"The Conference should not} have been held because the clique in Peking with whom we are! dealing was determined to. exact spectacular concessions, which China has not earned and' can only! abuse to her own further sorrow, or to break it up in such a way that tie onus could be put—upon the foreigners and could be used ay the excuse for unprecedented assaults upon foreign rights and the security of foreign life and property.
"It is obvious that any liberal concessions made to China at_ this Conference will impose fresh burdens upon the Chinese people, but will net them nothing but trouble, since increases in revenues, Yenewed credit and renewed borrowing capacity, can only foment a series of wars, with the control conference and in very close touch with the delegates of at—least three Powers and are supposed to be a partial catalogue of the discoveries which those who came from abroad to attend this conference have made since October.
There are probably very few old residents of China who could not have supplied them with all these thoughts in concise form before they left their respective homelands, The' natural question which] arises to all lips in Peking is:
by don't these persons, in the light of their expensive experience, 2 It would seem the conscientious and decent thing to do. Perhaps a sporting instinct holds them here. They are not men who fare used to defeat; they do not ike to drop an undertaking that they have not finished. This, indeed is the only possible apology for them since it is certain that
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.