dan. 26.
Tar condition of the Upper 'Yangtze, glaringly illustrated by the recent murder of Captain Brandt and by daily indiserim~ mate firing on every that passes through the Gorges, has long been a scandal and hae now become intolerable. Tt is safe' to say that nobody who is not absolutely compelled to do! so: travels in the Gorges; and there appears no redress, nor Jany solution. The attacks on "the steamers whether by soldiers:
pirates are due to nothing but the generally disordered state of the country, Wor the soldiers, the excuse for shooting is that the vessels may carrying spies, soldiers, arms, for the party' in opposition to whoever controls the locality where. the! outrage occurs, and such shooting frequently jif not usually fol~ ows a demaifd that the vessel shall submit to be searched. Of this it may be said that the foreign owners can give all guar antees about arms atid soldiers 80 long as the latter are in uniform; but they are at the merey of the Chinese crew and cannot possibly guarantee the character of all their Chinese passengers. It is possible—we metely make a surmise—that the companies might not object to an orderly search, as it might be done in other countries.
But they have assurance, first that it would be orderly; second, that the people claiming to search the ships are bond. fide soldiers and not pirates. "The cases of the Alice Dollar and the Tzesui are ample ingstification of. these doubts: th they will not. tolerate China's evading her responsibility to keep order; that if she persists! in doing so, they will not hesitate to take the necessary steps to protect their nationals; and' that they will make it their business to see that provincial officials guilty of failing to keep order are duly punished, Tt is this last clause which might surely be enforced in respect of the Gorges. It cannot be hard to find out who is directly responsible for the behaviour of the district in which Captain Brandt was murdered, and to insist on his being cashiered; not just allowed to resign and immediately afterwards be promoted fas in the ease. of Tien Chung-yn, Military Governor of Shantung: but" publicly castigated and dismissed by Presidential Mandate. Too readily,—perhaps, do we accept the excuse that Peking's word carries no weight in the provinces. That plea hag never properly been put'to the test in respect of the complaints of brigandage. Even the guilty official held his ground in defiance of Peking, and we doubt whether he would if the Powers showed that they meant what they said, both he and Peking would have lost face through the mandate, which would prove to other misdemean ants that their cynical neglect of responsibility was no Yonger to be tolerated. The! public disgracing of one prominent and demonstrably guilty offiial would have a wonderfully stimulating effect throughout the country. And it involves no intervention nor repercussion on innocent country-folk, and it can be done. thirt-the principle of doing what hiag: not the available: nien and
the Chinese authorities should do, of relieving them of a responsibility which devolves on them and no one else, is not lightly to be admitted.' This attitude, we believe, British mer-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.