We have given a great deal more space to this petty gold franc issue than it deserves, andi yet have given none of thd details. It would be no more worth outlining than a hundred and one other miserable details of Peking's _politico-financial muddle if it did not serve td illustrate vividly what we in' nocents are storming when we clamour for a rational settlement] of the Lincheng incident. 1
One highly influential member of the Corps Diplomatique cently remarked at a cosmopolitan' dinner:
"But what would you, M'sieur When the French Minister cables home his recommendations, what does he get back? Gold Francs! 'Spend no money,' say they, involve us in no expeditions' say! they, ''but attend to the Gold Francs.'
Also, as the New York papers indicate, when the American! Minister wires home he hears of Wine and Tobacco. And when! the British Minister wires back te London in the common good he learns that. some one has been! there before him with railwayd and the banking interests involved in them. All other voiced are thin pipings in the gale. In Norse mythology there wad piper whose melody reached Valhalla above the Win of a tempest. But there is no preces dent in the Elder Edda. or the
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