There is no doubt left by the President of his thorough approval of the policy pursued by the State Department. with respect to China. We advisedly omit, in aking of this subject, saying the policy wedecessor, because upon this. xwhject his predecessor committed himself to two irreconcilable policies. Under Judge Day the State Dep ritment annowneed that the struggle between Grext Britain for the open door throughout China and Ras for the exclusive acquisition of Manchuria did not concern our interests. Under Mr. Hay, the department promptly: discovered that our interests were strongly enlisted fon the same side with those of Great Britain, And we have been acting acord-ingly ever since Tfit cannot be said that we have fully attained our object, that is because, owing to the war in South Africa, Great Britain has not been able to insist upon her original contention in the Far East. It is doubtful whether, but for that, Russia would have ventured to go on in the acquisition which she said was temporary while she was arranging to make it permanent The united representations of Great Britain, Japan, and the United States would have received serous consideration at St. Peters:
The Boxer outrages, while they fixed the attention of mankind, were really but an episode in the course of the opening of China to Western civilisation. Now that the indemnities have been fixed, and the episode is concluded, the main question recurs. We should have lost mating "ly, the episode, however, since it seems to be agreed that our moderation in relation to "claims" and the restraint of our troops from excesses have been highly appreciated Chinamen to whose knowledge they have come. This appreciation should be serviceable to us henceforward, both in commercial and in diplomatic intercourse.
On the same topic, as suggested by the President's pronouncements, the "Springfield Republican" emphasises the manifest incongruity of the exclusion policy in America with the policy of the open door in China President Roosevelt's message, while taking the practical and probably, in a political sense, inescapable view that the exclusion policy must be maintained, lim) badly in its logical develoomen' of the Chinese question. And this could hardly be helped. We are to keep out the Chinese, to prevent them so far as possible from being civilised on the Western plan by coming in contact with the American people. Yet, after saying that the United States Government in its operations in China had sought to "enhance the welfare of Chinaand to lead to a more beneficial intercourse between the empire and the modern world," the President continued Tt behoves us to continue in these paths doing what lies in our power to foster feelings of good-will, and leaving no effort untried to work out the great policy of full and fair intercourse between China and the nations, on a footing of equal rights and advantages to all. We advocate the "open door" with all that it implies; not. metely the procurement of enlarged commercial opportunities on the coasts, but he interior by waterways with has been so extraordinarily favoured.
Only by bringing the people of China into peaceful a d friendly community of trade with all the peoples of the earth can the work now auspiciously begun be carried to fruition.
Here we seem to reach the blind alley of logic. America should do all in her p -wer to bring the Chinese into full and fair intercourse" with other nations, but, at the same time, it is our duty t+ keep hem out of America as w+ would the bubonic plague. There have been fow situations in the development of modern civilisation which denote a more grotesque inconsistency.
"The "Record Herald " comments as follows
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.