THE CHINESE TROUBLE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11590, 17 July 1900, Page 2

THE CHINESE TROUBLE.

There oan now be no doubt that the news received more than a week ago, but subsequently denied, as to the Backing of the Legations at Peking and the massacre of all within, was but a too true statement of the facts. Probably not a European has been left alive in the capital of the Chinese Empire. Not only men, but " women and children, have fallen viotitns, but we may never know all the horrors of the closing scene. What nameless terrors may have been added to death— terrors which would make death welcome— may be inferred from the aooount given by an eye-witness of the flaying alive of one missionary and the gouging out of his eyes. A cable received early this morning gives some faint idea of the fiendish atrocities perpetrated. Several thousand Europeans, with probably two or three times that number of native Christians, have been murdered at Peking, and this augurs ill for the fate of those further inland, and even as far down as Tientsin the rebels, assisted by the soldiery, have such complete possession of the country that all the European forces available cannot make any headway, and it is questionable whether they will be able to hold Tientsin, as the precautionary measure of sending the women and children to Taku shows, And for this we have mainly to thank the Emperor of Germany, who is now calling aloud for vongeance for his slain subjects. It was his desire to isolate and humiliate Britain whioh, at the xilose of the ChineseJapanese war, oaused him even to sink the hereditary raoial feud with France, and to join that Power and Russia in preventing the Japanese reaping the fruits of their victory in the shape of Corea. That taught the Chinese to play off one Power against another, until the authorities deemed their stores of big guns and ammunition sufficient to enable them to flout the foreigner in their gates. Japan, who had she possessed Corea would have made short work of the Chinese rebellion at the outset, meanwhile looked sulkily on, and no one oan wonder that before she raised a hand she wanted to know what her share of the spoils would be The Powers are now ostensibly united in their determination to put down the rebellion with a strong hand. But each wants its recompense in the shape of territorial or trade concessions. China has relied on their mutual jealousies to prevent common aotion. But she ha 3 overshot the mark, and has driven them into uuity for the time being. What will come afterwards is a question which no man can answer, except that China as an Empire is doomed. The German Emperor sowed the wind, and may yet find he will reap a whirlwind, for at present it looks as if there was some understanding between Russia, England, and Japan, a combination before whioh the other Powers would have to bow, even as Japan and Britain had to yield to the other combination, and France and Germany may see the three dividing the oyster while they aro allotted the shell as their share. If there is no such understanding then one may well stand aghast at the prospsots opened up by a universal scramble at the division of the spoils.