lost its force as evidence accumulated that regard for her interest was not the sole motive that had prompted their joint action. By degrees, therefore, the disadvantage was reduced at which Great Britain had at first been placed, and it proved impossible to exclude her from a share in the railway and mining concessions that China, in pursuance of a belated policy of developing her material resources, presently began to grant.

A full account of these concessions is given by Mr Morse; but reference need here be made only to that for the construction of the first Chinese trunk line, from a point near Peking to the Yangtze at Hankow, since in regard to it M. Gérard adds much to what had previously been known. For this concession Belgium appeared as a competitor; and the argument found most useful against other claimants was that in her case there was no risk of a financial interest being used as a basis for political claims. Belgian capitalists were, however, no more willing than those of other countries to invest money in a Chinese railway without some assurance of powerful protection; and the plan that commended itself to the Belgian representative for ensuring such protection, without abandoning the vantage ground that Belgium's military weakness afforded him, was to retain the ostensibly Belgian character of the concession, but to secure the co-operation of a great Power by giving its nationals a secret share in it. Recognising 'la solidité de la situation diplomatique que les Légations de France et de Russie s'étaient faite' (p. 177), he decided to approach the French representative, who welcomed his proposals and speedily arranged the participation of a French syndicate. M. Gérard describes in great detail the joint manœuvres that resulted, in May 1897, in the signing of the desired contract, and dwells with particular relish on the precautions taken to conceal the French interest in the concession, except from the Chinese official negotiators and from Li Hung-chang, who gave him great assistance. The secret was, as he says, well kept, but only in the sense that no actual proof of the French participation was obtained, for suspicion on the point was so strong as to fall little short of certainty.

For some reason which M. Gérard does not explain, the secret understanding between the French and

Belgian financiers and their Governments was revealed in extremis' (p. 185), that is, presumably, immediately after the signing of the contract, to the German Minister, who thereupon addressed to the Chinese Government a strong protest against the partiality shown to other Powers in comparison with the neglect of German claims to China's gratitude. Of the nature of the payment that Germany desired for her services full warning had been given to Li Hung-chang when he passed through Berlin in 1896 after his embassy to Russia; for, according to the account he subsequently gave M. Gérard (p. 206) of his audience with the Emperor, the latter made a plain intimation of his wish to obtain a naval station on the Chinese coast, and the Foreign Minister, Baron von Marschall, is described as having réclamé instamment' this concession from China, as the recompense to which Germany was entitled for the service she had rendered after the conclusion of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. A few months later, in January 1897, an official representation in the same sense was made at Peking by the German Minister, who informed his French and Russian colleagues of the demand he had made, expressing the hope that it would meet with no opposition on their part, and adding an assurance that, in its choice of a naval station, the German Government would not encroach on what France and Russia regarded as their respective zones of influence.

M. Gérard is studiously vague in his references to the Russian attitude towards the German demands; but an official statement in the Reichstag in 1896 that Germany and Russia had come to an understanding with regard to their respective interests in China, coupled with the absence of any opposition at Peking on the part of Russia, is sufficient indication that she did not regard the German claims as clashing with her own schemes. M. Gérard states, it is true (p. 210), that the French and Russian Governments, far from encouraging the German designs, 'ne purent que confirmer le gouvernement chinois dans son attitude de résistance à de tels projets.' But he records no representations as having been made by himself in that sense; and the omission is in marked contrast to the minute particularity with which in other cases his own activity is described. The only Vol. 233.-No. 462,

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representation he mentions as having been made by his Russian colleague was closely restricted in scope.

The murder of two German missionaries in the province of Shantung in November 1897 supplied the pretext Germany had awaited for securing by force the object she had failed to gain by persuasion. The port of Kiaochou, in that province, was at once occupied ; and its lease to her as a naval station formed part of the reparation exacted. The murder of these missionaries would not, a few years earlier, have afforded Germany any opening for action, for they would, as belonging to a Roman Catholic mission, have been under the official protection of France, to whom therefore would have fallen the duty of securing reparation. Germany, however, had in 1891 successfully established a claim to substitute herself for France in the protectorate over Roman Catholic missionaries of German nationality, and now profited by her foresight. The blood of martyrs is a seed that sometimes yields a strange harvest.

Prior to the sailing of the German squadron for Kiaochou, the Russian Government was informed of Germany's intentions by a telegram from the Emperor to the Tsar; and the seizure of the port gave the signal for the despatch of Russian warships to Port Arthur, the Chinese naval station in the Liaotung peninsula. The occupation of Port Arthur marks the close of the chapter that had opened with its restoration by the three Powers to China. Deep apprehensions had already been excited by the previous advance of Russia; and no faith in the disinterestedness of her policy could survive this disclosure of her real aims. 'La politique de 1895' was, as M. Gérard puts it (p. 285),' frappée au cœur.' He himself, it may be added, laments this act of aggression and represents it as inconsistent with Russia's previous policy. But, to whatever charges Russian policy in China lies open, inconsistency is not one of them; and the occupation of Port Arthur was but one more step on the path on which she had long been steadily advancing. Nor is this last step more difficult than the earlier ones to reconcile with Russian policy as M. Gérard depicts it-a policy in which, he affirms, there was 'assurément rien d'égoïste' (p. 278). But the representation of Russia as tightening her hold on China solely for the benevolent

purpose of fostering the development of her resources and leading her on the path of reform-' réformes matérielles, intellectuelles, et morales' (p. 277)—is one not likely to meet with ready acceptance.

The retrocession of the Liaotung peninsula by Japan had been demanded on the ground that its possession by her would constitute a menace to the capital of China. Much more serious, obviously, was this menace when it passed into the hands of Russia, already in control of a railway across Manchuria; and the Chinese Government raised no objection to the English acquisition of WeiHai-Wei by way of counterbalance. France followed

suit by obtaining a lease of Kwang-chou Wan, on the southern coast of China; and England then strengthened her position at Hongkong by securing an extension of her rights over the peninsula facing the island, and control of the neighbouring bays. These events, following in quick succession on the German occupation of Kiaochow, deepened the effect already produced by China's defeat by Japan, thus described by Mr Morse.

'The abasement of China, which was the result of the war with Japan, was perhaps scarcely felt by the toiling millions, whose outlook was limited to their own village, or, at the widest, to their own province; but it produced a profound effect on the educated classes. Those whose education enabled them to discern what had been accomplished, in the administration of national affairs and for the well-being of the people, by Western countries and by Japan, were already anxious to see their own country brought to the same level of progress; but they were a few thousands at most and, at that stage, could produce but small effect on public opinion. But the disasters of the Empire brought enlightenment to those others also, many myriads in number, who could judge of Chinese affairs only by their knowledge of Chinese conditions; and amongst those of that class who urged reform were to be found even some of the official hierarchy, a class of men whose interests must be most adversely affected by any project for changes in the administration' (III, 128).

The agitation due to Japan's victory subsided, but it was followed by anxiety as to Russia's aims; and when, in the course of a few months, the spectacle was presented to the Chinese nation of the abandonment to the foreigner

of a series of strongholds on their coast, even the lethargic were stirred to anger and alarm. China, within a single generation, had lost all her suzerain rights over neighbouring kingdoms; her chief island possessions had been wrested from her; and now foreign Powers were seizing divers points of vantage on the coast which imagination could readily picture as soon to be used for the invasion of her inland territory. Nor was imagination left to work unaided. The imminent dissolution of the Empire became the subject of much eager discussion abroad; and foreign Powers were in China readily credited with a desire for the partition which in these discussions was treated as almost inevitable.

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Alarm stimulated the demand for reform, and thereby proved that Chinese ideas were in truth in process of change. All that had earlier been thought necessary for the remedying of the country's weakness was purchase of some warships and big guns, and the equipment of selected troops with modern rifles; but there was now a widespread, if dim, perception that the weakness had deep-rooted causes, and that for their removal the adoption of Western ideas was necessary on a scale previously undreamt of. Opinions differed as to the extent of the change needed in China's political system, some holding that the new wine required quite new bottles, and regarding the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty as an essential preliminary to any reform, while others were so much concerned for the safety of the old bottles that they could bring themselves to contemplate nothing more than the cautious addition of a little new wine to the old. But that there must be assimilation of Western ideas, to a far greater degree than in the past, was common ground.

If the dynasty was to remain untouched, the conversion of the Throne to the cause of reform was essential to its success; and an opportunity soon presented itself, and was at once seized, for effecting this conversion by direct persuasion, instead of by the slow method of stirring so strong a current of public feeling that the Throne must yield. Kang Yu-wei, a very ardent reformer but no enemy to the dynasty, having been brought at Peking to the notice of the Emperor, gained over him an immediate and overmastering influence of which the