The Americans have gone away from Pekin and the French
are going, but the Ministers have drawn up a plan for the international occupation of Chih-li. Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, and Italy are to maintain a total force of six thousand men at Tientsin, and another force is to garrison Shan- hal-kwan, besides the garrison to be retained in the Legations. Ships of war are to be stationed in the Peiho River and a fleet maintained at Taku, so that Pekin would always be threatened, and Tientsin, Shan-hai-kwan, and Taku are to be under mili- tary administration. These proposals have to be accepted in Europe, and it is nearly certain that France will object, alleging, with justice, that they involve an indefinite occupation of Chih-li with an inadequate force in order to coerce a Court seven hundred miles away. The absence of intelligence in all plans framed for dealing with China would be really remark- able but that if you will think of it a Concert cannot have a brain any more than a herd or a flock can. The date of total evacuation is, of course, unfixed, except perhaps in Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's most optimistic reveries.
