tion of that spirit of justice and equity which has always animated the United States in its relations with Japan." None of the other three nations partaking of the indemnity have seen fit to follow this example. It is also to be said that none of the Powers partaking of the Chinese indemnity-France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Russia-"have seen fit to follow this example." Other illustrations might be given of the policy of the United States toward the peoples of the Far East. They will be found, however, in Mr. MacMurray's two volumes. It is therefore sufficient to remark in this place that the United States has invariably framed its policy in such a way that it should be just to China-to speak specifically of this one country,-that the policy of China should be just to the United States, and that the door of opportunity should be open to the United States and to all other countries upon a footing of equality. It is a pleasure to publish Mr. MacMurray's volumes, and none the less a pleasure because they are the work of a former student and a constant friend. WASHINGTON, D. C., JAMES BROWN SCOTT, Director of the Division of International Law. EDITOR'S PREFACE. THE present compilation of documents relating to the affairs of China, as involving foreign interests, during the period beginning with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, is an outgrowth of the collection edited by the late Mr. William Woodville Rockhill under the title "Treaties and Conventions with or concerning China and Korea, 1894-1904, together with various State Papers and Documents affecting Foreign Interests" (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904). The underlying principle of Mr. Rockhill's collection was his appreciation of the fact that, with the Japanese War, China entered upon a new course of national development, the history of which is to be read not only-nor even primarily in the Treaties and other formal international engagements, but rather in the arrangements of nominally private character, with syndicates or firms of foreign nationality, under which the Chinese Government then began to incur a complex and far-reaching set of obligations and commitments, in which the financial or economic element is often merged indistinguishably with political considerations. Up to that time, the whole purpose of Chinese statesmanship, in relation to the outer world, had been to maintain the traditional isolation of the country; and against that aloofness, the foreign nations had struggled to establish the right of free intercourse. The results of that struggle, as embodied in the earlier Treaties, may be roughly summarized under three headings, namely:-Extraterritoriality, or the right of foreigners to be exempt from the processes of Chinese law and amenable only to the jurisdiction of their national tribunals; the right of residence in designated places, and of access to the interior of the country; and the right to trade freely, unhampered by monopolies, subject to a fixed tariff of import and export duties, and with the privilege of commuting by a single fixed charge all local taxes and levies upon commerce. These rights were essential, and even to-day are fundamental to the whole system of foreign intercourse with China; but they were and are, from the view-point of the development of the nation, rather negative than positive. The conditions-particularly the financial requirements-incidental to the war with Japan compelled a readjustment of China's attitude towards foreign nations and towards their resources and their influences. The Chinese nation found itself perforce face to face with the world, and under the necessity of accommodating itself to a relationship with it. Thenceforward, the problem of China was to avail itself of the material resources and experience of the West, while retaining what was vital in its own institutions and preserving as best it could not merely the integrity of its territories, but its political and national entity. How clearly this problem of assimilating the new conditions to the old xiii |