Nov. 8.
"Tae situation in China may resolve itself into a struggle between the Conservatives of the north and the Democrats of the south, as in the Taiping Rebellion." No authority is given for that terse little piece of comment quoted among, Renter's telegrams yesterday. But whether it proceeds originally from Peking or from London, there is but too much reason to fear its! ultimate justification. The extracts from Hankow letters which we publish to-day confirm the opinion already expressed in these columns, quarrel, at the immediate scene of fighting, has yond its first purely anti-dynastic phase into the realms of passion and revenge. No quarter, we are told, is given or asked on either side and a short shrift is allowed to suspects who cannot give a clear account of themselves. Elsewhere, and even to some extent in Han-yung, it is believed that the revolutionaries are losing heart at the Imperialist successes. At the risk of being misunderstood, we hope that this belief is well founded if it leads to suspension of hostilities and the admission of @ little com. mon sense in parley. Nowhere except where actual fighting has broken out—and in the word fighting we do not include the halfhearted skirmish at the Kiangoan Arsenal—woski the Imperialists dare to take the reprisals that would once have been their grim delight. For the sake of humanity the Powers could not permit it, and in any case Peking has been so thoroughly alarmed that even under the most favourable conditions it eduld not yet go back upon the spirit of its promises. For the moment the withdrawal of rev' tionary control from the ci which now fly the white flag might be followed by local anarchy. Such appears to be the present apprehension in Kiukiang. But can we hope for anything better than anarchy while the revolutionary leaders remain deaf to reason and the most pitiful appeals—an an-' archy that would endure, not for the few days that might elapse between the opening and conclusion of negotiations, but possibly for years 7
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.