Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/88

80 area as large as New England, based on the special commercial concession, as above quoted.

The strongholds of Kiao-Chau and Port Arthur, for the Germans and Russians immediately set about fortifying them, so threatened the balance of power in the North, that the British government in 1898, demanding something to offset them, secured the harbor of Wei-hai-wei, directly opposite Port Arthur and with it marking the entrance to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li. This territory is to be held as long as the Russians hold Port Arthur. At the same time Great Britain extended the limits of the Kow-loon possession by two hundred square miles, so as to absolutely protect the harbor of Hong Kong, and secured from the Chinese government a promise that no territory in the Yang-tze Valley should be alienated to any other power, thus obtaining a so-called sphere of influence over the richest half of the empire. France, not wishing to see her commercial rivals outdo her, demanded, as her share of the plunder, the harbor and port of Kiang-chau-wau near her province of Tong-king and secured a lease of the same for ninety-nine years. Thus has the Chinese government given away its patrimony.

In addition to the above possessions of territory actually held under the domination of their respective governments, there are at the various treaty ports the so-called foreign concessions, which have been given by the Chinese government to the temporary care of the people of other nationalities, permitting them to establish a police force, courts of justice, fire protective service, to collect taxes for local use, and otherwise to maintain local governments according to foreign regulations and practically without interference by the Chinese government. Such concessions remain, in name, at least, Chinese territory. The largest and most important of them is Shanghai, where grants were made some years ago to the English, American and French. The first two have been combined into the Shanghai municipality, under a system of popular government with annual elections, where the rate-payers are voters and which in all functions closely resembles an independent republic. The theory that all nations are on an equal footing within the limits of the municipality is carried out to such an extreme that not only does the Chinese government maintain a post-office, but so also do all other countries whose citizens operate lines of mail steamers to and from the port. There are thus to be found, in addition to the Chinese post-office, regular establishments of the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Japan, while France has hers in the French concession, at all of which the stamps of the several countries are for sale.

Such in a few words is the political and physical status of that nation and that country on which the attention of the civilized world is focused, and whose development and regeneration will probably be the leading feature of the early years of the new century.