Ir the partition of China has already begun there seems no doubt that Shantung will become German, and thing are moving in that direction That Germany should merely retain more quickly than we looked for.
a foothold in Tsintao, and from that place peacefully open up the province with railroads and mining industries, was hardly to be expected; but that before a single mile of rails had been laid she should have been in military occupation of a large fu city one hundred miles from T'sintao is some~ what startling. The general condition of things in that part of Shantung, culminating in an armed attack on three German travellers, may be sufficient justification for the move for though the three Germans did the killing, yet this was not according to the programme, and if they had happened to be three unarmed missionaries or priests their names would have been added to the long list of those done to death by mob violence to be paid for later. The mere accident of these men having had revolvers—a new way of playing the game which put the Chinese at a great disadvantage—ean hardly be held to do away with the need for compensation: the intention to kill was there just as in previous cases.
But though it is useless to quarrel with what seems inevitable, there are different ways of doing things and we may point out two serious mistakes that we think are being made.
The first is in the burning of villages. In the case of the Fukien massacre we recommended a course somewhat similar to that of the Germans in Shantung; but in that case there had been actual massacre of women and children; there was no idea of occupation, and the moral effect would have been more striking 1 than the actual severity of the blow. In Shantung on the other hand there vas no coolly-planned massacre, but
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.