advantages elsewhere. The proposal for a railway into Peking from the north, which has been mentioned, frightened the Chinese and fell through. Had the case been otherwise, though the line apart from its political significance would have proved a formidable competitor with the Chinese system, it is difficult to see how Great Britain could have taken action in view of the reservation accepted by the British and Chinese Corporation of Russia's right to acquire concessions in South-West Manchuria.

To return, however, to the extra-mural extension, construction was recommenced in the autumn of 1898, and the railhead reached Hsiaoling Ho, two miles short of Chinchow, in the summer of 1899. After the floods that usually characterise the rainy season had subsided the track was pushed on towards Yingkow, passing Chinchow about the middle of October. About the same time platelaying was started at the Yingkow end, and ultimately the railheads coupled up some thirty miles out of Yingkow about the middle of February 1900.

From Kaopangtzu the track was then pushed towards Hsinminting, and had reached a point twenty miles out when the Boxer outbreak occurred, postponing its completion for several years.

Before closing the present chapter, two other events should be recorded that occurred in connection with the railway during the period under consideration.

The first of these was a proposal in 1899 to lay a third rail over the whole northern system, that is to say from Peking to Shanhaikwan, and thence to Newchwang and Hsinminting. The intention was to lay a rail three and a half inches outside one of the present rails, which would make with the second rail a five-foot gauge line over which the Russians were to have running rights.

The idea was originated in St. Petersburg, and to all appearances seriously considered in London. It received a good deal of support from members of the British and Chinese Corporation, who professed to see in it a solution to the difficulty arising from the antagonism of British and Russian railway interests in Manchuria.

The idea was very differently viewed by those advising the corporation in China, and by the Chinese. Moreover, as the engineers pointed out, the thing was physically impossible, for the heads of the rails when so laid would be less than half an inch apart, an insufficient space for the flange of the wheels of trains on the inner track.

This discovery caused the scheme to be varied, the new suggestion being that the third rail should be laid five feet outside the existing rails. But this could not be done without widening the track and all the bridges, a work practically equivalent to the construction of a new line. Again, difficulties of working a line under a dual national control would have been enormous, especially in this case where the interests of the nations concernedChinese and Russians-were for the most part in direct antagonism.

Apart, however, from these very practical objections, the proposal from both the Chinese and British standpoints would have been politically unsound. Had running rights over the line been granted, there can be no doubt that Russian control of the line would only have been a matter of time. On this would have followed a great increase in Russian influence in North China, and possibly, to adopt an oracular phrase that fell from the lips of a Cabinet Minister about this time, the ultimate establishment in Peking of "a voice behind the Throne." On the undefined possibilities of the situation, as well as the practical difficulties becoming appreciated in London, the scheme was allowed to fall through.

The further point to which allusion has been made was another attempt to displace Mr. Kinder, which also came to a head in 1899.

In the winter of 1898 Hu Yen Mei, the Director General of the railway, was discredited in the eyes of the Court on account of alleged pro-foreign views, and Chang Yen Mao, who was then Director General of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company, and had been Director of the China Railway Company before its absorption in the Imperial undertaking, was appointed Director General in his stead. This was after the loan with the British and Chinese Corporation had been negotiated through the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, and Hu's usefulness had ceased.

With Chang Yen Mao Mr. Kinder was not on very cordial terms, and differences of opinion, the details of which have no particular interest at this distance of time, shortly arose between them.

Thereupon an attempt was made to remove Mr. Kinder, charges of lack of experience and incompetence being anonymously preferred against him.

Ordinarily a contemptible attack of this kind would have passed unnoticed. But these were stirring times of intrigue and

international jealousy, and it is therefore not altogether surprising to find that the matter was taken up in the public press.

In the course of a spirited and entirely gratuitous defence of Mr. Kinder, Engineering, a journal of high standing, made the following observations in regard to his career.

"So far from being an amateur, Mr. Kinder had had experience on railways in England, Russia, and Japan before he went to China, and he therefore entered on his duties with a store of knowledge gathered over a wide area. It is admitted that the railways are well constructed; indeed, with the eminent engineers in this country looking after the interests of the line, and therefore of the British bondholders, it could scarcely be otherwise. As our columns have shown from time to time, Mr. Kinder has not only built the line, but he has constructed locomotives and rolling stock more cheaply than he could buy them, and of a quality that would compare with the best productions of Europe. The mechanical difficulties he encountered were, however, far less embarrassing than those which arose from the habits and prejudices of the Chinese. It is infinitely to his credit that he succeeded, first, in conciliating the people of the district in which he worked; and, second, in raising their enthusiasm in regard to railways. To do this he had to exercise great tact and infinite patience; he could not follow Western methods in the way the Russians do in Manchuria, because he had not an army of Cossacks to enforce his will. It was necessary for him to adapt himself to Celestial lines of thought and procedure as far as possible. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the railway has gradually secured the approbation of a people opposed to all innovation, and that even in its infancy it is making satisfactory profits."

It may be safely asserted that this entirely spontaneous verdict would be cordially endorsed by all those acquainted with the railway and the circumstances of its origin and growth. But perhaps the most striking comment on the attack was that of Her late Majesty, who took the opportunity to mark the confidence of the British Government in Mr. Kinder by creating him a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. A few months later the Boxer troubles effected the removal of Chang Yen Mao from the Director Generalship of the railways.

CHAPTER VII

THE IMPERIAL RAILWAYS OF NORTH CHINA-1900 TO THE PRESENT TIME

THE

HE development of this line has now been traced up to the Boxer outbreak in the summer of 1900; we have now to continue its history from that point to the present time.

Of the Boxer movement somewhat diverse accounts have been given. It originated in Shantung. According to some writers, it was from the day of its birth purely anti-foreign; according to others, it was in its inception anti-dynastic, but at a later stage its forces were diverted by Imperial agencies from their original channel and directed against the foreigner. On the whole, the latter view appears of the two to be the more in harmony with the facts.

We should, however, be exceeding our present limits were we to indulge in any discussion on this head. Whatever its originating motives may have been, the movement was far more anti-foreign than anything else when it burst over North China in June

1900.

The 16th of that month may be taken as the date on which it was brought to a head. There had for some weeks previously been intermittent outbreaks of lawlessness in the province of Chihli, and to the south-west. Stations had been burnt on the Lu-Han Railway then under construction, and French and Belgian engineers accompanied by large parties of missionaries from the interior had been compelled virtually to fight their way to Peking. The staff of the Pekin Syndicate had been forced to leave their post in Honan and work their way down to the Yangtze; the line between Tientsin and Peking had been in places destroyed, while on the 28th of May the station at Fengtai had been burnt.

In consequence of these occurrences a force under Admiral

Seymour had started from Tientsin on the 9th of June for the protection of the legations in Peking.

The 16th of June was a Saturday. The afternoon train left Tientsin for Tongku as usual, and carried a few of the ladies and children from the foreign settlements, where the gravity of the situation was beginning to be realised. This train was the last to leave before Tientsin was besieged. On the night of the same day the Taku Forts were attacked. In view of the disturbed state of the country the allied admirals had demanded their surrender to allow the passage of boats up the river in case of trouble. The Chinese had refused to comply, and early on the morning of Sunday the 17th the forts had fallen, for the third time in history, before foreign powers. On Sunday afternoon the Chinese fired their first shell into the foreign settlements of Tientsin.

The siege of the settlements lasted for one week, the relief arriving on the 25th. The most severe fighting had taken place around the railway station, which itself on the east side of the Pei Ho commands the settlements across the river. On the 18th the station had been occupied by a force of Russians, and held by them with occasional support from British marines and others throughout the attack, thus preventing the Chinese from mounting their guns on the station platforms and pouring shell into the settlements at short range on perhaps their most vulnerable side.

On the day on which the Russians occupied the station they also seized the railway offices, which were burnt a few days later. On examination of the premises, however, it was found that beyond doubt the safes had been burst open previously to the fire, and everything had been either removed or destroyed.1

On the relief of the foreign settlements the native city was attacked by the allied forces, and the repairs to the line between Tientsin and Tongku undertaken by the engineers of the allies; the greater portion of the damage being found on the Tientsin-Chungliangcheng section, the line below the latter point having been practically undisturbed.

A few days later, however, a body of Russian military engineers arrived from Port Arthur under Colonel Keller, Administrator of the Ussuri Railway, and by the 8th of July had begun tacitly to assume charge of the line. To this proceeding, as soon as it was noticed, some objection was taken, but on the 16th of July the control of the 1 Blue Book, China, No. 7, of 1901, Inclosure 2 in No. 21.