The New York "Evening Post," commenting on Governor Roosevelt's assertion that the course of the United States in China is "on all fours with our course in the Philippines," says Now, what is our present policy in China? It is, after doing what we can to resene and protect our own citizens, to find native government with which' we can cooperate, and to which we can turn over responsibility and the work of administra-ion. Secretary Hay has clung to this determination from the start. He las done it in the face of ridicule and opposition, both at home and abroad,—Where was Chinese Government? Ti none existed, we must create one. The idea of division and of foreign control of local gover monstrous. Tt would mean mil treasure and rivers of blood, We must stand one side and let China be governed by the Chinese, To that ultimate policy this country, and with it apparently the European Powers, ted. But did we search for a nati minent. in th Philippines? Yes, but only to strangle it Did we look anxiously for native leaders able to take up the work of local administration? Yes, but only to bunt them to the mountains like wild beas's! If we could discover such a body in China now, we should declare it a crime against civilisation for the Powers not to wiilise and support it. But we wiped the Malolos Congress out of existence, What we profess to be seeking in China with the deepest anxiety, we had ready to our hands in the Philippines, and there we raged against it and destroyed it as if we had been Boxe Next ty the reply of President McKinley to the Chinese plea for mediation the most interesting phase of the Chivese question at Washington was the general hopefulness produced by the receipt, of Minister Conger's telegrara of the 20th July. Since subsequent developments hare verified the truth of it, the general sentiment of renewed confidence in China, which it ened in America, may mistaken. The story of the receipt of this message is thus graphically told by the New Yors " Tribune."
Washington, 20th July.
At last a message from Minister anger has come in the official secret cipher, written within a few days in the British Legation at Peking under continuous shot and shell from Chinese troops, urging quick rescue to prevent a general massacre. Minister Conger's exact message is "British Leg.tion under continued shor and shell from Chinese troops. Quick relief only can prevent general massacre.
The message was "undated," but it is understood that it was sent from Peking on the 18th of July.
Word by word these tidings were extracted from the unintelligible jumble of Atabie figures son after 10 o'clock this morning by Secretary Hay and Assistant Seer"tary Adee.
After thirty days' silence the message came us from the grave. An hour earlier theindefatigable Consul-General Gooduow's warning that a cipher message from Conger had been forwarded from the Governor of Shantung had raised conflicting emotions in Secretary Hay's breast—hopes for the best and fears for the worst; hopes for the success of the supreme test put on Chinese communications and the sincerity and veracity of Minister Wu and his friends among high Chinese officials, and fears of convincing proofs of Chinese duplicity and of the destruction of the Legations and the inmates. These conjectures were speedily thrust out of mind by Minister Wu's enthusiastic appearance in Secretary Ha office triumphantly waving the message that was his own vindication and that of the highest civil officials of his country.
RECEIVED BY MINISTER WU, Minister Wu has breakfast very cart the day, after the fashion of his country, but in the present crisis his breakfasts have been earlier than ever, and much of his day's work is accomplished before other Legations in Washington are awake. This morning at 8.30 o'clock, just as he was beginning his repast, a messenger boy on his first round pedalled lazily up to. the Legation office, and, handing in a message, took the usual receipt from a servant and wheeled away to other deliveries. It was just like any of the numerous messages received at the Legation recently, many of them with the same Shanghai date line, only it was longer than most of them.
One of the secretaries took it in hand, not intending to bother the Minister with it until after his meal, but in glancing over its unintelligible succession of cipher code words he way startled by the single word. "Conger" standing out in the body of th dispatch, Ina moment he had handed to the Minister, whose breakfast, was ruptly ended, and immediate! a stir throughout the establishment as the code books were consulted. Tt did not take long for the Minister and his. seeretaries to learn that his attempt to get a message to the besieged Ministers and to secure a reply had been successful, and he was almost beside himself with joy.
Ir took over half an hour to translate the transmitting phrases of Taotai Sheng, the Imperial Director of Communications, and to bring the Minister's automobile to the door, A few minutes later he appear: ed, with Mr. Chung, on the stone balcony of the Legation. In his hand he carried document, carefully wrapped up in a piece of white linen. His face was wreathed in smiles. Ie stepped into the vehicle, and the faithful American attendant Charles Lee, who accompanies him on these trips, turned the lever, and they sped down Con: necticut-avenue, toward the State Department, Mr. Wu bearing the message in his own hands. From the basement to the second floor of the great building is a short distance, but the swift new elevator recently put in for the Diplomatic Corps seemed as slow ay its antiquated predecesser to the Minister, who was perspire ing and almost breathless wih excitement when he was shown into Secretary Hay's office.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.