Lord Lansdowne made on Tuesday the "important" speech -on China
which has been so largely advertised. It is im- portant in a way, but it is not very interesting, as it only places an official stamp on well-known decisions. His Majesty's army is quitting China, three thousand three hundred men being withdrawn at once, and the greater part of the remainder as quickly as may be. The indemnity is fixed at 265,000,000, which the Foreign Office considers ex- cessive, though we get only one-ninth, but it has no power of reducing it. It has proposed, therefore, that the Chinese should give bonds to each Power for the amount of its demand, that the bonds should bear interest, and that the interest should be charged on certain sources of Revenue, which would be watched over by an International Board, an arrange- ment, we should say, in whioh lurk endless opportunities for
• quarrel. The external tariff is not, however, to exceed 5 per cent. With respect to retribution, the Powers have secured the execution of six great offenders—including none of the most guilty—and have demanded the punishment of a number of inferior persons, whose punishment, however, the troops • will not wait to see. They will therefore probably be promoted. That is all, and to our mind it signifies that Europe retires from China, having looted Pekin, and desolated with a claim to a large sum of money which may or may not be paid. China survives, and the Manchu dynasty survives, entirely unreformed and savagely irritated, to plot a future scheme for complete vengeance.
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