with hardly any exception, been only too anxious to make what they could out of them. They have sold him lands, mining rights, options to buy their farms (President Kruger himself has been receiving very large sums for the option to buy his own land) for the highest prices they could obtain, and not one farthing would they have received from the Uitlander in these ways except for the purpose of mining gold, or on account of the increased value given to the land by the goldmining industry. Now that the Uitlander has spent tens of millions sterling to enable the gold to be produced, and that the Boer, as an individual, has extracted every farthing he could for his land and his rights, has he still a right to say: The gold still belongs to us as a small close borough of voters, to use as we like, and even to hand over at our pleasure to concessionaires and outsiders'?

This argument hardly seems to hold water.

With regard to railway rates, the only excuse offered me by one Boer official, and another prominent ex-official, was that it cost more to bring the goods in bullock-wagons!

Now this might be a good excuse if the Boer Government were to say: 'If you do not like the charges of the existing railway, make a railway for yourselves, and try if you can carry goods cheaper.'

This is exactly what they do not say.

They say 'You shall not make any other railway. You will use this railway or none, and you will pay any rates they choose to ask you, even up to 74d. per ton per mile on the roughest of rough goods.'

In conclusion I can only repeat that I commenced this inquiry with an unbiassed mind and with no preconceived opinions. I have not concealed my own opinions, but at the same time I have endeavoured to state the facts clearly and dispassionately so as to give every one the opportunity of judging for himself how far the grievances of the Uitlanders are sentimental and imaginary, and how far they are real and substantial.

H. M. MEYSEY-THOMPSON.

GREAT BRITAIN'S OPPORTUNITY

IN CHINA

THE decision of the British Government to guarantee a loan of 12,000,000l. sterling to China at 3 per cent. interest bids fair to be an epoch-making event in the history of our relations with that empire. Although the trade of Great Britain and her dependencies with China is about two and a half times as great as that of all the other countries of the globe put together, it cannot be truly said that hitherto this country has availed herself to the full of the advantages that this great commercial predominance ought to confer. Out of the enormous number of ports scattered along the vast extent of Chinese seaboard, only eighteen are at present open by treaty to the trade of the world, while the commerce with the interior is hampered and strangled by the notorious and arbitrary exactions imposed by the local mandarins under the pretext of likin duties. How these abuses grew up in spite of the treaties of 1842 and 1878 is no new tale; it suffices to say that at present China, with her four hundred millions of inhabitants and with a vast area of productive territory, the very garden of the world, plays a comparatively insignificant part in international commerce. Her minerals, probably the most important of the world, are absolutely undeveloped; railways, in spite of some advance made in 1896, are still practically non-existent; manufactories are ridiculously few in number; while good roads, those indispensable aids to civilisation, are conspicuous by their absence.

In a general way the public debt of a country may be said to be a fair index of her capacity and resources. It may be useful here to give a brief statement of the public debt of some of the principal countries of the world per head of population.

These figures speak for themselves, and we scarcely need even Mr. Chamberlain's spirited appeals to our national enterprise to enabie us to realise that this condition of things in the most populous and undeveloped region of the globe concerns us, our prosperity, and our very existence more than those of any other country.

How, then, is Great Britain to avail herself of this opportunity for extending that commerce which is her very lifeblood? To answer this we must carefully consider the terms on which the Government are reported to have agreed to the loan, and see how far they satisfy what we ought to ask for. The Chancellor of the Exchequer warned us not to consider them as accurate or complete, but, as modified by the subsequent corrections made from Pekin, they are probably not very far wrong.

The first condition provides for the opening of three more treaty ports—Talienwan, Shanyin, and Nanning-in addition to the existing number, making twenty-one in all. To this proviso it is said that Russia, with more or less acquiescence on the part of France, is offering the most strenuous opposition. It is difficult to believe that such opposition can be seriously persevered in. Consider what a treaty port is. It is one in which foreign subjects may own property and reside; where foreign vessels may load and discharge; where merchandise, both foreign and native, may be imported and exported, under a fixed tariff of duties; whence foreign goods may be sent into the interior, and native produce may be brought down from the interior for shipment abroad, on certain conditions. At these points the collection of duties is under the control of the Maritime Customs, which, as is well known, is an imperial service, directed from Pekin, and exercising supervision over the trade carried on in steamers and foreign vessels irrespective of nationality. The pecuniary benefits derived by the Chinese Exchequer from the Imperial Maritime Customs service are too notorious to require dwelling on; the revenue collected therefrom in 1895 amounted to 3,497,4021. and in 1896 3,763,2281., and this source of income, which is the only item honestly accounted for and paid into the Exchequer at Pekin, is practically the only good security that China has to offer to financiers in return for any loan. The more treaty ports, the greater the revenue at the disposal of the Central Government at Pekin, and the greater the means and prospect of developing the Empire. On what plea can Russia resist such a proposal? Can it be that she wishes to pursue the same policy towards China that has been adopted towards Turkey and to deprecate any interference with the gradual process of decay

VOL. XLIII-No. 252

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from within, with the hope that, when final dissolution at length arises, the Celestial Empire may naturally fall helpless to her strongest neighbour? There is not the remotest possibility of such a contingency. The Dardanelles may make such a policy conceivable, if not practicable, as regards Turkey, but our interests are far too strong and easily guarded in China to allow us to acquiesce in her ruin and dismemberment. The 'partition of China' anticipated in some quarters is just the very arrangement that England will not consent to; and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has expressed forcibly, but not a whit more so than the importance of the case demands, the national will when he says that England is determined, even at the cost of war, to prevent the door from being shut.

It appears unlikely, therefore, writing from the present standpoint of knowledge, that this opposition to fresh treaty ports is genuine, though there may be a little jealousy as regards Talienwan. The latter port lies north of Port Arthur, and has the advantage of being open to navigation all the year round, while Newchwang, still farther to the north, and the principal emporium for the trade of Manchuria, is closed by ice in the winter months. Both Talienwan and Port Arthur will therefore be important outlets of commerce when the southern or Manchurian branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway is completed, and though Mr. Balfour saw no objection to Russia's occupation, or, as Madame Novikoff might term it, 'utilisation,' of Port Arthur, it is clear that the British Government now regard the matter in a more serious light, and that they will not allow one country to monopolise, if not to filch, Chinese territory wholesale, to the exclusion of other nations.

The second condition of the loan to be provided by Great Britain is that no portion of the Yang-tze-Kiang valley shall be alienated or ceded to any other Power. The meaning of this condition is clear enough. Shanghai, at the mouth of the Yang-tze-Kiang, is the principal place, with the exception of Hong Kong (which is British territory, and therefore not under consideration), whither the trade flows, and whence the further distribution of merchandise throughout China is effected, mainly by Chinese merchants. The enormous area of the basin of the Yang-tze, which extends almost up to the confines of India, and which, with its tributaries, forms the most extensive system of waterways for the internal distribution of trade in China, necessarily makes the keeping open of this great highway a matter of supreme importance to a Power whose share of the gross tonnage entering and clearing at Chinese ports is within a fraction of 70 per cent. of the whole. This condition is one that is so obviously essential for Great Britain that it is probably needless to dwell further on it.

The right to extend the Burma Railway through Yunnan also requires but little comment. Railway extension from Burma to

Western China has been talked of for nearly thirty years, but it is only within the last few years that any steps have been taken by means of the Mandalay and Kunlon Ferry line to give effect to what has been so long a crying want. It was well known from the first that not much good could be effected by simply building a line up to the Chinese frontier of Yunnan; that province, in spite of its natural wealth, is so remote and thinly peopled, that to open up any real trade railways must be pushed right through it, to within reach of the Yang-tze-Kiang and West rivers. The only objection at present anticipated is that of the French, who might look upon their Red River as the natural outlet for the products of Yunnan, but it is difficult to imagine that so 'dog in the manger' an attitude could be seriously assumed. Yunnan is a very large province, big enough for both nations to exploit, and its proximity to British territory marked it out, long before the French arrival in Tonquin, as the first place in the western part of the Middle Kingdom where the inevitable 'opening up' of China would be put into operation. The great delay has not been very creditable to Anglo-Indian enterprise, but now that we have actually set out on the road to Yunnan we are not likely to turn back or stop short. Lastly, one may take note with satisfaction of the demand for facilities for steam navigation over the inland waters, a boon which every nation with a spark of commercial enterprise will be quick to appreciate.

On a general review of these conditions unprejudiced people will hardly help being struck by their extraordinary moderation. England might easily have insisted on some territorial concession to compensate for those made without any tangible quid pro quo to Russia and Germany, and she might have stipulated for many other exclusive privileges for herself, but she has preferred to take her stand on the ground of equal commercial privileges to all. She has not even demanded what, in the general interest, she might very fairly have pressed for in these days, the throwing open of the whole seaboard of China to the trade of the world. Under these circumstances the reluctance of Russia to consent to Talienwan being made a treaty port, and the recent confident proposals in the Cologne Gazette to regard the territory leased round and in Kiao-Chau as an enclave, where practically no one but a German subject has any rights at all -all this shows very clearly that while our intentions may be disinterested enough, other countries, in regard to the footing they have secured in Northern China, are more than half inclined to pursue a purely selfish and rigidly exclusive policy.

The last proviso of all, being conditional and merely in case of default of payment, does not take exactly the same rank as the foregoing ones. Nevertheless, it is of the greatest importance to England, who has to find the money, and at present nothing is absolutely known in detail except that in the event of default China is to place