To the Editor of the "Mobrh-ChixA Dany NEWS"
Sm—I see by your today's news report a real spray of peace, a Heaven-sent adjunct, I take it, to our business rainbow, now practically reduced to its last ring. By this I mean a rosiest piece of diplomatic move ever made by Hankow. Its a masterpiece, I thi f thats not going to make Tokyo jealous by my saying so, and that isn't likely, being a nobody myself and no harm done.
The gallant General and his diplomatic aids have at last come out to the fore with a masterly avowment. Nor is it anything new of them, since it is but a repetition of the same which they have been making from time to time in the past, but which curiously has never been taken seriously by their as gallant and as honourable opposition on the other side of the Yellow Sea.
And the avowment is that they harbour no unreasonable animosity against the opposition: high example for us poor barbarians, senatorial and parliamentary to follow—and would invite peace to be made on the following and I think very practical and high-minded basis, already recognized by the other sid to wit, that it be proposed and carried that China belongs to the Chinese, whose sovereignty thereto shall not be impaired, but be permitted fully to be exercised by the said proprietors thereof. And what is more than this, or the residue thereof, sentimental and otherwise, shall be decently interred, tomahawk and all, in the grave of forgotten things and fraternal amity be restored—the stabilizing factotum inclusive—on a reciprocal basis—a proposition never yet rejected by the more thoughtful (and with whom I include the noble Prince and his cabinet) in Japan. Then Sir, what in the name of all that is not.diabolical are, they scrapping about? And besides, where is the need for a diplomatic middleman coming in, since here the offer of peace in its stark realism is already made. and nothing unacceptable to the proudest in Tokyo. And, if they are fighting not the Chinese, then their humiliation is not necessary. though demanded in the name o! China.
1 hope sense will here intervene on behalf of that more for tears than for joking.
TOUCHSTONE.
Shanghai, June 25.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.