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Rh you not to interfere in her internal affairs. * * *

"She asks you that you will respect the neutrality of her waters and the integrity of her territory. She asks in a word, to be left perfectly free to unfold herself precisely in that form of civilization of which she is most capable.

"She asks you to give to those treaties which were made under the pressure of war a generous and Christian construction. Because you have done this, because the Western nations have reversed their old doctrine of force, she responds, and, in proportion as you have expressed your good will, she has come forth to meet you; and I aver that there is no spot on earth where there has been greater progress made in the past few years than in the Empire of China. * * *

"Yet notwithstanding this manifest progress, there are people who will tell you * * * that it is the duty of the Western Treaty Powers to combine for the purpose of coercing