Is it peace or war? Are the Chinese peace plenipotentiaries, in the reported words of the Chinese Minister at Paris, only scheming, lying, and temporising while. preparations are being made for a second attempt to drive foreigners out of North China, or is the Empress Dowager really convinced that further opposition is hopeless for the present, and that she had better come back and kiss the rod, and promise to govern reasonably in future? Our'Tientsin corres-pole evidently believes that the hinese are only teraporising and that, as we have hinted more than once, preparations are being quietly made for another outbreak. The recall, we are told, of certain high officials to Peking is not in order that they may meet the Court there instead of at Hsian, but that they may be at hand vhen the renewed attack on foreigners is made, and this is said to be the real destination of the men, the money, the stores, the rifles, the guns, and the ammunition that have been flowing northward through, Tsing-kiangsu in an almost continuous stream during the last few months. The arsenals and stores round Tientsin andjPeking have been captured and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.