July 12.
Ir must be confessed that the hopes which were founded upon the results of the Paris conference have not been advanced by the course of the past fortnight's negotiations, a word of the very sound of which the world is heartily weary. To all appearances the position between the Minister of Finance and the representatives of the international is one of complete deadlock.
explicit notes have been interchanged, at one only in the determination evinced by each party to adhere firmly to its own views. 'The note presented by Mr. Hsiung' deserves careful analysis. On the: one hand he informs the provinces that they musteitheracquiesce in the Government's obtaining money on the only conditions on which it can; or make some fruitful suggertion of their own as to how the country's needs may be met: on the other band, he intimates to the international group that unless it is Gorernment will be compelled. to rebared to pay up immediately, the
instruct the provinces to find assistance for themselves. The atacspt thus made, as it were, to play off the bankers against the provinces, is not of the most skilful kind in so far as the former are equally independent of Peking and the provin-and it contains moreover this weakness that it gives to the provinces a' solid. excuse for interfering in the Government's decisions. It. may, of course, be said that no such excuse was wanted. But it must not be forgotten that China is nominally in the charge of a provisional administration, set up with the ostensible unanimity of the whole country, to take such steps as it might deem necessary for the bridging over of the space between the old regime and the new. At the best Mr. Hsiung's double alternative suggests further complication-of the counsels of Peking, at the worst it projects open anarchy with every province left to fend for at The one point of satisfaction is the apparent determination of the,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.