'THERE appears to be an opinion among some members of the Diplomatic Body at Peking that the foal disappearance from the stage of H. E. Li Hung-chang will have little effect on the political situation in China, because he had already become what is sometimes called a " back number." It is alleged that his health had become so impaired, and his weariness so persistent that even if he had continued to exist, he would have had little more influence over affairs. But the almost universal testimony is that physically weak as he had grown, his mental faculties were entirely unimpaired until the shock he received (if we may trust a Japanese telegram) from the Emperor's instruction that he was to consult his conscience before signing the Manchurian Convention. Whatever truth there may be in this statement, man of high'rank with a stron; dependent mind, and a kuowle of foreign countries and foreign affairs, who was consulted by the Throne in every difficulty, and known tobepatriotic in his own way and devoted to the Empress Dowager, could not possibly occur without making some disturbance in the microcosm he has left. Persona ingrate as H. E. Li Hung-chang had made himself of late yenrs to the majority of our countrymen, they recognised that he was a man with a will and power to enforce it, that he was actuated by a real love lof his country and its regent, the purity of that love being smirched yy his congenital hankering after money, which is believed to have sometimesstruggled successfully with his patriotism. He was little loved by the mass of the Chinese nation, many of China's difficulties in the last few years being justly attributed to him; but it was to him that the real ruler of China always turned whenever her difficulties became acute. It must be allowed that in describing him as we have done as "The Great Man of China" we have only spoken by the card, and the death of such a man must leave a void that is not easily refilled. All over the world in this first year of the twentieth century the dearth of great men to replace those whose time is expiring is very marked. LiHung-chang left behind him a large number of proteges and followers, but no one of them, as far as we know, promises as yet to be ever able to fill his shoes.
In an article which appeared in these columns almost exactly four years ago, headed "Blind Leaders of the Blind," we gave our readers brief sketches of the members of the Grand Council, the Ministry of War, and the Tsungli Yamen, the men who were then the leading statesmen of China. A remarkably emall number of them
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.