Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/85

 reasonable, that she herself apparently did not know exactly which of her interests should predominate, did not help matters; all those who had more possessions than she felt themselves endangered, and a general suspicion and lack of confidence resulted.

In the years after the Chino-Japanese war the German Government showed a great desire to play a prominent part in Far Eastern affairs. Thus, it took the lead in bringing about the joint intervention of Kussia, France and Germany, which obliged Japan to surrender Port Arthur, a part of the spoils of war just taken from China. The three powers who had thus come to the res- cue, however, forthwith proceeded to exact from China an enormous commission for their good of- fices, and forced her to make to them grants of lease-holds and other concessions, in which was in- cluded the very territory that they had rescued from Japan. In this keen onset, which amounted to an attempt to divide up the Chinese Empire, Great Britain in her turn also participated. The Far Eastern situation was rendered decidedly un- stable, and the frantic and unorganized resistance of the Boxer levies was the result.

After the settlement of these troubles, in 1901, the German Government, as we now know, tenta- tively suggested the formation of an alliance in-