hin its gates. When some unusually corrupt and
traitorous Government is overthrown, its members take refuge in the
Japanese (or other) Legation and so escape the punishment of their
crimes, while within the sacred precincts of the Legation Quarter the
Americans erect a vast wireless station said to be capable of
communicating directly with the United States. And so the refutation of
Chien Lung is completed.

Out of the Boxer indemnity, however, one good thing has come. The
Americans found that, after paying all just claims for damages, they
still had a large surplus. This they returned to China to be spent on
higher education, partly in colleges in China under American control,
partly by sending advanced Chinese students to American universities.
The gain to China has been enormous, and the benefit to America from the
friendship of the Chinese (especially the most educated of them) is
incalculable. This is obvious to everyone, yet England shows hardly any
signs of following suit.

To understand the difficulties with which the Chinese Government is
faced, it is necessary to realize the loss of fiscal independence which,
China has suffered as the result of the various wars and treaties which
have been forced upon her. In the early days, the Chinese had no
experience of European diplomacy, and did not know what to avoid; in
later days, they have not been allowed to treat old treaties as scraps
of paper, since that is the prerogative of the Great Powers--a
prerogative which every single one of them exercises.

The best example of this state of affairs is the Customs tariff.[27] At
the end of our first war with China, in 1842, we concluded a treaty
which provided for a duty at treaty ports of 5 per cent. on all imports
and not more than 5 per cent on exports. This treaty is the basis of the
whole Customs system. At the end of our next war, in 1858, we drew up a
schedule of conventional prices on which the 5 per cent. was to be
calculated. This was to be revised every ten years, but has in fact only
been revised twice, once in 1902 and once in 1918.[28] Revision of the
schedule is merely a change in the conventional prices, not a change in
the tariff, which remains fixed at 5 per cent. Change in the tariff is
practically impossible, since China has concluded commercial treaties
involving a most-favoured-nation clause, and the same tariff, with
twelve States besides Great Britain, and therefore any change in the
tariff requ