The "Times" of November 9th say Surely it is no Utopia to imagine the United States the friend of China during the transition epoch which Li Hung began. We may count in our favour the return to China of more than half the indemnity of $735,238 for claims of Americans, and try to explain away the awkward fact that the Chinese are excluded from our own soil, while we insist on allowing our missionaries to penetrate dangerous parts of China. The strongest argument as to the former is the notorious fact that the Chinese here are not permanent immigrants, but merely temporary sojourners who send all their gains out of the country. There is no argument for the latter which will appeal to non-Christian minds. We can hold our own with the Chinese if we shall give them reason to believe that our ambition is solely connected with commerce, the supplying of China with manufactured articles, and the carrying out honestly our trade obliga~ tions. A quiet resistance to the land hunger of the European Powers is not incompatible with this attitude; indeed, there seems no valid reason why Europe should expect America to look with tolerance on a partition of China.
Generally appreciative notices are given of Li Hung-chang. The "Springfield Republican" says This Chinese statesman was a patriot. because he laboured for the good of his own country. He was also an unusually enlightened patriot, because he saw much farther than the majority of his native contemporaries. Englishmen have criticised him for pro-Russian tendencies, but if he was more conciliatory to Russia than to Great Britain, it was because he perceived that with Russia China's future relations would be more intimate, from. geographical causes, than with any' other great power. Nor could he ignore the military force which Russia ab any time could bring to bear. Li worked to save China its territorial integrity and its civilisation, and it will not be a fault that can be imputed to him if the country fails to maintain itself among the nations of the earth. General Grant, who curiously found an admirer and friend in the Chinese statesman, thought he was the equal of Bismarck in all the essential qualities that make a strong ruler. However that may be, it is no exaggeration to say that in Earl Li China Toses that one of its public men whom it could least afford to dispense with in this critical period of its history.
The following is from Washington, 6th November
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.