Lord Mayor Cubitt gave a dinner at the Mansion House
on Wednesday to his friend Lord Elgin. The Dukes of Somerset and Argyll were there, and several distinguished politicians and military men, Sir Hope Grant being among the latter. The speech of the chief guest was the incident of the evening. The greater part of it related to the past, Lord Elgin recalling to mind the circumstances which preceded and which followed his first appointment: apolitical et:avulsion in legland, and a mutiny in India—a mutiny in which the China expedition played so conspicuous a part. That the.China expedition was so promptly diverted to Calcutta was due to the Principal guest of Lord Mayor Cubitt. The section of Lord Elgin's speech relating to the future is of great moment, because it points out dangers, and how they are to be met :
" What are the advantages that we are likely to derive from the new privileges and rights which we have obtained under our treaties with Chins? That, my Lord Mayor, no doubt opens a very wide field to speculation. If we can succeed in establishing friendly relations not only with the Government, but with the people of China—if we can persuade them to adopt some of our tastes and habits; for although they are very averse to change, they are not like many other Orion- tairaces, cut off from all communion with us by inveterate prejudices of caste ;— if we can succeed, I say, in these objects, it is impossible to set limits to the amount of trade that is likely to grow up between two nations so industrious and so commercial. But there is one particular advantage which may be ex- pected to accrue from the establishment of the Queen's representative at Pekin, to which I wish to call your attention, because 1 think it has been remarkably illustrated by what has occurred very recently in Japan. You have probably observed that a very serious crime was a short time ago perpetrated in that country. A European, but not a British subject, was murdered under circum- stances which leave at any rate a charge of culpable indifference upon the Japan- ese Government. Well, what followed? Our Minister, acting, as it appears to me, with excellent judgment, retired to a short distance from the capital. He did not threaten war, but threatened what we understand in Europe by the phrase a 'suspension of diplomatic relations.' And, if our former experience of China is any guide to. us, I think we may conclude with absolute certainty that such a me- mice, if it had been made at an outport to a subordinate trinctumary, would not have produced any effect whatever. That functionary would probably have written to the Supreme Government to say that he had kicked the barbarian oat of hi, town (a Laugh), and have claimed all manner of rewards for inflicting on him this defeat by diplomacy or force. But Mr. Alcock was at the capital, in relations with the Supreme Government; and that Government, seeing the danger, and baring power to act, immediately took alarm at this menace, and acoordingly within the space of a week, I think, or at heist a very few days, this Government, who when I negotiated a treaty with them talked of the residence of a Minister at Jeddo as one of the greatest calamities which could possibly befal them, came forward and implored our Minister to go back, offering him at the same time any guarantees for the future which he chose to demand. I am quite aware that there is very great difference between Pekin and Jeddo, and that the advisers of the Emperor ofVhina me not such intelligent persons as the advisers of the Emperor of Japan. But I feel very confident that this threat of a suspension of diplomatic relations will have the same effect, as a preventive of war ands preservative of peace, at the Chinese capital as recent eveata see' to show it has had at the Japanese. (Cheers.) Ify Lord Mayor, I should be very much to blame if, having an opportunity of addressing an assembly is this place, I omitted to call attention to the fact that the occasional misconduct of our own countrymen and other foreigner in China is one of the greatest, perh.ips the very greatest, difficulties with which the Queen's representatives there have to deal. We send out to that country honourable merchants and devout missionaries,
who scatter benefits in emery part of the land they visit, elevating and raising the standard of civilization wherever they go. But sometimes, unfortunately,
there slip out from among us dishonest traders and ruffians who disgrace our trams and set the feelings of the people against us. The public opinion of England can do much to encourage the one class of persons and discourage the other. I trust that the moral influence of this great city will always be exerted in that direction. In addressing the merchants of Shanghai some three years ago, at the time when I announced to them that it was my intention to seek a treaty in Pekin itself if I could not get it before I arrived there, I made this observation,— that when force and diplomacy should have effected in China all that they could legitmately accomplish, the work which we had to do in that empire would still be only in its commencement. I repeat that statement now. My gallant friend who spoke just now has returned his sword to the scabbard. The diplomatist, as far as treaty-making is concerned, has placed his pen on the shelf. But the great task of construction—the task of bringing China with its extensive territory, us fertile soil, and its industrious population, as an active and useful member, into the oornmanity of nations, and making it a fellow-labourer with ourselves in diffusing over the world happiness and well-being—is one that yet remains to be accomplished. No persons are more entitled or more fitted to take part in that work than the merchants of this great city. I implore them, then, to devote themselves earnestly to its fulfilment, and from the bottom of my heart I pray that their endeavours towards that end may be crowned with success." (Lord cheers.)
Once a year Art entertains War, Politics, Law, and Justice—at the annual banquet which the Royal Academicians give to celebrate the opening of their exhibition. Although men of all parties are invited, it has long been the practice for her Majesty's Ministers to mono- polize the honour of responding to toasts, which, however, are not at all political in their import. This gives rise to several speeches,. sometimes of more—sometimes of less—interest. The chief speakers at the dinner on Saturday were Sir Charles Eastlake, the Duke of Cambridge, Sir Hope Grant, the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Elgin,, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone. We have more points than usual to cull from the speeches. The Duke of Cambridge, referring to the connexion of Art with the Army, made a graceful allusion. Speaking of Mr. Grant's portrait of Lord Clyde, he said :
" It is painted by a ,very distinguished member of your society, whom I am happy to see sitting near me, and the circumstance reeds to my recollection a fact to which I ventured to allude the last time I had the honour of dining in this room. I then took occasion to say that the army and the fine arts had many social and personal connexions, as well as more general relations of good- will and friendship, and a better illustration of the fact I could not find than in the fact that I now see sitting side by side one of your most distinguished members, who delights in the name of Frank Grant, and his gallant brother, Sir Hope Grant, who has recently so eminently distinguished himself in China." (Cheers.)
Lord Elgin, after vindicating his policy in burning down the Emperor's Summer Palace at Pekin, made a happy allusion to the characteristics of the Chinese :
"The distinguishing characteristic of the Chinese mind is this—that at all points of this circle described by man's intelligence it seems occasionally to have caught glimpses of a heaven far beyond the range of its ordinary ken and vision. It caught a glimpse of the path which leads to military supremacy when it in- vented gunpowder, some oenturies before the discovery was made by any other nation. It caught a gliinpse of the path which leads to maritime supremacy when it made, at a period equally remote, the discovery of the mariner's compass. It.catight a glimpse of the path which leads to literary supremacy when, in the tenth century, it invented the printing-press; and, as my illustrious friend. on my right (Sir E. Landseer) has reminded me, it has caught from time to time glimpses of the beautitul in colour and design. But in the hands of the Chinese themselves the invention of gunpowder has exploded in crackers and harmless fireworks. The mariner's compass has produced nothing better than the coasting junk. The art of printing has stagnated in stereotyped editions of Confucius, and the most cynical representations of the grotesque have been the principal products of Chinese conceptions of the sublime and beautiful. Nevertheless, I am disposed to believe that under this mass of abortions and rubbish there lie hidden some sparks of a Diviner fire, which the genius of my countrymen may gather and nurse into a flame." (Loud cheers.)
Lord Campbell was full of compliments to the English School of Art, and saw in Mr. Faed a successor to " our immortal Wilkie." He was afraid, however, that the Bench and the liar must return barren thanks :
" The lawyers can now hardly ever hope to supply you with a subject which by your skilful treatment might illustrate these walls—for now-a-days such stirring events do not recur among us as the trial of Lord Russell for high tesason, or the commitment to prison of the Prince of Wales by •Lord Chief Justice Gas- coigne. When I was Chief Justice of England the Prince of Wales, whom we all regard so hopefully, twice did me the honour to sit by me in the Court of Queen's Bench; but on both occasions his Royal Highness was courteous and condescending, and set an example of respect for the administration of justice ; so nothing historical occurred." (Cheers and a laugh.)
Mr. Gladstone mentioned a fact of singular interest :
" I should not venture to offer any opinion of the height to which English artists have attained, yet there are some points which mark their proceedings, upon which any man, as a man, may give an opinion. He may judge of the spirit in which they work. I have before me two men I need not name, each of them the most distinguished in the sister arts which are united together in the Aca- demy, and of whom I believe I may say that, at about the same time, they having received a commission for the execution of a great work from high authority, and each having executed the commission in a manner that must have satisfied the severest taskmaster, independent of himself, yet neither the one nor the other had satisfied the severer taskmaster still that he bore within his own mind and heart; and each of them has given, or is about immediately to give, the whole of his achieved labour to pitiless destruction, in order to begin again some- thing that may approach more nearly to his ideal perfection. (Load cheers.) The state of art cannot be other than promising when such a spirit of resolute self- sacrifice and chivalrous devotion distinguishes its professors—men who have at- tained the command of unlimited public confidence—men whose very name is enough, independent of criticism, to give circulation to whatever they produce. I trust that, as literature, so art may continue to pursue its forward path, and prove a blessing to mankind." (Loud cheers.)
Previous page
