The test question is, of course, the execution of the
guilty Mandarins. If that is granted, there may be peace with China for years, every great official dreading the consequences of outrage; if it is not granted, every Chinaman will consider, with justice, that the Imperial Government has defied and beaten Europe, and that barbarians may be murdered with impunity. It is, in our judgment, most improbable that the demand will be conceded. It threatens the present safety and future consequence of all the grandees of China, and they will resist like a corporation. They profess already to be "shocked" by the execution of the acting Viceroy of Chihli, who either ordered or sanctioned the horrible mas- sacre at Pao-ting-fu, and they threaten the wrath of all China. first because be was so high an official, and secondly because he was executed while negotiations were going on. The truth is, Li Hung Chang and the rest are both ex- asperated and frightened to find that the Allies are in earnest and cannot be bought off by any amount of blood-money. The Empress having sanctioned all the outrages, can hardly turn on the ministers of her will without personal danger, and for a time at least the resistance will continue. The rebellion in the South seems to be dying away, and the Court is now pressed only by the distant foreigners. If any attack is threatened on Sian, it will, it announces, retreat still farther to the capital of Szechnan.
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