We do not like the most recent rumours from China
at all. They may mean nothing, for the lying and the ignorance on the spot are both superb, but they look as if the Court were preparing to renew the war. We hear of troops in large numbers everywhere in the West, in Shansi, in Shensi, and in Mongolia, of generals who defy the Germans, and of a "re- crudescence of the ' Boxer' movement." The Court is re- ported to be removing again to a place in Hu-pei, the very centre of China, whence it can control the Central and Southern Viceroys, and has almost certainly decided never to return to Pekin,—a decision probably known to the Chinese, who have accordingly burned down the Emperor's Palace in Pekin, which Count Waldersee had made his headquarters. As any renewal of the war would begin with fresh massacres, these reports are serious, in our judgment the more so because we believe Chinamen to be human beings, and cannot conceive that Chinese statesmen while sheltered behind their impenetrable screen at Sian have failed to utilise the time gained for the reorganisa- tion of their forces. No one knows anything of the masses they can move, except that they include large bodies of cavalry, and that even the infantry, half disciplined as they are, are mobile.
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