warehouses and elevators erected; gas, electric light, water and street-car plants installed; wide and well-sewered streets laid out; and a thoroughly modern and handsome city planned in four sections, the first of which was administrative, the second mercantile, the third residence, and the fourth Chinese. The Russians were sparing neither labour nor expense in the construction of this ambitious city which, by January, 1904, already had a population of over 50,000, and represented a reported expenditure of about $150,000,000. April 9, 1902, Russia solemnly promised to evacuate Manchuria October 8, 1903. But when that day came, she remained, as every one knew that she would, under the unblushing pretext that Manchuria was not yet sufficiently pacified to justify her withdrawal from a region where her interests were so great. As Manchuria was at the time as quiet as some of Russia's European provinces, the reason alleged reminds one of the Arab's reply to a man who wished to borrow his rope-"I need it myself to tie up some sand with." "But," expostulated the would-be borrower, "that is a poor excuse for you cannot tie up sand with a rope." "I know that," was the calm rejoinder, "but any excuse will serve when I don't want to do a thing." So to the concern of China, the envy of Europe and the wrath of Japan, Manchuria practically became a Russian province until Japan, unable to restrain her exasperation longer and feeling that Russia's plans were a menace to her own safety, had developed her army and navy and begun the war which is being fiercely waged as this chapter goes to

press.

Not to be outdone by Germany and Russia, other nations made haste to seize what they could find. April 2, 1898, England secured the lease of Lin-kung, with all the islands and a strip ten miles wide on the mainland, thus giving the British a strong post at Wei-hai Wei. April 22d, France peremptorily demanded, and May 2d obtained, the bay of Kwangchou-wan, while Japan found her share in a concession for

Foochow, Wu-sung, Fan-ning, Yo-chou and Chung-wan-tao. By 1899, in all China's 3,000 miles of coast line, there was not a harbour in which she could mobilize her own ships without the consent of the hated foreigner.

A clever Chinese artist in Hongkong grimly drew a cartoon of the situation of his country as he and his countrymen saw it. The Russian Bear, coming down from the north, his feet planted in Manchuria and northern Korea, sees the British Bulldog seated in southern China, while "The Sun Elf" (Japan), sitting upon its Island Kingdom, proclaims that "John Bull and I will watch the Bear." The German Sausage around Kiau-chou makes no sign of life, but the French Frog, jumping about in Tonquin and Annam and branded "Fashoda and Colonial Expansion," tries to stretch a friendly hand to the Bear over the Bulldog's head. Then, to offset this proffered assistance to the Bear, the Chinese artist, with characteristic cunning, brings in the New World power. He places the American Eagle over the Philippines, its beak extended towards the Bulldog, and writes upon it the phrase, "Blood is thicker than water.'

As far as Americans have any sympathy at all with European schemes for conquest in China, they naturally look with more favour on England and Germany than on France and Russia. The reason is apparent. England establishes honest and beneficent government wherever she goes and makes its advantages freely accessible to the citizens of other nations, so that an American is not only as safe but as unrestricted in all his legitimate activities as he would be in his own land. Germany, too, while not so hospitable as England, is nevertheless a Teutonic, Protestant power under whose ascendancy in Shantung our missionaries find ample freedom. But France and Russia are more narrowly and jealously national in their Their possessions are openly regarded as assets to be managed for their own interests rather than for those of the na

1 Reproduced in the Newark, N. J., Evening News, January 9, 1904.

tives or of the world. The colonial attitude of the former towards all Protestant missionary work is dictated by the Roman Catholic Church and is therefore hostile to Protestants, while the Russian Greek Church tolerates no other form of religion that it can repress. A recent traveller reports that Russia has put every possible obstruction in the way of reopening the mission stations that were abandoned during the Boxer outbreak. She has already put Manchuria under the Greek archimandrite of Peking, and has sought to limit all Christian teaching to the members of the Orthodox Greek Church. It is significant that Russia is strenuously opposing, under a variety of pretexts, the "open door" which Secretary Hay obtained from China in Manchuria, while there is ground for suspecting that Russian influence in Constantinople is preventing, or at least delaying as long as possible, that legal recognition of American rights in Turkey which the Sultan has already granted to several other nations. As for Russian ascendancy in Manchuria, everybody knows that it is inimical to the interests of other countries and that there will be little freedom of trade if Russia can prevent it.

XVI

GROWING IRRITATION OF THE CHINESE-THE REFORM PARTY

T

HE effect of the operation of these commercial and political forces upon a conservative and exclusive people was of course to exasperate to a high degree. A proud people were wounded in their most sensitive place by the ruthless and arrogant way in which foreigners broke down their cherished wall of separation from the rest of the world and trampled upon their highly-prized customs and institutions.

It must be admitted that the history of the dealings of the Christian powers with China is not altogether pleasant reading. The provocation was indeed great, but the retaliation was heavy. And all the time foreign nations refused to grant to the Chinese the privileges which they forced them to grant to others. We sometimes imagine that the Golden Rule is peculiar to Christianity. It is indeed in its highest form, but its spirit was recognized by Confucius five centuries before Christ. His expression of it was negative, but it gave the Chinese some idea of the principle. They were not, therefore, pleasantly impressed when they found the alleged Christian nations violating that principle. Even Christian America has not been an exception. We have Chinese exclusion laws, but we will not allow China to exclude Americans. We sail our gunboats up her rivers, but we would not allow China to sail gunboats into ours. If a Chinese commits a crime in America, he is amenable to American law as interpreted by an American court. But if an American commits a crime in China, he can be tried only by his consul; not a Chinese court in the Empire has jurisdiction over him, and the people naturally infer from this that

we have no confidence in their sense of justice or in their administration of it.

This law of extra-territoriality is one of the chief sources of irritation against foreigners, for it not only implies contempt, but it makes foreigners a privileged class. Said Minister Wen Hsiang in 1868:-"Take away your extra-territorial clause, and merchant and missionary may settle anywhere and everywhere. But retain it, and we must do our best to confine you and our trouble to the treaty ports." But unfortunately this is a cause of resentment that Western nations cannot prudently remove in the near future. While we can understand the resentment of the Chinese magistrates as they see their methods discredited by the foreigner, it would not do to subject Europeans and Americans to Chinese legal procedure. The language of Mr. Wade, the British Minister, to Minister Wen Hsiang in June, 1871, is still applicable :

66

Experience has shown that, in many cases, the latter (law of China) will condemn a prisoner to death, where the law of England would be satisfied by a penalty far less severe, if indeed, it were possible to punish the man at all. It is to be deplored that misunderstandings should arise from a difference in our codes; but I see no remedy for this until China shall see fit to revise the process of investigation now common in her courts. So long as evidence is wrung from witnesses by torture, it is scarcely possible for the authorities of a foreign power to associate themselves with those of China in the trial of a criminal case; and unless the authorities of both nationalities are present, there will always be a suspicion of unfairness on one side or the other. This difficulty surmounted, there would be none in the way of providing a code of laws to affect mixed cases; none, certainly, on the part of England; none, in my belief, either, on the part of any other Power."1

Meantime, as the Hon. Frederick F. Low, United States Minister at Peking, wrote to the State Department at Wash

1 Correspondence Respecting the Circular of the Chinese Government of February 9, 1871, Relating to Missionaries. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 1872.