Posstaty even the British Government is at last awake to the inconceivable corruption of what is known, for want of a more convenient term, as Government of this country. e rejection of the offer of a guaranteed loan because no bribes were forthcoming is too startling a revelation to be ignored, and we hope it will free our diplomacy, once for all,.from the misconceptions which have weakened our position by promoting a policy of misunderstood conciliation. It is difficult to credit the Chinese with magnetic or mesmeric power, but undoubtedly some mysterious influence seizes upon most men who have close dealings with them for any length of time, and the later history of China has been curious' instance of the' readiness of the world to accept people at their own vociferat= ed value, 'I'he contemptuous insolence with which Foreign officials have been consistently treated was originally founded upon a: genuine feeling of superiority, but it has since been often assumed with success to hide a cotissciousness of weakness. 'I'he effect has been remarkable. Minister after Minister has allowed himself, after a few undignified struggles, to be securely entangled in the folds of the sopotific net. whose meshes are woven of plausibility and blaff. The absurd bogey of the Yellow Race, by which even a shrewd man of the world: like Lord Wolseley. was itupressed, has been paraded befure us with awful traimpetings, and the still more' ridiculous' illys
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.