foreigners--was such a distinct restriction of the rights of eminent
domain as to amount to a partial abrogation of sovereignty.

That this was vaguely understood by the masses is now quite certain. The
Boxer movement of 1900, like the great proletarian risings which
occurred in Italy in the pre-Christian era as a result of the
impoverishment and moral disorder brought about by Roman misgovernment,
was simply a socio-economic catastrophe exhibiting itself in an
unexpected form. The dying Manchu dynasty, at last in open despair,
turned the revolt, insanely enough, against the foreigner--that is
against those who already held the really vital portion of their
sovereignty. So far from saving itself by this act, the dynasty wrote
another sentence in its death-warrant. Economically the Manchus had been
for years almost lost; the Boxer indemnities were the last straw. By
more than doubling the burden of foreign commitments, and by placing the
operation of the indemnities directly in the hands of foreign bankers by
the method of monthly quotas, payable in Shanghai, _the Peking
Government as far back as fifteen years ago was reduced to being a
government at thirty days' sight, at the mercy of any shock of events
which could be protracted over a few monthly settlements_. There is no
denying this signal fact, which is probably the most remarkable
illustration of the restrictive power of money which has ever been
afforded in the history of Asia.

The phenomenon, however, was complex and we must be careful to
understand its workings. A mercantile curiosity, to find the parallel
for which we must go back to the Middle Ages in Europe, when "free
cities" such as those of the Hanseatic League plentifully
dotted river and coast line, served to increase the general difficulties
of a situation which no one formula could adequately cover.