tions. During the last years
of the life of the dowager empress it was his influence which largely
reconciled her to the new reform movement. Yet Kwang-su had not
forgotten the _coup d'etat_ of 1898, and it is alleged that he left a
testament calling upon his brother the prince regent to avenge the
wrongs he had suffered.[75] During the greater part of the year there
was serious estrangement between China and Japan, but on the 4th of
September a convention was signed which settled most of the points in
dispute respecting Manchuria and Korea. In Korea the boundary was
adjusted so that Chientao, a mountainous district in eastern Manchuria
regarded as the ancestral home of the reigning families of China and
Korea, was definitely assigned to China; while in Manchuria, both as to
railways and mines, a policy of co-operation was substituted for one of
opposition.[76] Although Japan had made substantial concessions, those
made by China in return provoked loud complaints from the southern
provinces--the self-government society calling for the dismissal of
Prince Ching. In northern Manchuria the Russian authorities had assumed
territorial jurisdiction at Harbin, but on the 4th of May an agreement
was signed recognizing Chinese jurisdiction.[77]

The control of railways.

The spirit typified by the cry of "China for the Chinese" was seen
actively at work in the determined efforts made to exclude foreign
capital from railway affairs. The completion in October 1909 of the
Peking-Kalgan railway was the cause of much patriotic rejoicing. The
railway, a purely Chinese undertaking, is 122 m. long and took four
years to build. It traversed difficult country, piercing the Nan K'ow
Pass by four tunnels, one under the Great Wall being 3580 ft. long.
There was much controversy between foreign financiers, generally backed
by their respective governments, as to the construction of other lines.
In March 1909 the Deutschasiatische Bank secured a loan of L3,000,000
for the construction of the Canton-Hankow railway. This concession was
contrary to an undertaking given in 1905 to British firms and was
withdrawn, but only in return for the admittance of German capital in
the Sze-ch'uen railway. After prolonged negotiations an agreement was
signed in Paris on the 24th of May 1910 for a loan of L6,000,000 for the
construction of the railway from Hankow to Sze-ch'uen, in which British,
French, German and American interests were equally represente