THE WAR IN CHINA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 9938, 8 December 1900, Page 8

THE WAR IN CHINA.

The Capture of Shan-hai-Kwan.

British Officers assert Themselves.

Tientsin, Oct. 10. The chief incidents of the week it North China are the capture of Shau-hai-Kwan, the soartiDg ef a punitive expedition to Paoting-fu, and the recessiona! action of Russia and the United States. The political situation has not developed one jot. Shan-hai-Kwan, or Ning-hai, is tht place wht-re the Great Wall meets th< sea, and is the g*te of China proper. It is of great historic and military importance. For asres it was the vcint a'.ppui in Manchu invasion, and for the last half-century it has been one of the chief provincial depots for arms and troops. During the last six years, moteover, it has evolved into an important railway base, as all the shops, stores, etc., for the circum-Gulf of Pe-chi-li line have been located there. After the capture o' Peitang, near Taku, and the swift, advance of the Ruseian infantry up the railway, the attack on Shan-hai-Kwan was inevitable, and was only a question of days. But Btill the unexpected happened, much to Briiish satisfaction for once. The captain of H.M. ship Pigmy, a little gunboat of 775 tons, sent a boat ashore with an officer and seventeen men. A brief and amusing interview ensued between the officer and the commander of the forts, which ha-i been colloquially, but doubtless inaccurately, reporttd thus: — " I say, it is no good of your offering any resistance, don't you know. The British fleet is behind us, and if you don't get out pretty quick, we are juat going to give you hell. 5 " All right! I don't want to fight, and will capitulate." "That's right; when can you clear out?" "Oh, any time you like." "Now?" " Yes; now." So out they went, and up went the Union Jack on all the forts. Later on, when the cruiser Aurora came on the scene the camps were also adorned with similar millinery. Not one shot was tired, or one scratch received ; nor, ac far as I have heard, was the dilapidated old town looted. Sir Walter Hillier, political adviser to the military authorities in the event of Sir Claude Macdonald's death or inability through ill-health, was one of the first ashore, but there was nothing for him to do. Vice-Admiral Seymour, accompanied by admirals of other Powers, came up within two days, and as fortune would have it were present when the Russian General and his troops arrived by train. They were on the platform when the soldiers came in'| and played the part of hosts to guests with intiniie urbanity. The General fidgeted and iumed, ami at last broke out with threats of diplomatic action. It via-, an «xact reversal of the precedence that has been going on to British disadvantage during the last two months, and our gallant allies liked the minor role no more than we did. The seizure puts a spoke into the Russian scheme of getting entire possession of the Pelin-Neuchang line, and their making it an essential bit of the Peters-I>urg-Pfckin Continental railway—their chief objective in all their diplomatic finesse at Pekin during the last three years.