"A. year ago while reading in this same lobby I became aware of the pretence of two foreigners, one quite an elderly gentleman who was \ddressed by his younger ¢ampanion Uncle Jimmie. They were talk ing of the Nanking affair and the probable consequences, and was evident thet they were for the the exiles from their places in the interior I listened to their conve sation. The okier man had but lately arrived and the younger w telling him the news; namely, th: a combination of the Powers' had presented a strong note to the Nan. king Government the outcome of which was awaited with breathless terest. The old man had listened intently thus far but he broke in wearily with the question. Has it cleome to the point where they are writing notes to each other about it? Then it's all off and we might fag well ent the Joss and call it a day, I know from forty years experience that when a Chinese official can get far enough away from trouble to write back a letter, he is going to win every time. He did Rot mean to be especially com plimentary to Chinese. officialdom but he ungrudingly paid a tribute vine diplomatic skill for which old-time Chinese were justly fa-
Chinese Weapons have soon much of foreign diplomats in my tong public ite and developed among then very strong friendships in our widely divergent viewpoints and the interest which we mutually represented. On one occasion when T had conducted a tedious case 10 a successful terminus (from the Ghinese point of view) I received a call late at night from the diplomat with whom I had been in formal conversation all day. He sent in his card) marked personal' and asked for a short interview. i [saw at once that point curtly and told me that ho had discovered that'l had deliberate ly Tied to Kim on one of the points fon which we lid reached agree me: and declared that it must be re: considered at once. I replied to very gravely that I had lied to him about all the points. He left my house without a word, but on the following morning he issued a statement that a mutually satisfactory settlement had been reached and invited me to a great feast, When he retired from. official life and wrote his memoirs I found paragraph: There is only one fair way to view Chinese diplomacy. The Chinese feel that we have chal-tenged them to" combat and as" long as we have used our military and naval Bons we have been uniformly victorious. But it is a poor sport who does not recognize that a chal-longed party has the choice of wen-ud if the Chinese use methods icy which we call trickery, and deceit we should recall that out methods of blood and iron are far more repulsive to them.
Never Quite So Low:
"Lam not advocating the indiserimate use of deceit by any manner of means. Yet in the waging of actual warfare no foreigner wil Jdeny that they use every device and stratagem which their fertile brains jean conceive, disguising their movements, covering their losses and mistakes. But they seem to think that once the war' is over these: useful aids must be abandoned. From the Chinese viewpoint diplomacy is just ax much warfare '15 physical engagements and we have always made uso of what weapons were left to us in our negotiations.
"But never did we sink the level of the spokesine today. f have barzaine with men of every. nation and often set one against another dollars for third class, and the banks in Tsinan are opening ap. Shanghai papers just arriving tell Of the possibility of the Japanese mills there being forced to close, throwing sixty "thousand Chinese out of work. Here, however, the philosophic northerner, has calmly settled down to make the best of it. One of our sages said that the dia-leets of the south were like the chattering of birds. They sound toa lay more like the screeching of But you are getting off the subject, are you not?" asked his listener, "You were talking about the decadence of diplomacy and you fare now only enumerating certain benefits we are reaping without any diplomacy at all."
"It is no wonder it could not stick to the subject as Nanking has not yet found a diplomat who could stick to the job, As T see it, we are as badly off for diplomats us we ever were for soldiers and before long we will have to he content with what ever terms the nations of the world will give us but even then you may sure that the Chinese will be the chief profiters in the long run'
Marsa, Wu Pei-fu is reported by the vernacular press to have ited with a number of Szcchunness generals, including Gen. Yang Son with a view to starting an uprising in Succhuan, where he now 's. The Marshal ig reported to have extablished his headquarters at Tachu and hava gathered several tens of thousands of his former subordinates to his banner. He wil, it tz said, first attack Wanhsien. most successfully but never in time did we have to call on bob-haired school-girls to conduct th nation's affairs. Never did we sen out shrieks for help to distant dignitaries. We took our losses in physical clashes but we made them back over the council table.
There has never been n treaty yet in which China did not seem to get the worst of it, but in one way or other we have managed to gain far more than we have lost,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.