The Chancellor of the Exchequer was the principal speaker at
the Mansion House dinner to bankers and merchants of the City on Wednesday. After the usual conventionally facetious references to his thankless position—s g., he de- scribed his suggestions to the Trustees of the British Museum as being "denounced by the howls of the literary world "— Sir Michael Hicks-Beach referred to the reception of his War Loan, and "welcomed with pleasure" among the names of the investors that of his predecessor in the Exchequer, "who, no doubt in a fit of patriotic enthusiasm, entrusted his humble savings to her Majesty's present Government with a view to the better prosecution of the war." The pith of the speech, however, related to China. The situation was obscure, but "this is easy to see, that the first duty before us, as well as before other Powers, among whom I am glad to recognise the United States and Japan, is to rescue and defend our Embassies and our subjects in that country, to exact reparation for any injury to life or property, and to seek for security that these things shall not happen again." The Government had never held that the Chinese Empire was a great and painlessly divisible plum-cake, waiting to be cut up by the Powers ; and he believed that all the Powers would work together in harmony, with perfect regard for each other's rights, and with the sole view of the common benefit of civilisation. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's speech was at once correct and sensible, but does he not underestimate the powers of resistance of the Chinese?
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