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Show HELD MINISTERS AS HOSTAGES. Belief Grows That Ministers Lives Will Be Bartered In China. Li Hung Chang's statement to the effect that, while, the foreigners are alive, they would be killed immediately immedi-ately if the allied forces neared Pekin, is regarded in London by those who credit the reported survival of the foreign for-eign ministers as an indication that the latter are held as hostages and that their lives will be made the subject of negotiations by the Chinese. Hence Li Hung1 Chang's anxiety to keep the powers from Pekin as long as possible. pos-sible. Consultations are in progress between be-tween cabinet ministers and officials as to the course to be pursued should the ministers prove to be alive. The contingency of China holding them as hostages is uppermost in the minds of all. Sir Claude MacDonald's message dated July 4, appealing for relief, is regarded by many in London as only ft prelude to the absolnte confirmation of the massacre.'1' This is the opinion also of the Japanese minister. The newspapers news-papers suggest that the British minister's minis-ter's dispatch was' held back and released re-leased about the same time as Mr. Cogger's, Cog-ger's, under the same conditions. |