“Anything else in the paper, colonel? I’ve not seen it to-day,” said Beauchamp, for the sake of speaking.
“No, I don’t think there’s anything,” Colonel Halkett replied. “Our diplomatists haven’t been shining much: that’s not our forte.”
“No: it’s our field for younger sons.”
“Is it? Ah! There’s an expedition against the hilltribes in India, and we’re such a peaceful nation, eh? We look as if we were in for a complication with China.”
“Well, sir, we must sell our opium.”
“Of course we must. There’s a man writing about surrendering Gibraltar!”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
“But where do you draw the line?” quoth Tuckham, very susceptible to a sneer at the colonel, and entirely ignorant of the circumstances attending Beauchamp’s position before him. “You defend the Chinaman; and it’s questionable if his case is as good as the Spaniard’s.”
“The Chinaman has a case against our traders. Gibraltar concerns our imperial policy.”
“As to the case against the English merchants, the Chinaman is for shutting up his millions of acres of productive land, and the action of commerce is merely a declaration of a universal public right, to which all States must submit.”