Feb, 15.
Cuina's luck "has passed into a proverb amongst foreigners and, judging by the fuller reports of the Washington Conferference which are now coming to hand, it does not seem to have forsaken her on this occasion, The Chinese themselves do not seem to be at all satisfied with their gains, but that is probably due to the reaction from the extravagant expectations with which their delegates started for, what seemed to them to be, the field of the cloth of gold. Europe is disappointed in Versailles; China is disappointed with Washington, but it may be that, at least in the latter instance, the petulance of the people is like that of a child who has been erying for the moon and finds that neither its reach nor its grasp will give it possession of the coveted toy.
Without going back into ancient history, China's first great stroke of luck was when, after the peace of Shimonoseki in which she had ceded the Liaotung peninsula to Japan, Russia, Germany and France stepped in and compelled the victor to relinquish the fruits of victory. These nations certainly did not intervene out of any altruistic purpose towards China, but the result of their action was to restore to a defeated state possessions which she had just sign-"fed away as the price of peace. Russian policy was directed to the end that she should profit by Japan's military victory but dip-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.