Tue preliminary success of the allies at Peitsang will prove, we hope, to be the beginning of the end. The Chinese troops will, no doubt, make another stand at Yangtsun, but when they are driven away from there it will be as a rabble not as an army, and their retreat into Peking will discourage rather than strengthen the j garrison of the capital. Then will! come, it is to be feared, a bad time for the foreigners who are still holding out in the ruins of the Legations, but they will have a disheartened enemy to deal with and will be themselves encouraged by knowing that the final attack on them means that relief is close at hand.
The opinion of friendly high officials who have escaped from Peking, as well as of those in this part of China who have been carefully watching events, is that as soon as the allies take Peking, and are in a position to dictate terms to Prince Tuan, Kang Yi, and their followers or such of them as survive the just wrath of the allies, the Boxer movement will collapse, the Chinese troops will turn their uniforms inside out, and settlement as far as regards the Chinese government will not be too difficult. If H. M. Kuang Hsii is still alive, he is obviously the person to replace on the throne. He may be physically weak, but he has be earnestly anxious for the welfare roved himself to be intelligent, to
of his country, and he understands that that welfare cannot be secured without reforms. He has a very large number of personal adherents among the more thoughtful and enlightened Chinese in China and abroad, and he is the de jure sovereign of China. Any official throughout China who disobeys his decrees when he is formally replaced on the throne is a rebel. He made the mistake two yenrs ago of trusting in the fealty of Yuan Shih-kai, but he will now be better advised. If in the days of chaos that are too likely to occur at Peking when the allies get to the gates H.M. Kuang Hsi should unfortunately disappear, itwill be necessary for the allies to convoke the Grand Council, and consult with them, and especially with the Viceroys and Governors who have been keeping order so well in Central and Southern China, as to the future occupancy of the Dragon Throne. There will undoubtedly be a strong objection to placing any Manchu, except H.M. Kuang Hsii, who has shown himself to be a good Chinaman at heart though a Manchu by descent, on the Throne: but in this if we wish the settlement we make to be durable, we must be mainly guided by the decision arrived at by the friendly Viceroys and Governors.
That the capture of Peking will i greatly relieve the tension, whose
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.