The Boxer rising is one of the few Chinese events that all Europeans
know about. After we had demonstrated our superior virtue by the sack of
Peking, we exacted a huge indemnity, and turned the Legation Quarter of
Peking into a fortified city. To this day, it is enclosed by a wall,
filled with European, American, and Japanese troops, and surrounded by a
bare space on which the Chinese are not allowed to build. It is
administered by the diplomatic body, and the Chinese authorities have no
powers over anyone within its gates. When some unusually corrupt and
traitorous Government is overthrown, its members take refuge in the
Japanese (or other) Legation and so escape the punishment of their
crimes, while within the sacred precincts of the Legation Quarter the
Americans erect a vast wireless station said to be capable of
communicating directly with the United States. And so the refutation of
Chien Lung is completed.

Out of the Boxer indemnity, however, one good thing has come. The
Americans found that, after paying all just claims for damages, they
still had a large surplus. This they returned to China to be spent on
higher education, partly in colleges in China under American control,
partly by sending advanced Chinese students to American universities.
The gain to China has been enormous, and the benefit to America from the
friendship of the Chinese (especially the most educated of them) is
incalculable. This is obvious to everyone, yet England shows hardly any
signs of following suit.

To understand the difficulties with which the Chinese Government is
faced, it is necessary to realize the loss of fiscal independence which,
China has suffered as the result of the various wars and treaties which
have been forced upon her. In the early days, the Chinese had no
experience of European diplomacy, and did not know what to avoid; in