, not five ports but, one port in France, Austria, or Russia, where we should have the same low tariff as we now have in China.31 The war, said Cobden, concerned nothing but Bowring's ludicrous desire to enter the city itself, in one costume or another, in order to meet with the local officials.32 Surely, said Derby, his obsession with the city-walls of Guangzhou 28 29 30 31 32 Lord Derby, House of Lords, 24 February 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1169. Ibid, cc1165. Richard Cobden, House of Commons, 26 February, 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1393. Hobson elaborates on this point in a letter, see John A. Hobson, Richard Cobden: The International Man (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1919), 198. Richard Cobden, House of Commons, 26 February, 1857, Hansard, vol. 144, cc. 1414. See also Hobson, Richard Cobden, 217. 11

constitutes a monomania. I believe he dreams of the entrance into Canton, I believe he thinks of it first thing in the morning, the last thing at night, and in the middle of the night if he happen to awake.33 In pursuing the issue in this way, Derby continued, Bowring had gone against his instructions since, before leaving for China, he had explicitly been told not to resort to measures of force without previous reference home.34 Cobden, however, was not so sure. Perhaps, it seemed to him, Bowring had not really acted on his own. When the present government came to power in 1853, there seemed to be some slackening of the rein, leading to the inference that the check previously held over our representative was withdrawn. I believe, Cobden concluded, that there was a preconceived design to pick a quarrel. This was a point expanded on by Benjamin Disraeli in his intervention. Noting that Bowring made his opinions very widely known, Disraeli concluded that the government were, therefore, cognizant of his views, and I think it is not going too far to assume that they approved of them.35 But Bowring and the government were not only attacked from the right and the left but also from the center by MPs like John Russell and Sidney Herbert. Russell, was a grandee of the Whig party and a former Prime Minister whose position eventually had been eclipsed by the slow but inexorable rise of Lord Palmerston.36 Russell was a free-trader, like Cobden, and a reformer an active force behind the Great Reform Act of 1832 but he was no democrat and there were strict limits to the kinds of reforms he was willing to contemplate. John Russell spoke on the first night of the debate, and he did not miss this opportunity

33 34 35 36

Lord Derby, House of Lords, 24 February 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1177. Quoted in Ibid. Benjamin Disraeli, House of Commons, 3 March 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1836. John Prest, Russell, John, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 12

to assert his independence.37 Bowring, said Russell, acted far too rashly, he should have consulted with London, and the parliament should have been involved in the decision from the start. Now that the matter finally had come before the House, we cannot be a party to this attempt to prostitute the British flag and sell our honor for commercial advantage. Sidney Herbert agreed. He was a Tory and a conservative, but of liberal persuasions.38 In the 1840s, Herbert had supported Robert Peel in abolishing the Corn Laws but in the Great China Debate he, and other fellow Peelites, joined Derby in opposing the government. He was a great friend of British exporters, Herbert declared, but he was not willing to compromise Britains honor. As for the Chinese he believed them to be most precocious and to possess an extraordinary degree of refinement, but also to be capable of great cruelty, selfishness, and the most degrading vices.39 I am one of those who think you ought not to treat Orientals as you would treat Europeans, but you must first make sure that you are in the right. I confess I see with the deepest sorrow force exercised with so little mercy, upon a pretext so transparent.40 In arriving at their shared judgment from such diverse starting-points, Bowrings critics followed traditional lines of argumentation. Lord Derby, a Conservative and a skeptic of free trade, reacted against the very idea of a civilizational mission. British liberties were rooted in British culture and could not simply be dug up and exported abroad. Derby was proud of British traditions, but for this very reason he understood the importance of respecting the traditions of others. Cobden, a Radical and an advocate of free trade, strongly supported the 37 John Russell, House of Commons, 26 February 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1465-1474. 38 Athur H. Stanmore, Sidney Herbert, Lord Herbert of Lea: A Memoir (London: Murray, 1906), 74. 39 Sidney Herbert, House of Commons, March 2, 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc.1670-1671. 40 Ibid, cc1679. 13

liberal values he associated with European civilization, but as he saw it civilization cannot be spread through war. The world economy is a seamless web of exchange where there are no privileged players. If trade is to remain free it cannot be forced. It is only through our success that we can show the Chinese the advantages of open borders. Meanwhile, said Cobden, China deserves our respect: If, in speaking of them, we stigmatise them as barbarians, and threaten them with force because we say they are inaccessible to reason, it must be because we do not understand them; because their ways are not our ways, nor our ways theirs. The critics at the center Russell, Herbert, and the Peelites combined these two positions: they were in favor of cultural values but also in favor of free, unforced, trade. As such they had double reasons to criticize Bowrings conduct and to stand up for the Chinese.

Palmerstons speech, and the vote

The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, spoke on the last day of the debate, on March 3. Starting out as a Tory, Palmerston had been elected to parliament in 1806; he joined the government in 1809, and continued in power, in various positions and with only short periods in opposition, for over half a century.41 In the latter half of the 1840s, he was Secretary of State and from 1852 he was Prime Minister. Although a strong supporter of the liberal, nationalist, revolutions on the Continent, Palmerston was no domestic reformer, yet his personal qualities nevertheless made him popular.42 He was approachable, jovial, and more than willing to meet with deputations of workingmen to discuss their grievances.43 His popularity was also 41 David Steele, Temple, Henry John, Third Viscount Palmerston, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 42 Indeed Sidney Herbert referred to him as an old-fashioned ultra-Tory leading the Liberal party, who hates Reform as he hates the Devil. Stanmore, Sidney Herbert, 80, 89. 43 Antony Taylor, Palmerston and Radicalism, 1847-1865, The Journal of British Studies 33, no. 2 (April 1994):176-179. 14

boosted by his stance on foreign policy. He was an aggressive advocate of British interests, most famously expressed, in 1850, in the so called Don Pacifico speech where he had defended the right of the Royal Navy to intervene in order to make sure that a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England, will protect him against injustice and wrong.44 In his speech on March 3, 1857, Palmerston began by vouching for Bowrings personal qualities and then went on to vilify Yeh Mingchen, the Governor of Guangdong province. Yeh, Palmerston said, is one of the most savage barbarians that ever disgraced a nation.45 Within the last couple of months alone, he has executed some 70,000 of his own subjects, leaving thousands of corpses to rot right where they were beheaded, and he, moreover, has put a price on the heads of all Englishmen in Hong Kong. To defend such a character is surely both unpatriotic and immoral. There was in Cobdens speech, Palmerston continued, an anti-English feeling, and an abnegation of all those ties which bind men to their country and to their fellow-countrymen; everything that was English was wrong, and everything that was hostile to England was right.46 As for the Arrow, Palmerston avoided legal subtleties since they do not touch the bottom of this matter.47 The point is not what actually was the case, but what the Chinese believed was the case, and they clearly thought the ship was British. We have a treaty with China, and that treaty says that British vessels shall not be boarded, and men taken out of them without a previous application to the British

44

Lord Palmerston, House of Commons, 25 June 1850, Hansard, vol 112, cc380444. 45 Quoted in Huang Yen-yu, Viceroy Yeh Ming-ch'en and The Canton Episode (1856-1861): 1. Hsieh Fu-ch'eng (1838-1894), Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 6, no. 1 (March 1941): 37-45. 46 Lord Palmerston, House of Commons, March 4, 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1832. 47 Ibid, cc1813-1814. 15

Consul.48 Consequently it was not wrong to demand an apology. We cannot carry on our commerce with China if our vessels are liable to all the caprices of Chinese police or Chinese authorities, and to have their whole crews carried off at the moment of sailing.49 We could perhaps have solved the issue through negotiations, but that is precisely the problem the Chinese have no regular diplomatic intercourse with the rest of the world. There are people in this House, Palmerston noted, who insist on respecting the Chinese, but we cannot trust them to judge British subjects fairly and this is why we cannot treat that country the way we treat others. In all our treaties with nations less civilized than those in Europe we need to make special arrangements in order to protect the interests of British subjects. This is how we deal with Turkey and Persia, and in the case of China, with their ferocious system of administration, such stipulations are even more necessary.50 Ancient Rome defended its citizens against arbitrary treatment, and we insist on the right to do the same. The words Palmerston used here Civis Romanus sum, I am a Roman citizen invoked the Don Pacifico speech where he had used that exact phrase to great effect. We are not trying to make China into a colony, Palmerston insisted. To establish free commercial intercourse with the Chinese does not mean that their independence would be invaded. On the contrary, it would be to the great and manifest advantage of the people of China if a larger commercial intercourse were established between them and other countries.51 The Treaty of Nanjing did not go far enough, and this is proven by the fact that our trade has not improved as much as we expected. We know there is an enormous market in China which would allow an immense augmentation of European commerce, but as long as access to that market is denied us we are forced to sell opium since we have no other way of 48 49 50 51 Ibid, Ibid, Ibid, Ibid, cc1814. cc1820. cc1822-1823. cc1827. 16

paying for our imports.52 If we apologize to the Chinese and censor our officials, then Yeh, raising a song of triumph, can say that [t]hese cowardly Englishmen are afraid of me.53 This would give him a license to go on bullying us and put all British subjects at risk. By voting for this resolution you will pass a sentence of death on Englishmen in China and assure the destruction of their property. The honour, the dignity, and the interests of the country are at stake.54 In responding to the critics, Lord Palmerston, formulated a doctrine which combined nationalism with civilizational goals. He was in favor of free trade, but at the same time he believed that free trade could be forced. International exchange was not a seamless web; there were privileged players who organized the system through political and military action. Just as in Benthams prison, some people were inspectors and others were inspected. Only once the system was set-up in this way could free exchange take place. Free markets, in other words, were created through state action.55 Since Palmerston, like all liberals at the time, equated free exchange with the spread of civilization, this was also a civilizational mission. Civilization would be spread through the gradual extension of British influence in the world. On March 3, the motion was finally put to a vote: this House considers that the papers which have been laid on the table fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the Arrow.56 The motion was defeated in the House of Lord, but carried, by sixteen votes, in the House of Commons. Palmerston dissolved the parliament on March 5 and called for

52 53 54 55

56

Ibid, cc1828. Ibid, cc1830. Ibid, cc1833-1834. Compare Polanyi's discussion of the role of the state in creating domestic, national, markets in the nineteenth-century. Karl Polanyi, [1944], The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). House of Commons, March 4, 1857, Hansard, vol 144, cc1832. 17

an election to the House of Commons to be held on March 27.57

the Chinese election of 1857

Once parliament was dissolved, the election campaign began immediately. Initially both Cobden and Palmerston were perfectly confident of their chances. I am sure there is no safer battle-ground than the Chinese business, Cobden wrote to James Graham, a Derbyite, on March 16. Our opponents will try to escape the issue, but we must rub their noses in it.58 Palmerston was equally sure of success. After all, the coalition opposing him looked perfectly ridiculous Derby, the conservative Corn Law defender had teamed up with Cobden, the radical Corn Law opponent and with the Peelites. There was no way they could form a government together. In Palmerstons mind, the election was not about choosing a new government as much as a referendum on him personally.59 And he knew he was popular with the voters. Palmerston pursued a simple strategy: the choice was for or against him and for or against Britain. While he, Bowring, and the government, had stood up for their country, Cobden, Derby and their supporters had koutou-ed to foreigners. This was a spineless, academic and unmanly posture of which all true Britons should be ashamed. And just as in the House of Commons, Palmerston poured abuse on the Chinese and on Yeh in particular arguing that it was both immoral and dangerous to defend the rights of such people. Through their illconceived humanitarianism, the opposition had undermined the position of British officials and put the lives of British subjects at risk. The leading newspapers, including The Times and The Economist, gave strong backing to Palmerston, 57 58 The voting was actually spread out between March 27 and April 24, with most results being available during the first week of April. Quoted in Gavin B. Henderson, The Pacifists of the Fifties, The Journal of Modern History 9, no. 3 (September 1937):340. Cf. Hobson, Richard Cobden, 205-206. Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. (London: Cassell & Co, 1886), 43-44. 18

59

amplifying and expanding on these points.60 Once they came face to face with the voters, the opposition quickly realized the trouble they were in. Several MPs who had voted against the government were deselected by their constituencies, and Cobden himself abandoned his seat in West Riding and moved to Huddersfield where he thought he had better chances. In the City of London, John Russell was not given an official endorsement and had to run as an independent. And even where the oppositions candidates were chosen, they were subject to heckling and suspicion. Up and down the country Palmerston For Ever-rallies were organized by supporters of the government and their arguments had a strong populist appeal.61 John Bowring was introduced as a man of the people, who liked his beef and his ale, and Palmerston became a friend of the poor and a great reformer.62 To the opposition this was absurd. It could never be in the national interest to get involved in expensive, far-away, wars, they argued, and Britains international standing had suffered from Bowrings irresponsible actions. As for Palmerston, to portray him as a friend of the workingman was a cruel joke.63 Yet nothing the opposition said seemed to help. I might almost say the universal opinion, is in favour of Palmerston at any price, Sidney Herbert reported from Warminster.64 I am very much alarmed at the state of things in Manchester, wrote Cobden. There is terrible rottenness and apathy, and desertions almost by

60 See, for example, Lord Palmerston's Address to the Constituency ..., The Times, March 24, 1857, 22636 edition; "The Election: Its Issues and Its Opportunities, The Economist, March 21, 1857. Cobden insinuates that both papers were paid off by the government. See Hobson, Richard Cobden, 218219. 61 Taylor, Palmerston and Radicalism, 176-177. 62 The Great City Meeting, Convened with so Much Solemnity ..., The Morning Chronicle (London, March 14, 1857), 28151. 63 Cobden openly admitted his bafflement at Palmerstons success with workingclass audiences after his tumultuous reception at Glasgow: There is no doubt that the demonstration was shared with the working-class, which is certainly one of the most singular and inexplicable of public incidents. Quoted in Taylor, Palmerston and Radicalism, 178. 64 Stanmore, Sidney Herbert, 80; Hodder, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 43-44. 19

streets.65 The election was held on March 27, and Palmerstons government was returned in a landslide. The Liberals received 64.77% of the vote up 7% and the Tories got 34.45% down 7.1%. More significant still was the composition of the two parties. While pro-Palmerston candidates overwhelmingly were returned, the leading anti-Palmerston candidates were all beaten, including Cobden and Bright, and many Peelites received the same treatment. John Russell survived in the City of London, but only thanks to his personal popularity. Clearly, they had all been seriously out of touch with the feelings of the voters. Cobden tried to put a brave face on things, insisting that he was sad not for himself but for his many friends who had lost their seats.66

learning our lessons

As a result of the Chinese Election of 1857, a number of lessons were learned. The first lesson, lets argue, concerned the power of nationalism. The candidates who defended their country, no matter what, won favor with the voters; the candidates who stood up for foreigners, no matter how justified, were punished. Palmerston had hit on a winning formula. It was easy to portray British officials as honest and well-intentioned, and equally easy to portray foreigners, not least Chinese, as corrupt and murderous. And if the evidence was lacking, it could easily be made up.67 The success of nationalistic appeals was particularly significant in relation to the question of the expansion of the franchise. The more popular the constituency, the more enthusiastically they responded to Palmerstons rhetoric. For Cobden, who always had seen himself as a defender of the common man, this 65 Hobson, Richard Cobden, 205-206. 66 Ibid, 207-208. 67 See Cobdens warnings in Ibid, 210. 20

was hard to swallow. The most warlike returns, he admitted, have come from the most popular constituencies, the least warlike from the most aristocratic counties.68 Cobden was in favor of a universal franchise but he was also in favor of peace, and as the election results showed, these could be contradictory objectives.69 For traditional elites, however, the power of nationalistic appeals provided a means of expanding the franchise while they simultaneously could retain political control. The lesson the Chinese Election taught them was that the votes of ordinary people were easily manipulated. Palmerston hates reforms, as Sidney Herbert concluded, and this is why he dislikes peace: wars make it possible to postpone reforms, while peace makes reforms inevitable.70 A second lesson concerned how to deal with Orientals. Late in May, 1857 only three months after the Great China Debate native troops in British India rose up in rebellion. The rebels captured large parts of the northern plains of the subcontinent and for a while they seriously threatened British control. When news of the uprising reached London, the situation was discussed in parliament, but this time the outcome was very different from earlier the same spring. The radicals and pacifists Cobden, Bright and their friends were no longer present in the House and the few remaining Peelites were thoroughly cowered. The verdict of the country, Sidney Herbert concluded, imposes quiescence on us.71 As they knew by now, there was nothing to be gained by defending foreigners and peace was not a workable strategy. Even Cobden, in the privacy of his retirement, worried about the impact on the British electorate of any expressions of pro-Indian sympathies.72 It was only Benjamin Disraeli who dared to stand up for the Indians and suggest

68 69 70 71 72

Quoted in Ibid, 208. Ibid, 208. Stanmore, Sidney Herbert, 89. Ibid, 92. Hobson, Richard Cobden, 223-224. 21

that Britain through insensitivity and cruelty had brought the uprising on itself.73 But Disraelis was a single voice and his position was regarded as an outrage by a British public bent on revenge.74 In early August, 1857, a parliamentary seat opened up in Birmingham and, despite the opposition of some electors, John Bright decided to have a go.75 Before he announced his candidacy, however, he expressed strongly, as The Times happily noted, his opinion in favour of an effectual suppression of the Indian Mutiny.76 His views on the Chinese difficulty were no doubt the same, but were he to bring them up in Parliament, nobody would take the trouble of reopening the discussion for his accommodation. In April 1859, Cobden himself was returned for Rochdale and he remained in the House until his death in 1865. Cobden is an outstanding candidate, The Times agreed, but when he opposes himself as an irreconcilable foe to much that will ever be in strength and honour among us, we see the elements of perpetual failure, which some partial triumph will only render more conspicuous.77 Although Cobden maintained his pacifist convictions, he never spoke on Chinese affairs again. Meanwhile the war with China continued with campaigns in 1858 and 1859, and in October 1860 British troops laid a siege on Beijing and, in an act of unprecedented cultural barbarism, looted and burned down the palace of the Chinese emperor.78 By now Sidney Herbert and John Russell had switched sides 73 74 William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, vol. 4 (London: Macmillan, 1916), 83-109. On the widespread appetite for revenge, see Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 199-224. Representation of Birmingham, Daily News (London, August 3, 1857), 3499 edition. A Seat for Birmingham Is Vacant ..., The Times (London, August 10, 1857), 22755 edition. The People of Rochdale Will Return Mr Cobden ..., The Times (London, April 16, 1859), 23282 edition. See Erik Ringmar, Malice in Wonderland: Dreams of the Orient and the Destruction of the Palace of the Emperor of China, forthcoming in Journal of 22

75 76 77 78

and in June 1859 they joined Palmerstons government: Herbert as Secretary of State for War and Russell as Foreign Secretary.79 As such they were directly responsible for organizing the war in China and meting out the retribution which the British still considered to be their due. The parliamentary discussions which took place after 1857 concerned how to finance these campaigns and how to equip the troops, but no longer whether a war with China was justified. Indeed, once the war was over it was Herbert who led parliament in giving thanks to the troops.80 This is how free trade came to be spread by force and civilization by means of warfare. Tempted by the prize of the limitless Chinese market, John Bowring applied his Benthamite principles in a most un-Benthamite fashion, transforming himself from the international secretary of the Peace Society to the instigator of unprovoked aggression. To classical conservatives and classical liberals alike, this was an abomination. The Derbyites argued against the war on national, cultural, grounds and the Cobdenites on international and civilizational. Meanwhile Palmerston, collapsing the interests of Britain and the interests of China into his own motives, made a foreign policy doctrine out of Bowrings recklessness. Submitting this policy to the people, he was thoroughly vindicated. It was the British people in the end, and in particular the more easily manipulated parts of the expanding franchise, who voted for war. The Great China Debate held lessons for its participants, but perhaps it holds lessons for twenty-first-century Europeans too. If we want to rid ourselves of our superiority complex and develop truly peaceful, truly equal, relations with nonEuropean societies, we have to become either Derbyites or Cobdenites. In order to become Derbyites we must abandon our civilizational pretensions. We can no longer presume that we represent values that are eternal and universal, and there World History. Prest, Russell, John. Sidney Herbert, House of Lords, 14 February 1861, Hansard, vol 161, cc366375. 23

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will be nothing that we can teach people in other parts of the world. Instead of a pan-European civilization, we will define and then defend a pan-European culture. Our culture belongs to us; it is rooted in European traditions and ways of life, and it has no automatic relevance or applicability elsewhere. If we become Cobdenites, we would go on believing in the idea of a European civilization, and we would presume that it represents values and norms which have a universal relevance. Trade and free international intercourse would be the means by which such a European civilization would spread. Yet we would once and for all repudiate all Bowring-style actions and all Palmerston-like justifications for unprovoked war. As Cobden pointed out, if we really believe in free trade, we cannot at the same time insist that it be forced; if we believe in civilization, we cannot spread it by barbarian means. Just as in 1857, however, it is ultimately the people who will make these decisions, and as the Iraq War demonstrated, people are still easily manipulated by jingoistic rhetoric. As Cobden noted in 1857, I fear the big baby of a British public is only to be amused by such rattles and straws as Palmerston knows how to exhibit to him.81

81

Quoted in Hobson, Richard Cobden, 226-227. 24