The Times of Thursday publishes a translation from its Peking
correspondent of a Memorial presented to his Govern went by Chien Hahn on the recent Hague Conference. After describing the "heated arguments" and the proposals which were "dropped half-way" or "suspended in a void of empty theories," Chien Hsiin goes on: " Victory goes to the strong, and although the weak may have a good case, his weakness will involve him in dangerous straits, so that, in case of the stress of sudden hostilities, it is to be feared that none of the dele- gates would venture to hold more than a pious aspiration that every article of the conventions agreed upon would be faith- fully observed." As the Times suggests, one may perhaps detect in this very literal statement the same note of gentle sarcasm with which Chien Hsiin posed the Conference by asking: "When is a war not a war ? " He remarks that the first Conference was followed by two wars, and the second Conference by the troubles in Korea and Morocco.
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