THE CRISIS IN CHINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11541, 28 November 1900, Page 5

THE CRISIS IN CHINA.

THE PEACE NEGOTIATION By Telegraph.— Treu , Awo«latlon.--Coi>jfirigfc» ~ Hongkong, November 20. The Ministers in Pekin are await* ing instructions regarding the;final*; cial clauses before continuing nego- v tiations : with China. ; THE GUNBOAT PROTECTOR. - ,- - London, November 27. - The South, Australian gunboa* Protector has sailed from Hongkong for Adelaide. The cause of her return is unknown,

THE ATTITUDE OF RUSSIA.

PLAYING A LONE HAND. ' . Router's ; St. t Petersburg correspondent, writing on October 13, says;— opinion in Russia is growing more and more pessimistic regarding the ultimate issue of events m China. There" is a general anticipation that the Chinese Government, with the help of vain pourparlers and proposals and the despatching of notes, will contrive to gain time until the winter comes, counting on the climate, the scarcity of provisions, and the harassing assaults of Boxers to make the position of the Allies untenable. These considerations and calculations of the enormous expenditure of life and treasure which a prosecution of .the war would involve inspire the Russian nation and its Government with a sense of the necessity of prudenco, which j draws them more and more every day further from the policy of common action with the Powers. ' The excessive demands of certain of the Allies in respect to diplomatic negotiations with China are regarded with small approval by Russia, who, moreover, is disposed to attach less importance to the value of concerted action among the Allies since her own interests have been fully secured by the success of her campaign in Manchuria. The effect of the feeling dominant in Russia, is to bo- seen in the withdrawal of the troops from Pekin and the partial demobilisation of the military forces destined for service in the Far East, and it is believed that the pacific disposition of the Government will shortly make itself still more apparent. There is, indeed, already talk in St. Petersburg of a probable postponement of the Russian claim for a war indemnity against China. The whole tendency of Russian policy is to draw more and more aloof from the Chinese crisis, which has ceased to threaten its interests, and the needless prolongation of which it attributes to the irreconcilable attitude of some of the Powors. No one, therefore, it is urged, need bo surprised if Russia should shortly arrange matters, so far as she herself is concerned, by separate agreement with China, the preliminary bases of which may possibly even be laid down in the course of the interviews which Yang the Chinese Minister to Russia, is about to have with the members of tho Government now in attendance on the Czar in the Crimea, and particularly with Count Lamsdorff, M. Witte, General Kuropatkin, and Prince Khilkoff, of whom tho last-named is expected daily at Yalta on his return from a foreign visit.