GREAT EVENTS IN CHINA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXI, Issue 30, 9 April 1862, Page 3

GREAT EVENTS IN CHINA.

[From the London Review, January 18.] Civilization may well be proud of the influence it is now exercising all over the world. Not many years ago, one of our leading statesmen, remarkable for his rhetorical powers, laboured to excite alarm in Parliament by dwelling on the immense population and resources of China, affecting to believe it probable that London might be bombarded by a fleet of junks, while an army of pig-tailed Tartars traversed the Himalaya into Hindustan. At this moment, however, we are witnessing a revolution at Pekin, conducted by two ladies, iv revenge, as they assure the world, for the injuries and affronts put upon our countrymen by the Ministers of the late Emperor. All people love, or affect to love, the land of their nativity, because, by enhancing its merits and consequence, they imagine they are increasing their own. The Chinese, above all other nations in the world, are characterized by this amiable weakness, which leads them to speak of the wretched and despotic region they inhabit as the Celestial Empire, the flowery land, the abode of opulence, contentment, and peace. When the English made their appearance last year on their coasts, to take vengeance for an act of signal treachery, the Imperial Miuisters could think of no better means of warding off one resentment than perpetrating another treacherous act, infinitely more portentous and detestable. The Envoys of Great Britain and France were to be invited to a conference, seized, and immediately made away with. If there were anything in this at all inconsistent with the Chinese diplomatic character, we might safely treat it as a calumny, originating with the Empress dowager and the Empress mother, in revenge for the insults offered to their beauty and character by one ofthe late sovereign's Ministers. But although empresses are aeldom over-indulgent to mea.

J who have disparaged their charms, or made ' light of their favours, we must absolve the two [ Imperial ladies of Pekin from the charge of 5 being actuated exclusively by vindictiveness. ■ When the late Emperor mounted his golden j dragon and steered away towards the other 1 world, the Miuisters who survived him clearly " perceived the peril by which they were sur- [ rounded. By their insolence they had excited i the rage of foreigners, provoked invasion, oc- '■ casioned the burning of the Summer Palace, exposed the armies of China to defeat and disgrace, and their master to the humiliation of paying a ransom for his capital. What was to be done ? If driven from office, they would probably be also driven from life, since their successors, it could hardly be doubted, would seek to make their own path easy by accomplishing their destruction. As a last resource, they fabricated a decree, purporting to have been issued by the Emperor immediately before his death, constituting them a Council of Regency, and committing to their care his infant successor and the two principal empresses. One of these gentlemen, the Minister of Finance, called upon the ladies separately, and sought to exasperate them against each other by scandal and calumny. But these two shrewd daughters of Eve had lived too long at Court to be outwitted so easily : they suspected the sincerity of Su Shun, and finding, by comparing notes, that they had formed a true estimate of his design, resolved upon his ruin. He had probably, in his imaginary confidences, called them ugly each to the other, and, for so foul an offence, death only could be an adequate punishment. Two conspiracies were organized, one by the ladies and Piince Kung, the other by the doomed Ministers. Fortune, being a female herself, decidedVor once in favour of her own sex ; the machinery put in motion by the Empresses was successful ; the ex-Ministers were seized, tried, and condemned to be nailed to a cross, and sliced to death. But the Empresses, though stanch in the cause of justice, were not entirely without mercy ; they waived the slow torture, and only condemned two of their antagonists to commit suicide in prison, by which means their estates were preseVved to their families ; while the third, he who had sinned in the matter of beauty, was ordered to be decapitated publicly, which implied confiscation of all he possessed, and the reduction of his kith and kin to indigence. In all the reports which have been transmitted to us, these events are attributed to the influence of the Empresses ; but it is quite possible that Prince Kung, their chief adviser and Minister, may have had something more to do with the business than those ladies. He has the reputation of being an exceedingly clerer statesman, and is believed, at his first interview with Lord Elgin, to have said, "We are two old diplomatists ; what is the use of long discussion ? We know that everything in this world goes by luck; it is a mere toss up ; heads, you win ; tails, we lose. We have tcssed, and heads have come up. What is it you want? Tell us, for we must grant it ?'' This blunt way of declaring the truth disconcerted Lord Elgin, whose proceedings, however, terminated exactly asPrinee Kung has foretold. The fortunes of Great Britain are now in the ascendant at Pekin, our friends are in office, the northern rebels are dispersed and few, our influence is omnipotent, and if we do .not now establish good conditions for our trade, the fault will be entirely our own. Of course, it is no easy matter to alter the habits and predilections of a widely spread and numerous people, but our first endeavour should be to impress upon these Oriental barbarians some little respect for human life and human suffering, which, up to this time, can hardly be said to be thought worth a dollar in China. The publication by the court of a defence of the late transactions, is a proof that something like deference for public opinion is beginning to be experienced by the princes and grandees of the empire. This may be thought by some to indicate consciousness of weakness, and may lead to the suspicion that the decapitating, poisoning in prison, and harsh banishment of the overthrown Ministers, will soon be followed by another revolution equally sanguinary. Some of the recent victims were relatives off the imperial family, and their violent death. may have been dictated by the fear that they ■would aspire to the throne. It was undoubtedly the most certain way of quieting their ambition, though we are surprised that Kuug and his female friends should have spared their relatives, instead of cutting off with the principal delinquents all those who might be suspected of an inclination, to avenge their murder. It is not a little curious to notice the equanimity with which our English merchants on the spot contemplate all these disastrous and truculent proceedings. Ministers' heads are, doubtless, of no great value in commerce, since we do not, like the Bornean Dyaks, smoke, dry, and hang them up over our man-tel-pieces as so many priceless trophies, which we would not part with for half a country. But when they fall we immediately apply ourselves to the interesting calculation of how much we are likely to gain by their decapitation. The headless gentlemen were our enemies, and so we can hardly affect to be inconsolable for their loss. Prince Kung is our friend, and his triumph is thought to be equivalent to many victories for England. We trust the event may prove conformable to this pleasant and flattering prediction, and that all Mantchous, whether mandarins or not, who dare to check the advance of our cotton into the inteiior, may fare very little better than the libeller of imperial beauty. At the same time, we are not altogether so sanguine as our mercantile friends of Foo-cho-foo and Shanghai, who look forward to the immediate commencement of a commercial millennium. All tragedies are welcome that put money in our purses ; all states and kingdoms should fail that stand in the way of our enrichment ; but in giving utterance to these seutiments, we ought, perhaps, now and then, to affect something like a regard for the fundamental laws of humanity, and be less open in our exultation than some of our trading brethren have been of late. We fully appreciate success, but we should like, if possible, to succeed in an agreeable way, though Ministers who when in power slaughter their countrymen by thousands, need not, when they fall, awaken any very lively sympathy in our breasts*