What is Lord Elgin to Do?: The Canton Dispute and Our Relations with China Considered

The China Question! Doubtless Mr. Cobden truly estimated the views as to this subject, not only of the somewhat somnolent and sporting body traditionally supposed to form an important element in the "country party," but of most other bodies, aggregate and sole, when he pictured to the House of Commons the horror with which honourable and right honourable gentlemen had received the portentous blue book on so uninviting a topic. Such views are formed naturally--or rather, perhaps, habitually--enough. Not the less, however, is it true that this topic, so devoutly to be shunned, has given rise to one of the most exciiting and--despite all its crudities, its fallacies and its pedantry--one of the most brilliant debates which has occurred in the reign of Queen Victoria. -- Pg. [3].