This chapter covers some of the salient points raised during the four-day debate in the House of Commons –from Thursday, 26 February, to Tuesday, 3 March 1857 (with a weekend break midway). Since some of the issues had been debated in the House of Lords, and hence covered in previous chapters, 3 their treatment will not be repeated here, unless there were novelties in the Commons debate.

I. What were the motives behind the pretext for war?

Richard Cobden opened the debate by asking, ‘Why did the Government allow us to drift into a quarrel in which our cause is bad, if for years sufficient grounds have existed for interference?’ He wondered why the government had to wait till their representatives had stumbled into a quarrel, and commenced a war for which, in the opinion of the best lawyers, there were no legal grounds.

This question of the timing of the quarrel is of serious interest: why not before, and on more grave matters? We shall explore this further in Chapter II.

Cobden also wondered if China would have been treated in the same way had it been stronger: ‘I ask you to consider this case precisely as if you were dealing with another Power. If you please, we will suppose that instead of being at Hong Kong dealing with Canton, we are at Washington dealing with Charleston’, where an incident similar to the Arrow affair had occurred.