Karl Marx 
English Politics 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 5868,14. Februar 1860 

English Politics. 

Correspondence of The N. Y. Tribune. 
London, Jan. 27, 1860. 

The most interesting topics touched upon in the parliamentary address 
debates were the third Chinese war, the commercial treaty with France, and 5 
the Italian complication. The Chinese question, it ought to be understood, 
involves not only an international question, but also aconstitutional question 

of vital import. The second Chinese war, undertaken on the arbitrary behest 

of Lord Palmerston, having led first to a vote of censure against his Cabinet, 
and then to a forcible dissolution of the House of Commons—the new House, 10 
although elected under his own auspices, was never called upon to cashier 
the sentence passed by its predecessor. To this very moment Lord Palmer- 
ston's second Chinese war stands condemned by a parliamentary verdict. 
But this is not all. 

On the 16th of September, 1859, the account of the repulse on the Peiho 15 
was received in England. Instead of summoning Parliament, Lord Palmer- 
ston addressed himself to Louis Bonaparte, and conversed with the autocrat 
on anew Anglo-French expedition against China. "During three months," 
as Lord Grey says, "the British ports and arsenals resounded with the din 
of preparation, and measures were taken for dispatching artillery, stores, and 20 
gun-boats to China, and for sending land forces of not less than 10,000 men, 
in addition to the naval forces." The country having thus been fairly em- 
barked in a new war, on the one hand by atreaty with France, on the other 
by a vast expenditure incurred without any previous communication to 
Parliament, the latter, on its meeting, is coolly asked "to thank her Majesty 25 
for having informed them of what had occurred, and the preparations that 

English Politics 

were making for the expedition to China." In what different style could Louis 
Napoleon himself have addressed his own corps législatif, or the Emperor 
Alexander his senate? 

In the debate on the address in the House of Commons in 1857, Mr. Glad- 
stone, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Persian 
war, had indignantly exclaimed: "I will say, without fear of contradiction, 
that the practice of commencing wars, without first referring to Parliament, 
is utterly at variance with the established practice of the country, dangerous 
to the Constitution, and absolutely requiring the intervention of this House, 

in order to render the repetition of so dangerous a proceeding utterly im- 
possible." Lord Palmerston has not only repeated the proceeding, "so dan- 
gerous to the Constitution;" he has not only repeated it this time with the 
concurrence of the sanctimonious Mr. Gladstone, but as if to try the strength 
of ministerial irresponsibility, wielding the rights of Parliament against the 

Crown, the prerogatives of the Crown against Parliament and the privileges 
of both against the people—he had the boldness to repeat the dangerous 
proceeding within the same sphere of action. His one Chinese war being 
censured by the Parliament, he undertakes another Chinese war in spite of 
Parliament. Still, in both Houses, only one man mustered courage enough 
to make a stand against this ministerial usurpation; and, curiously to say, that 
one man belonging not to the popular, but to the aristocratic branch of the 
Legislature. The man is Lord Grey. He proposed an amendment to the 
address in answer to the Queen's speech to the purport that the expedition 
ought not to have been entered upon before the sense of both Houses of 
Parliament was taken. 

The manner in which Lord Grey's amendment was met, both by the 
spokesman of the ministerial party and the leader of her Majesty's opposi- 
tion, is highly characteristic of the political crisis which the representative 
institutions of England are rapidly approaching. Lord Grey conceded that, 
in a formal sense, the Crown enjoyed the prerogative of entering upon wars, 
but since ministers were interdicted from spending one single farthing on any 
enterprise without the previous sanction of Parliament, it was the con- 
stitutional law and practice that the responsible representatives of the Crown 
should never enter upon warlike expeditions before notice having been given 

to Parliament, and the latter been called upon to make provision for defraying 
the expenditure which might be thus incurred. Thus, if the council of the 
nation thought fit, it might check, in the beginning, any unjust or impolitic 
war contemplated by ministers. His Lordship quoted then some examples 
in order to show how strictly these rules were formerly adhered to. In 1790, 
when some British vessels were seized by the Spaniards on the north-west 
coast of America, Pitt brought down to both Houses a message from the 

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Crown calling for a vote of credit to meet the probable expenses. Again in 
December 1826, when the daughter of Don Pedro applied to England for 
assistance against Ferdinand VII. of Spain, who intended an invasion of 
Portugal to the benefit of Don Miguel, Canning brought down a similar 
message notifying to Parliament the nature of the case and the amount of 
expenditure likely to be incurred. In conclusion Lord Grey broadly intimated 
that the ministry had dared to raise taxes upon the country without the 
concurrence of Parliament, since the large expenditure already incurred must 
have been defrayed one way or other; and could not have been defrayed 
without encroacriing upon money-grants provided for entirely different 
demands. 

Now which sort of reply did Lord Grey elicit on the part of the cabinet? 
The Duke of Newcastle, who had been foremost in protesting against the 
lawfulness of Palmerston's second Chinese war, answered in the first in- 
stance that "the very wholesome practice had arisen of late years of never 
moving an amendment to the address, unless some great party object was 
to be attained." Consequently, Lord Grey being not prompted by factious 
motives, and pretending not to aspire to put Ministers out in order to put 
himself in, what, for the life of the Duke of Newcastle, could he mean by 
infringing upon that "very wholesome practice of late years?" Was he 
crotchety enough to fancy that they were to break lances except for great 
party objects? In the second instance, was it not notorious that the con- 
stitutional practice, so anxiously adhered to by Pitt and Canning, had been 
over and over again departed from by Lord Palmerston? Had that noble 
Viscount not carried on a war of his own in Portugal in 1831, in Greece in 
1850, and, as the Duke of Newcastle might have added, in Persia, in Affghani- 
stan and in many other countries? Why, if Parliament had allowed Lord 
Palmerston to usurp to himself the right of war and peace and taxation during 
the course of thirty years, why, then, should they all at once try to break 
from their long servile tradition? Constitutional law might be on the side of 
Lord Grey, but prescription was undoubtedly on the side of Lord Palmerston. 
Why call the noble Viscount to account at this time of the day, since never 
before had he been punished for similar "wholesome" innovations? In fact, 
the Duke of Newcastle seemed rather indulgent in not accusing’ Lord Grey 
of rebellion for his attempt at breaking through Lord Palmerston's pre- 
scriptive privilege of doing with his own—the forces and the money of 
England—as he liked. 

Equally original was the manner in which the Duke of Newcastle endea- 
vored to prove the legality of the Peiho expedition. There exists an Anglo- 
Chinese treaty of 1843, by dint of which England enjoys all the rights con- 
ceded by the Celestials to the most favored nations. Now Russia, in her 

English Politics 

recent treaty with China has stipulated for the right of sailing up the Peiho. 
Consequently, under the treaty of 1843, the English had a right to such 
passage. This, the Duke of Newcastle said, he might insist upon "without 
any great special pleading." Might he, indeed! On the one side there is the 
ugly circumstance that the Russian treaty was only ratified, and, con- 
sequently dates its actual existence only from an epoch posterior to the Peiho 
catastrophe. This, of course, is but a slight hysteron proteron. On the other 
hand, it is generally known that a state of war suspends all existing treaties. 
If the English were at war with the Chinese at the time of the Peiho ex- 
pedition, they, of course, could appeal neither to the treaty of 1843, nor to 
any other treaty whatever. If they were not at war, Palmerston's Cabinet has 
taken upon itself to commence anew war without the sanction of Parliament? 
To escape the latter power of the dilemma, poor Newcastle asserts that since 
the Canton bombardment, for the last two years, "England had never been 
at peace with China." Consequently the Ministry had pushed on hostilities, 
not recommenced them, and consequently he might, without special plead- 
ing, appeal to the treaties effective only during a time of peace. And to 
highten the beauty of this queer sort of dialectics, Lord Palmerston, the chief 
of the Cabinet, asserts at the same time, in the House of Commons, that 
England all this time over, "had never been at war with China. "They were 
not so now. There were, of course, Canton bombardments, Peiho 
catastrophes, and Anglo-French expeditions, but there was no war, since war 
had never been declared, and since, to this moment, the Emperor of China 
had allowed transactions at Shanghai to proceed in their usual course. The 
very fact of his having broken, in regard to the Chinese, through all the 
legitimate international forms of war, Palmerston pleads as a reason for 
dispensing also with the constitutional forms in regard to the British Parlia- 
ment, while his spokesman in the House of Lords, Earl Granville, "with 
regard to China," disdainfully declares "the consultation of Parliament by 

Government" to be "a purely technical point. " The consultation of Parlia- 
ment by Government a purely technical point! What difference, then, does 
still remain between a British Parliament and a French Corps Legislatif? in 
France, itis, at least, the presumed heir of a national hero who dares to place 
himself in the place of the nation, and who at the same time openly confronts 
all the dangers of such usurpation. But, in England, it is some subaltern 
spokesman, some worn-out place-hunter, some anonymous nonentity of a 
so-called Cabinet, that, relying on the donkey power of the Parliamentary 
mind and the bewildering evaporations of an anonymous press, without 
making any noise, without incurring any danger, quietly creep their way to 
irresponsible power. Take on the one hand the commotions raised by a Sulla; 
take on the other the fraudulent businesslike maneuvers of the manager of 

Kar Marx 

a joint stock bank, the secretary of a benevolent society, or the clerk of a 
vestry, and you will understand the difference between imperialist usurpa- 
tion in France and ministerial usurpation in England ! Lord Derby, fully aware 
of the equal interest both factions have in securing ministerial impotence and 
irresponsibility, could, of course, "not concur with the noble Earl (Grey) in 
the strong views which he takes of the laches of Government." He could 
not quite concur in Lord Grey's complaint that "the Government ought to 
have called Parliament together, to have consulted them on the Chinese 
question,” but he "certainly would not support him by his vote, should he 
press the amendment to a division." 

Consequently, the amendment was not pressed to a division, and the whole 
debate, in both Houses, on the Chinese war, evaporated in grotesque com- 
pliments showered by both factions on the head of Admiral Hope for having 
so gloriously buried the English forces in the mud.