générale de l'entreprise sont évalués à la somme annuelle de quatre cent soixante mille haïkouan taëls pendant les vingt premières années.

Cette somme sera fournie par moitié par le Gouvernement chinois et par les intéressés étrangers.

Le détail des stipulations se rapportant à la composition, aux attributions et aux revenus du Conseil fluvial fait l'objet de l'annexe no 17.

ARTICLE XII

Un Edit impérial du 24 juillet 1901 (annexe no 18) a réformé l'Office des Affaires étrangères (Tsong-li-Yamen), dans le sens indiqué par les Puissances, c'est-à-dire qu'il l'a transformé en un Ministère des Affaires étrangères (Waiwon-pou) qui prend rang avant les six autres Ministères d'Etat.

Le même Edit a nommé les principaux membres de ce Ministère.

Un accord s'est établi également au sujet de la modification du cérémonial de Cour relatif à la réception des Représentants étrangers et a fait l'objet de plusieurs Notes des Plénipotentiaires chinois résumées dans un mémorandum ci-joint (annexe no 19).

Enfin il est expressément entendu que, pour les déclarations sus-énoncées et les documents annexés émanant des Plénipotentiaires étrangers, le texte français fait seul foi.

Le Gouvernement chinois s'étant ainsi conformé, à la satisfaction des Puissances, aux conditions énumérées dans la Note précitée du 22 décembre 1900, les Puissances ont accédé au désir de la Chine de voir cesser la situation créée par les désordres de l'été 1900.

En conséquence les Plénipotentiaires étrangers sont autorisés à déclarer au nom de leurs Gouvernements que, à l'exception des gardes des Légations mentionnées à l'article VII, les troupes internationales évacueront complètement la ville de Pékin le 1901, et, à l'exception des

endroits mentionnés à l'article IX, se retireront de la province du Tcheli le 1901.

Le présent Protocole final a été établi en douze exemplaires identiques et signés par tous les Plénipotentiaires des Pays contractants. Un exemplaire sera remis à chacun des Plénipotentiaires étrangers et un exemplaire sera remis aux Plénipotentiaires chinois.

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CHAPTER XII

THE POLICY OF THE POWERS IN CHINA

'HERE is the inhabitant; every one is not allowed to come in.' So runs the quaint announcement outside the private grounds of a Chinese house in Chefoo. And it would be difficult to find a more excellent epitome of the Chinese attitude towards the Western barbarians. It was not so always. In the days of Marco Polo strangers were accorded a far more hospitable welcome; and even so late as the seventeenth century, in the time of the early Jesuit missionaries, they were received with kindness, if not with cordiality. All this, however, was changed as soon as the strangers began to assert rights, and to interfere with the customs of the country and the carefully prescribed rules of intercourse; for the one thing to which the Chinese cling above all others is the absolute direction and control of their domestic affairs, free from all outside interference or restraint. In the Edict issued by Governor Loo in 1834, in response to the observations addressed to him by Lord Napier on behalf of the Canton merchants, these words occur :

The said barbarian eye styles himself superintendent come to Canton. Whether a superintendent should be appointed over the said nation's barbarian merchants or not is in itself needless to inquire about minutely. But we Chinese will still manage through the medium of merchants. There can be no alteration made for officers to

manage.

In more dignified language the same principle was enunciated by the Tsung-li-Yamên to Sir C. Macdonald on December 31, 1898, in reply to his intimation that the British Government claimed priority of consideration by the Chinese Government of all the British applications already made for railways in the event of the Chinese Government revoking their resolution not to entertain any more proposals. The letter of the Tsung-li-Yamên is worth setting out in extenso; for the rush for concessions and the arbitrary and, to the Oriental mind, almost indecent way in which they were forced upon the Chinese Government have, in the opinion of many competent observers, had far more to do with the recent outbreak than any action by or animus against the missionaries:

We have the honour to observe that the development of railways in China is the natural right and advantage of the Chinese Government. If, hereafter, in addition to the lines already sanctioned, which will be proceeded with in order, China proposes to construct other railways, she will negotiate with the nation which she finds suitable. When the time arrives China must use her own discretion as to her course of action. The applications of British merchants can, of course, be kept on record as material for negotiation

at that day, but it is not expedient to treat them as having prior claim above all others to a settled agreement.

No one can wish to palliate or excuse what has been really treacherous in the conduct of the Chinese Government, or the terrible cruelties committed by the officials acting under its orders; but unless some attention be paid to the Chinese case (and in many ways it is a strong one) it will be impossible to understand what can have induced them to act as they have done, or to take measures for guarding against a repetition of such behaviour in the future.

To begin with, it will be admitted that the commercial wars waged against China by Great Britain and France in the middle of the present century have done much to justify the dread which the Chinese have always had of intrusion, as the thin edge of the wedge which will some day rend their country asunder-a dread which the insistence with which commercial enterprises have of late years been urged upon an unwilling Court has still further intensified.

It would have been wiser if all the Powers had acted upon the principle laid down in the Burlinghame Treaty in 1869 :—

The United States, always disclaiming and discouraging all practices of unnecessary dictation and intervention by one nation in the affairs or domestic administration of another, do hereby freely disclaim and disavow any intention or right to intervene in the domestic administration of China in regard to the construction of railroads, telegraphs, or other national improvements. On the other hand, His