LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
COUNT VON WALDERSEE'S APPOINTMENT.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 Six,—Your correspondent "L. C. j." (Spectator, Sep- tember 22nd) challenges me to say what reparation for the recent outrages in China should be exacted, and from whom. For the answer to the first question I would refer him to your own admirable article of the 22nd inst. on the German Circular. To the second I reply: From the Emperor Kwangsu. Many people hold that in 1860, if Lord Elgin and Baron Gros had insisted upon treating with the Emperor Haien Fang in person, he would have been produced, and that it was a mistake to accept any plenipotentiary, even the Emperor's own brother, Prince Kung. So, now, Kwangsu is the proper person with whom to treat, and not either Li Hung Chang or the other creatures of the Dowager-Empress. If the Powers were agreed, there would be little difficulty, though much opposition, in making the Emperor meet tho plenipotentiaries. Nankin, and not Pekin, should be the place of meeting. So, and not otherwise, would all China know who are the masters. To leave unavenged the horrors of Pao-ting-fu (than which the tragedy of Cawnpore itself was not more revolting), and the outrages upon the sacred character of the Envoys, would make the Western nations accomplices after the fact, and be an everlasting disgrace to the whole civilised world. The disintegration of China has begun in Manchuria, and it would now be as easy to arrest the waters of Niagara in mid-air as to stay the partition of the Middle Kingdom. You, Sir, have shown that such parti- tion, though we should have no share in it, would not be to our disadvantage. The status quo ante which "L. C. J." seems to favour is out of the question.—I am, Sir, &c., Botsford Park, Moreton-in-Marsh. A. B. F. MITFORD.
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