2-979-595 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Debate in the House of Commons on the China Question - the Opposition Tellers (Mr. Cobden and Mr. Milner Gibson) reading the Result of the Division, 1857. 'In all questions of war Mr. Cobden has earned for himself the reputation of a man with one idea. He is possessed of a monomania...Such a dispute could not have occurred with any country except China, and in no country except in England, and in no place except in the British Parliament, could such differences of opinion have arisen respecting it. Faction for its own purposes, aided by the honest monomania of Mr. Cobden, may strive to prove that the men to whom is intrusted in those distant regions the honour and the authority of England ought to act towards the Chinese as they would towards the French, or the Americans, or any other Christian and civilised nation. The answer is, that it is impossible to do so'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.