80 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



area as large as New England, based on the special commercial conces- 

 sion, as above quoted. 



The strongholds of Kiao-Chau and Port Arthur, for the Germans 

 and Eussians immediately set about fortifying them, so threatened the 

 balance of power in the North, that the British government in 1898, de- 

 manding something to offset them, secured the harbor of Wei-hai-wei, 

 directly opposite Port Arthur and with it marking the entrance to the 

 Gulf of Pe-chi-li. This territory is to be held as long as the Eussians 

 hold Port Arthur. At the same time Great Britain extended the limits 

 of the Kow-loon possession by two hundred square miles, so as to abso- 

 lutely protect the harbor of Hong Kong, and secured from the Chinese 

 government a promise that no territory in the Yang-tze Valley should 

 be alienated to any other power, thus obtaining a so-called sphere of 

 influence over the richest half of the empire. France, not wishing to 

 see her commercial rivals outdo her, demanded, as her share of the 

 plunder, the harbor and port of Kiang-chau-wau near her province of 

 Tong-king and secured a lease of the same for ninety-nine years. Thus 

 has the Chinese government given away its patrimony. 



In addition to the above possessions of territory actually held under 

 the domination of their respective governments, there are at the various 

 treaty ports the so-called foreign concessions, which have been given by 

 the Chinese government to the temporary care of the people of other 

 nationalities, permitting them to establish a police force, courts of jus- 

 tice, fire protective service, to collect taxes for local use, and otherwise to 

 maintain local governments according to foreign regulations and prac- 

 tically without interference by the Chinese government. Such conces- 

 sions remain, in name, at least, Chinese territory. The largest and most 

 important of them is Shanghai, where grants were made some years ago 

 to the English, American and French. The first two have been com- 

 bined into the Shanghai municipality, under a system of popular gov- 

 ernment with annual elections, where the rate-payers are voters and 

 which in all functions closely resembles an independent republic. The 

 theory that all nations are on an equal footing within the limits of the 

 municipality is carried out to such an extreme that not only does the 

 Chinese government maintain a post-office, but so also do all other 

 countries whose citizens operate lines of mail steamers to and from the 

 port. There are thus to be found, in addition to the Chinese post-office, 

 regular establishments of the United States, Great Britain, Germany 

 and Japan, while France has hers in the French concession, at all of 

 which the stamps of the several countries are for sale. 



Such in a few words is the political and physical status of that nation 

 and that country on which the attention of the civilized world is 

 focused, and whose development and regeneration will probably be the 

 leading feature of the early years of the new century. 



