20th March.
Traty's demand for Sanmén Bay has intensified loud croakings predicting the partition of China. The Japan Weekly Mail of the 11th instant says that Italy is "taking part in the big drama of assassination upon which the curtain rose at Kiaochou in 1897.
Assassination is the only appropriate term. China is being deliberately and slowly assassinated." Even the foreign Press in China, not excepting Shanghai, which one would expect to display a better informed view of the situation, asserts that China is being broken up. Gruesome similes of vultures gathered around the carcase are indulged in. But, while itis true that Manchuria seems destined to fall under Russian influence and perhaps to eventually become part of the Russian Empire, so far there is little else to justify us in saying that the dissolution of the Chinese Empire commenced. Dots on the map like Kiaochou, Weihaiwei, and Sanmén somewhat resemble the marks of vaccination. They may res:'t in diffuing a beneficent influence throughout the body; but they are_protective, they do not break it up. One may fairly argue that the more places are "leased" to different foreign Powers the safer China will be. Mutual jealousies have done much in the prevent progress, and these jealousies will be accentuated if the present development continues, What is really happening in China is the commencement of a vast change which will make the country a serious factor in Eastern polities. Railway and mining concessions, no doubt greatly the result of the late "leases," will immensely increase commerce and the welfare of the people; but China will not change much in internal politics. There has been abundant pressure on Turkey and Persia: with what result? What impression does Western civilisation make on the Asiatic? The Chinese in California are still Chinese, and so they are in the Straits, What influence have well-ordered and cleanly settlements had upon the neighbour ing cities? Has Shanghai city improved since we showed how municipal affairs are managed in the West The most ridiculous example of the emptiness of this talk about the breaking-up of China is to be found in the Settlement Extension deadlock. Being a mercantile community with the dollar as the summit of aspiration, instead of the Settlement having been laid out with wide streets, avenues, and open spaces—being made in fact a charming and healthy spot instead of the reeking lethal chamber it is at present—we have allowed the Chinese to crowd every foot of ground and to make life almost intolerable. The Chine.- like our administrative system and come in their thousands,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.