The Portland Daily Press

From the day that German soldiers set out for China the Kaiser has acted as if he were much more anxious to stave off a peaceful settlement of the Boxer affair than to help it along. If his proposal to make the delivering up for punishment of prominent Chinese officials a condition precedent of negotiations had been accepted by the other powers negotiations must have been postponed indefinitely. Indeed the only outcome of that could have been a general war with China. Having failed in this scheme because the powers would not agree to it, he seems to have hit upon another which is likely to prove equally effective in postponing negotiations.

This is an expedition to Pao Ting Fu. In this enterprise he has succeeded in getting all the powers to join except Japan. Russia and the United States Just what he proposes to do at Pao Ting Fu is not clear, but an advance upon that place can hardly fail to be seized upon by the Chinese government as a reason for refusing to negotiate. The Chinese diplomats can say with much force that the allies can hardly expect them to carry on negotiations looking to a peaceful settlement of the Boxer affair while their troops are marching through the country seizing towns and virtually making war upon the people. General Chaffee, our commander in China, has opposed the Pao Ting Fu expedition on the ground that it will put off negotiations, and the Russians and Japanese are of the same opinion, The more one scrutinizes the German policy the more it looks as if it were designed primarily to get up a war In China that will eventually furnish a pretext for partitioning the country, and that a speedy settlement was not wanted.

The unaccountable thing in this business is that England whose interests are all against dismemberment and on the side of an early settlement should be assisting in the Kaiser's scheme.