He now stated that he wanted peace--peace at all costs; to re-establish peace and to ensure that the fearful bloodshed should stop, he was prepared to make concessions. The general conduct of Li Yuan Hung, unmarred as it had been by any unharmonious note with other members of his party and marked throughout by a stability of purpose which had surprised the whole world, had been such that his promises could be relied upon. He had shown sufficient of himself to warrant respect from all, friends and enemies alike, for he had acted cleanly. And now he wanted peace. Meantime many of the most influential foreigners in Hankow were doing all they could to assist in the bringing in of peace. Merchants, missionaries, officials, and others were all anxious to assist with their influence for peace, and if war, with all its carnage and bloodshed and savagery, were again to come to menace this central part of China, it would come only as a direct desire from the Imperial army and with far greater horrors than had yet been seen. If further war were to come? So much had been seen during the past eight slow-moving weeks to show what devastation and utter social wretchedness could be wrought when men elect to settle their differences by force of arms. The killing of men, the burning of property--these are brutal features, but not the worst by any means. By the side of the horrors that come along in the wake of these ghastly battles, these are barely worth consideration. The slain are, after all, {172} out of the misery they have helped to make. It is those who remain behind--those widows with the hungry, half-clad or naked children, homeless, foodless, friendless, with no roof above them at night but the cold, steely sky--these are the ones who suffer. The whole countryside, with its homeless and foodless people, its ruined, burnt-out hamlets and family homesteads, its ruined rice-crops, its cruel waste so wantonly forced upon it by the Imperialists, cried aloud in its weary desolation for peace. If the war were stopped, one thought that the bloody struggles of the past few weeks would become powerful agents of civilisation, reshaping and remoulding the Old China into a new land and a new people. But further war in that sad, sad country would tend only to make the passions of the armies wax fiercer and the hatreds more bitter. Peace negotiations meantime hung in the balance. A fifteen-day armistice was agreed to, and by that time it was hoped that the Peace Conference would bring matters finally to a peaceful end. * * * * *