The only news from China this week is that there
has been a brawl between some French soldiers and British soldiers who were acting as police in Tientsin, in which two of the former were killed, and that Count von Waldersee has actually quitted China for Japan, wheAce after a brief stay at Kiao-chow he sails for Europe. His appointment as Com- mander-in-Chief produced very little result, for he was obeyed only by his own soldiers; and though he made an excellent chairman of the Military Council which decided everything, any other well-conditioned officer would have done as well. He did not even succeed in concealing from the Chinese the jealousies which divided the invaders, or in inducing the generals to accept any concerted plan of action. Marlborough was met by the same difficulties, and so in a less degree was Wellington; and the truth seems to be that an international army never can have a head whose word is final,—an almost fatal objection to the "Concert" as an executive power. The failure, it is fair to add, does not seem to be attributable to Count von Waldersee personally, who has many of the qualities which make a first-rate diplomatist.
