THE PARTITION OF CHINA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 92, 24 April 1900, Page 4

THE PARTITION OF CHINA.

M. Jean Hess, who recently went to the Fur East to study various political , and eommerical questions, gives an account in the Paris Journal of an interview he had with Li Hung Chang at Peking. The uttered hitter complaints Against the European action in CJiiua, which aimed at imposing on the Chinese a social life differing from their own, with which the Chinese .have nothing to do, and which they regarded as the destruction of everything. " You put the knife to oui throat," Li Hung Chang us. When we feel the pciit we give whatever is demanded, holding ourselves free to get it 'back if we think we can escape by a ruse Is not that ■ the diplomacy of all countries? What but sheer robbery is the partition of which you no longer make any mystery, confirming it by treaties in which the only party not consulted is the one to be pilaged ? The north for the Russians, the centre for the British, with a good part of the south, and the rest for you and others, and the Chinese nothing. But 500,000,000 souls do not let themselves be juggled with like that. It is easy enough to fight us now ; it is not so easy to conquer us. For our defence have we not both your jealousies and jour conflicting controversies ? It is upon them we play. Take, for instance, the story of your Shanghai concession. We give you everything that you ask, even what you bound yourselves by treaties never to demand. We give you all, but we so arrange that the British forbid you taking anything, and you tike nothing, for you are afraid of England just as we are of you. International politics is made up of fear felt and fear inspired." Li Hung Chang showed that he was afraid of the armaments of Europe and Ameria crushing China, although he at the same time de<lt on the latent energies possessed by his country He concluded with a renewed protest against the attacks made on China by Eurjpe.