Peking, Aug. 28.
It is reported in the local papers to-day that Admiral] Tu Shih-kuei, the senior Chinese naval authority on the Yangtze River, has wired the Waichiaopu, suggesting that the Powers be requested to curtail the movements of their gunboats. He seems to think that they have been moving about too freely of late. The Admiral cites a number of gunboat visits to a number of ports, but carefully omits to mention the one visit which has really disturbed him, this being the visit of the Monocacy to. Nanchangfu.
It will be remembered that when, some weeks ago, the Villalobos attempted so visit Nanchang fu and stuck on a mud flat, Ts'ai Ch'eng-hsun, Tuchun of Kiangsi, seized the opportunity to make a litle face for himself and announced to the Chinese world that he had refused a request from the American consul at Hankow to allow a gunboat to visit his capital and had for-hidden the navigation of Poyang Lake and the Kan River by the Villalobos. This was pure swagger of a very offensive variety and the only possible reply to it was to get a gunboat up to-Nanchang with the least possible delay. This Admiral Phelps realized and the Villalobos was ordered to make rhe visit whenever there was sufficient water. Every attempt which she made, however, was futile. Thanks -to the low water it was impossible fo find a channel which the Villalobos could navigate. Admiral Phelps therefore brought the Monocacy, a shallow draft boat, down from the upper river and sent her off on a visit to Ts'ai Tuchun. The Monocacy arrived off the Nanchang bund a week ago, and, so far as is known, is still there.
The Chinese press has not published a line of this news because it published the Tuchun's _prohibition of gunboat visits with a great flourish, and since his feeble bluff has been called they are not at all keen on advertising the consequent loss of face. That the Tuchun is very wroth is to be taken for granted and Admiral Tu's wire is the clearest possible evidence of it. It is scarcely likely that the Foreign Office will pass Admiral Tu's request along to the Legations. There is no treaty or precedent upon which such a request could possibly be based. There is nothing behind it as a matter of fact but pique and at this particular juncture such a message, founded in pique only, would only be an invitation to the Powers to strengthen their naval forces in China and to patrol the inland waterways more actively,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.