13th May.
Statements have appeared, in home papers to the effect that the Foreign Ministers at Peking are wearied of the procrastination of the Chinese. At present this charge is quite unfounded. There is no delay or procrastination about H.E. Li Hung-chang, who is virtually the Peace Plenipotentiaries; he wants peace, and he is doing his best to {farther its attainment; it is the foreign Ministers on whom the arge of procrastination must be 1. The real trouble is that certain Powers are very anxious about their indemnity claims; they want cash or gilt-edyed security, and if they cannot get either of these, they hint at material guarantees—the occupation—temporary, of course—of Chinese territory until they get the cash. This means partition, and all the fat in the fire, to use a phrase whose expressiveness compensates for its ack of dignity.
In the interest of the commercial nations who want peace first it is now proposed that Great Britain and the United States should with all the courtesy that diplomacy dictates buy up the claims of the other Powers, and thus allow them to withdraw their troops, which we know they are only too anxious to do. The two Powers named should then take the settlement with China in their own hands. Two Powers can settle in a month what it will take ten or eleven or more Powers years to settle; and all the time the bill China has to pay is running up, trade is running down, and the allies get more and more tired of each other. The course we propose is in every-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.