Although parts of this letter are out-of-date by the fact that the Diplomatic Rody called on Presi. dent Tsao. last' Monday, the currents of thought in Peking on. this and kindred subjects make interesting reading, Peking, Oct. 13.
A week ago, a few days before the inauguration, it appeared almost certain that Tsao would not be recognized. The Legations were disgusted with the preliminaries to and the conduct of the "election," as were the ricsha coolies, the water carriers, the farmerg on the countryside and all the other supposedly humble and ill-informed folk who are expected to know nothing about politics. The Legation folk admitted to one another that the conditions in North China (not to mention the South) which made the Lincheng affair, and a score of other incidents possible were duc to a growing and manifest contempt for treaties and all other obligations on the part of the official caste, particularly on the part of those military officers im high places who had it within thely power to maintain peace and better conditions.
The Legations recognized that, over a great part of North China, "Psao Kun was the acknowledged chief of those whose neglect of duty or contempt for obligations wag making life more precarious than interesting for foreigners outside a few favoured ports. They therefore admitted to one another that if anyone were to be called to account for existing conditions, for the so-called Government's impertinent reply to a protest against these conditions, or for nation-wide failure to better conditions, the first man to be called to account should be Tsao Kun. The circumstances under which this potentate came to Pe-, king did not increase diplomatic regard for him. Apart from all thought of foreign prestige or foreign interests, it was so obvious that in recognizing Tsao Kun, in calling upon him, exchanging polite grimaces with him, trading flabby hand-shakes with him, and in otherwise giving him the "'face" which the recognition of 16 diplomats would give him in the sight of his own miserable unrepresented people, 16 Powers would be perpetrating a most unfriendly act against the nation to which they are supposed to have sent friendly diplomatic agents.
Therefore, to adopt Chinese neavspaper parlance, when a -certain highly placed Cabinet Minister called upon a certain highly placed member of the Corps Diplomatique and asked whether the diplomats would attend the inauguration if they were invited, this highly placed member of the Corps, without thinking to don his diplomatic manner and mode of speech, said in the ordinary human way: "Certainly not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.