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 sanatorium, or at most a useful dépôt for our ships. We juggled for a time with 'spheres of influence,' or, 'of interest' until the hollowness of these pretensions grew as wearisome as a worn-out joke. Russia in Manchuria, and Germany in Shantung, gave us plainly to understand that their motto was: 'What is mine is mine, but what is yours is not by any means your own.' We tried to arrive at a direct understanding with Russia, but the negotiations were gradually watered down to an indifferent agreement with regard to railways in the North, the value of which Russia illustrated in her own way by a bold attempt to retain possession of the Peking-Shanhaikwan line after the Boxer rising. We then concluded a formal convention with Germany, which she promptly interpreted in her own way as having no force with regard to Manchuria, but very peculiar force with regard to the valley of the Yang-Tsze. From the wretched Chinese Government we obtained 'assurances' galore and an abundant promise of 'open ports' and facilities for inland navigation and concessions for railways. But whilst German railways materialized in Shantung and Russian railways in Manchuria, and so-called Belgian railways, under the auspices of Franco-Russian diplomacy, worked down from Peking into the Yang-Tsze Valley at Hankow—i.e., into the heart of our own much-vaunted 'sphere'—most of the achievements of British diplomacy remained mere paper, and, for what they were worth, might have gone straight into the waste-paper basket. In the midst of all these perplexities there had come the South African War, and it had not only absorbed our energies, but it had effectually diverted public attention from the imbroglio, and even the creditable part played by our Indian troops in the relief of the Peking Legations only temporarily revived it.

British interests in the Far East seemed to be drifting rapidly towards a débâcle when the situation was sud-