pan was real, and her position as a
great power was not yet established. In the very moment of her triumph
over China she was forced to submit to the humiliation of having the
terms of peace supervised by a concert of powers and of having many of
the spoils of her victory torn from her.

The chief fruits that remained to Japan from her brilliant military
victory were Formosa and the recognition of the separation of Korea from
China: These acquisitions gave her an opportunity to show her capacity
for real expansion, but whether she would be able to hold her prize
was yet to be proven. The European states, however, claimed that by the
Japanese victories the balance of power in the Orient had been upset
and that it must be adjusted. The obvious method was for each power
to demand something for itself. In 1898 Germany secured a lease of
Kiao-chau Bay across the Yellow Sea from Korea, which she at once
fortified and where she proceeded to develop a port with the hope of
commanding the trade of all that part of China. Russia in the same way
secured, somewhat farther to the north, Port Arthur and Talien-wan,
and proceeded to build Dalny as the commercial outlet of her growing
railroad. Great Britain immediately occupied Wei-hai-wei, which was
midway between the German and Russian bases and commanded from the south
the entrance to Pekin, and also, much farther to the south, Mirs Bay,
which gave security to her commercial center at Hong-kong. France took
Kwang-chau, still farther to the south, and Italy received Sanmen,
somewhat to the south of the Yangtszekiang. From these ports each power
hoped to extend a sphere of influence. It was axiomatic that such a
sphere would be most rapidly developed and most solidly held if special
tariff regulations were devised to throw the trade into the hands of the
merchants of the nation holding the port. The next step, therefore, in
establishing the solidity of an Asiatic base, would be the formulation
of special tariffs. The result would be the practical division of China
into districts having different and opposed commercial interests.

The United States did not arrive in this energetic company as an entire
stranger. With both China and Japan her relations had long been intimate
and friendly. American merchants had traded ginseng and furs for China
silks and teas ever since the United States had been a nation. In 1786
the Government had appointed a commercial agent at Canton and in 1844
ha