How are our interests in China to be affected by the European encroachments there?
They would be greatly injured, the writer points out, if any European Power were to secure such control in China that our Chinese trade would be restricted.
Consequently, our interests are on the side of China and of Japan, for the Japanese must now be looking with astonishment and alarm at the possible partition by European Powers of the nation which she herself conquered only a short time ago.
"It cannot possibly be for the advantage of this country to aid in establishing the financial and commercial, with the eventual political, predominance of any one country in China."
And further:
"The protestations in the British press and by prominent members of the British Government, that England does not ask for herself any privileges that she is not willing to see extended to all other nations, is fine political rhetoric, but one has only to point to India, and ask how much Great Britain's control and administration of that country, with its vast population, have contributed to the general commerce and wealth of the world."
In the Reichstag the other day, Baron von Buelow made an important announcement regarding the killing of the German missionaries in China that led to the German occupancy of Kiao-Chou.
The negotiations between Germany and China over the affair, he said, were now practically concluded, and with very satisfactory results.