CHINA. 



I : 



no more than a protection against mob violence. 

 They generally consist of a wall 15 to 20 feet high 

 and 3 or 4 feet thick, with loopholes for rifles and 

 machine guns. In the walls in front of the Ameri- 

 can and some of the other legations the loopholes 

 were bricked up, so as not to give offense. The 

 Chinese Government made a demand that the 

 yamuns of the Board of Government and the 

 temples should be restored, and held that the 

 foreign governments should compensate private 

 owners for the property they took for their own 

 purposes, and not place this burden on the Chinese 

 treasury in addition to the indemnities. In the end 

 the Chinese authorities were induced to grant the 

 requisite concessions, and to undertake to pay pri- 

 vate owners. 



The ministers made out lists of provincial offi- 

 cials that deserved death for having instigated or 

 permitted the murders of missionaries and other 

 Europeans during the Boxer uprising. Besides 

 240 missionaries, 30,000 converts had been mur- 

 dered by the antiforeign fanatics, and to expiate 

 the massacres, officials of various degrees were 

 designated by the ministers for punishment. Of 

 the murdered missionaries, 113 were British, 78 

 were Americans and Scandinavians aided by 

 American societies, and 49 were Roman Catholics. 

 The British minister was especially anxious to 

 bring to justice the persons responsible for the 

 Chuchau massacre, and obtained the assistance of 

 the Governor of Chekiang, on whose report the 

 Imperial Government eventually decreed the deg- 

 radation of the ex-Governor and the commander 

 of the troops. The victims at Chuchau were 11 

 British missionaries, who were murdered in 

 obedience to the imperial edict of July, 1900, or- 

 dering the extermination of foreigners. The Rus- 

 sian minister positively refused to be a party to 

 any further demands for decapitations. The Span- 

 ish minister agreed with him in the opinion that 

 diplomatists who had endured the siege were not 

 fit judges in such matters. Mr. . Rockhill, the 

 United States special commissioner, was in- 

 structed by the President to object to further 

 bloodshed. The Japanese Government took the 

 same view. The majority of the ministers insisted 

 on exemplary justice in the localities where the 

 Boxer crimes were committed, and presented a list 

 of 140 officials marked out for punishment, of 

 whom 11 should be doomed to decapitation. The 

 Russian Government took no interest in proceed- 

 ings relating to the murders of missionaries. The 

 Russian Church, although it is represented by a 

 fine edifice and a staff of ecclesiastics in Pekin, has 

 never made proselytes in China. Russia was op- 

 posed from the beginning to dictating judicial 

 decrees in China, as the United States and Japan 

 were also, but the representatives of these powers 

 had concurred with the others so far in order not 

 to disturb the concert. The demand for decapita- 

 tions was afterward cut down to 4 and for other 

 sentences to 91, and in the end the ministers did 

 not insist on the punishment of any local officials 

 beyond those already dealt with in Chuchau. 

 Boxers who were caught in the American quarter 

 of Pekin, Gen. Chaffee, under instructions from 

 Washington, invariably handed over to the Board 

 of Punishments to be judged according to Chinese 

 law. 



Field-Marshal Count von Waldersee called a 

 conference of the foreign commanders on April 29, 

 to consider the question of the withdrawal of the 

 troops. The ministers were informed that evacua- 

 tion might begin as soon as they had agreed on 

 the sum to be paid by China in indemnities and 

 China had agreed to its payment. The generals 

 decided to hand over the administration of Pekin 



gradually to the Chinese, who had already estab- 

 lished the various boards of government.. Thin 

 plan was in operation in the .Japanese, American, 

 and British quarters, the military exercising only 

 a passive supervision over the departments con- 

 fided to the Chinese officials. 



In the discussion of the indemnity and the 

 mode of its paymdlit serious differences In-tween 

 the Cabinets were disclosed, and the question was 

 taken from the consideration of the ministers to 

 be settled by negotiation between the govern- 

 ments. The claims put forward by some of the 

 powers seemed likely to bankrupt China. Italy 

 demanded for the purpose of rebuilding the lega- 

 tion sixteen times the cost of the one destroyed, 

 and Germany wanted China to pay for the forti- 

 fications at Kiaochau. France's claim was swelled 

 in order to provide a liberal recompense for native 

 Christians, and thus strengthen the influence of 

 that power as the protector of all the Catholic 

 missions in China. Russia required to be reim- 

 bursed for the cost of her army in Manchuria 

 and for repairs on the Manchurian railroads. 

 Private claims for damages amounted to immense 

 sums, almost every foreigner in China regarding 

 the situation as an opportunity for enriching 

 himself at the expense of the Chinese treasury. 

 The Austrian and Italian governments insisted 

 on indemnities for the families of soldiers who 

 were killed in the defense of the legations and 

 in the march of the relief columns from the sea 

 to Pekin. All the governments required repay- 

 ment of the expenses of the expeditions to China. 

 The United States Government took the view that 

 legitimate damages ended as soon as the lega- 

 tions were rescued and the capital city and prov- 

 ince occupied by the allied troops, but obtained 

 no support for this contention, which would ex- 

 clude the greater part of the German claim, and 

 was a stricture on the useless and mischievous 

 punitive expeditions that Count von Waldersee 

 sanctioned in order to keep his soldiers busy. 

 The ministers appointed the British, French, Ger- 

 man, and Japanese representatives a committee 

 to examine into the financial resources of China. 

 They questioned all who w r ere most expert in the 

 matter, and came to vague and inconclusive re- 

 sults. The claims after being sifted amounted 

 to 450,000,000 taels, or 65,000,000. The United 

 States Government endeavored to get the powers 

 to agree first to a lump sum that would be within 

 the resources of China to pay, and to apportion 

 this among themselves according to the expenses 

 and damages they had incurred. The sum of 

 $200,000,000 was suggested as being sufficient to 

 pay well-founded claims, though perhaps beyond 

 the ability of China to pay. The United States 

 would be content with an eighth of this, and the 

 other seven parts might be divided among the 

 seven powers that had taken an active part in 

 the relief of the legations, excluding the two 

 others. If the powers would cut down the total 

 to $100,000,000, a sum that China could pay with- 

 out being seriously crippled, the United States 

 would reduce, its claim proportionally with the 

 other powers. The United States was willing to 

 accept in payment bonds of the Chinese Govern- 

 ment bearing 3 per cent, interest at par. The 

 claims when first presented amounted to $85,000.- 

 000 for Russia, $60,000,000 for Germany, $55,000,- 

 000 for France, $25,000,000 for the United States, 

 $24,000,000 for Great Britain, $23,000,000 for 

 Japan, $6,000,000 for Belgium, and $30,000,000 for 

 Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Spain, and for every 

 month from April 1 the total increased at the 

 rate of $10,000,000. The French claim included 

 $18,000,000 demanded by the Catholic Church on 



