f the Entente, we have to point out that it is not
real Chinese interest for the Allies to thrust large sums
of money on persons who may not be able to apply the same
to national ends. The Chinese Government is in need of
money for specific objects, like the resumption of specie
payment, the disbandment of superfluous troops, and the
liquidation of certain unfunded indemnities. Financial
assistance to the authorities is something for which the
country would feel grateful to any Power or group of
Powers who might render the same. But Chinese who have the
real interest of their country at heart will not thank
those who--without regard to the vital interest of
China--are resolved upon securing the support of a few
ambitious men whose single aim is to have enough money
to influence, first, the Parliamentary elections, due
in a few months, and next, the Presidential election to
be held next year. Curses not blessings would issue from
our lips for such questionable assistance to the forces
of reaction in Peking.

On March 2 appears a translation from a vernacular paper, the "Shuntien
Shih-Pao":

At a recent meeting of Allied Ministers in the French
Legation, it was decided that if China does not declare
her intention to join the Allied nations within the next
few days, the Allied nations should give advice to China
to that effect.

Apart from "advice" of this sort,--rather threatening advice, it would
seem,--appeals are being made to Chinese vanity, by the contrasting of
the potential might of China with the might of Japan. In an article
entitled "China and the World War," Putnam Weale, speaking for the
British interests in China, makes some clever but rather blunt
suggestions:

So far, no one has gone beyond suggesting the general
mobilization of Chinese labor-battalions, some of which
are already at work on the Tigris building docks, and
thereby contributing very materially to the vastly
improved position in Mesopotamia. But it does not do
credit to the stature of the Chinese giant, or to the
qualities of the Chinese intellect, for Chinese to remain
hewers of wood and drawers of water; it is imperative that
if the nation goes to war she should actually fight, as
the experience of the last five years shows what she can
do with skill and science. In advancing the contention
that