In spite of the chaotic conditions around them Lord Willingdon
and his delegates of the Advisory Committee, Englishmen and Chinese, upon the Boxer Indemnity Fund, have done their work and made unanimous recom- mendations, namely, that the balance of the fund should be invested in a Board of Trustees with complete power to apply the money to educational and other purposes, and with the duty to report annually on the receipts and expenditure to the British and Chinese Governments. The Foreign Office has given its approval, but Parliament will have to amend the present Act. The other British visitors to China, at the Tariff Conference, have been baffled in their best efforts to reach any results worth having. To seek any agreement with " China " is like beating the air so long as no lasting authority exists there. The one serious Chinese representative at the Confer- ence, C. T. Wang, has fled from Peking to Shanghai. Finance and trade are paralysed.