e
cups contained only a few drops, and one doesn't like to ask for the
tea-pot more than seventeen times! During the meal. Mr. Y----
entertained us with many side-lights on the political situation, and we
finally asked him to explain the meaning of the Twelve British Demands.
He replied promptly, emphatically.

"They are a threat," he said, "a form of coercion, to make us take the
next step, to declare war. If we declare war, they will be withdrawn. We
are familiar with them. They have appeared before, when it was
necessary."

XV

CONCLUSION

On the first of April we are going to leave Peking, to leave China alone
to her fate! We have had enough of it, and are just about worn out with
the strain on our sympathies. Opposition to a declaration of war is
growing daily, and so are rumors of a revolution. But a revolution is
just what is needed,--a revolution which will unseat those who are
opposed to the war, and which will place in power a group of officials
submissive and subservient to European influence. A revolution will
offer the grand, final excuse for the "protection" of China, by Europe.
You will see; mark my words. Only, of course, Japan will not be the
power that sets in order this disturbed country. Never Japan, the great
commercial competitor. For by this time you must surely understand that
Japanese aggression is immoral and reprehensible, whereas European
aggression or "civilization" is the fate to which the Orient is
predestined. The world contains a double standard of international
justice, for the East and the West.

At least we are glad to have been in China during these distressful
days, just to see how they do it. With the attention of the world
centered on Europe, things are taking place out here which could not
possibly occur were the world free to know of them, and judge. But in
the safe seclusion of Oriental isolation all things are now possible.
Back of the war, behind the war, ugly things are going on, which will be
all finished and done with and safely accomplished by the time the war
is over. This war for civilization is all that "civilization" requires
in the way of opportunity in the Orient.

So we are going to leave Peking, gorgeous, barbaric Peking, with its
whirling clouds of gossip and its whirling clouds of dust. We are
stifled by them both. We are going to Japan to see cherry-blossoms.

APPENDIXES

APPENDIX I

This despatch appeared in "The New York Tim