312 THE EAST CHINESE RAILWAY. 



Niuchwang. Opened to commerce in accordance with 

 the terms of the treaty of Tientsin in 1861, Niuchwang 

 has become the fourth in importance of all the treaty 

 ports of China, and is to-day the commercial door to 

 Manchuria. But the trade of Niuchwang was in the 

 hands of British, American, and Japanese firms, and 

 it became necessary to Bussian aspirations that this 

 should be altered. And so when in 1898 the Bussian 

 railway appeared upon the scene a large property a 

 little distance from the foreign settlement was acquired 

 through Ministerial pressure at Beking, and a branch 

 line was built which was no doubt to have been severed 

 as soon as Dalni had become the port of entry into 

 Manchuria — Niuchwang thus being cut off beyond the 

 hope of competition.^ No success, however, attended 

 these schemes to substitute Dalni for Niuchwang as 

 the commercial gateway of Manchuria, and Bussia was 

 casting about in her mind for other methods when the 

 Boxer outbreak of 1900 played most opportunely into 

 her hands. 



It is not my intention here to go into the history 

 of the Boxer rising of 1900 : all I wish to do is to 

 recall its effect upon Bussian plans. The course of 

 events in Pechili, and, to use the language of 'The 

 Official Messenger,' published in St Petersburg on 

 March 24 (April 6), 1901, "a series of acts of 

 aggression committed by Chinese insurgents on the 

 frontier of Bussia, rendered necessary the occupation 

 of the port of Niuchwang and the entry of Bussian 



^ The plague bogey, which the Eussians have found so useful an instru- 

 ment of obstruction against Indian trade in other parts of Asia, would 

 probably have been the weapon called in here. After the Russian occupa- 

 tion of Niuchwang, the administrator, Mr Gross, told Consul Fulford that 

 "Russia must protect her railway, and might cut oflf the branch line to 

 Niuchwang in the event of epidemics unless proper control were allowed." — 

 Parliamentary Paper, China No. 2, 1904. 



