Count Okuma has weathered another session of the Diet, in spite of a determined movement to oust him from the Premiership, and it is reported that he has determined to remain in office until he can effect a solution of Japan's policy toward China, which requires to be remodelled' on account of the new situation created in that country by President Yuan's personal ambition." It is impossible to ignore the fact that the Japanese press constantly publishes despatches from China of a sen-national nature based on rumours circulated by parties who have ulterior motives. For example, it is a little difficult to oxplai how Count Okuma came to tell a number of journalists on Mon lay that the situation in China was becoming worse when, as a matter of fact, it had distinctly improved by the Government success at Suifu, a telegram received from our Peking corrcepondent on Sunday stating that "it is reported that the want of military success of the rebel forces has discouraged the leaders in Yunnanfu." Moreover, letters from our correspon-dante in the southwestern provin-oes nepentedly testify that the people ask only for peace, showing that the revolt has been engineered by a small section of the Chinese people, and these in the main are actuated solely by selfish motives. It is true that a strict censorship is exercised over all telegrams, but letters received have not been opened, so that if the revolt against President Yuan was as serious as Japanese correspondents represent, the foreign newspapers in China could not fail to record it. quite a different category from these. The picture they present is an appalling one, yet, in its vers appallingness, hopeful from Allies' standpoint, and from that of Germany. Without underrate ing our enemy's strength, we believe that he is beginning to feel the strain as never before, and we sincerely hope that the German people are beginning to feel it too.
8 There is only one practical way of Vers the war's ending so as indeed to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.