The negotiations with Li Hung Chang and Prince Ching go
limping on, and must cost a fortune in telegrams to Europe, no one on the spot being trusted to arrange the smallest detail. According to the latest reports, which may be corrected to-morrow, the Plenipotentiaries have agreed upon the ten clauses of a futile preliminary treaty, long since discussed, which are to be accepted by the Chinese Court before serious negotiations are commenced. As Chinese patience is inexhaustible, and as the Court wants time to raise armies, the preliminaries will occupy weeks at Sian, and then the " actual " treaty will take a few months more. The cost to China is nothing, and to Europe only some two millions sterling a month. It is rumoured, with some show of authority, that in order to expedite proceedings the Allies, or rather Great Britain and Germany, have threatened to retain Pekin and the province of Chi-li until the Treaty is signed, but as the Court does not believe Europe, and does not care how long it stays in Pekin, the expedition thus secured will not be great. What one would like to know is why, if the Court is so complaisant as repre- sented, the Allies cannot select a common Ambassador and send him to Sian to demand an audience of the Empress, and so settle matters in a month. He would be decapitated ? Then what is the use of all this " negotiation " ?
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