The pressure of foreign commerce upon China has naturally
resulted in demands for concessions to build railways, in order
that the country might be opened up for traffic and the products
of the interior be more easily and quickly brought to the coast.
The first railroad in China was built by British promoters in
1876. It ran from Shanghai to Woosung, only fourteen miles.
Great was the excitement of the populace, and no sooner was
it completed than the Government bought it, tore up the road-
bed, and dumped the engines into the river. That ended
railway-building till 1881, when, largely through the influence
of Wu Ting-fang, late Chinese Minister to the United States,
the Chinese themselves, under the guidance of an English
engineer, built a little line from the Kai-ping coal mines to
Taku, at the mouth of the Pei-ho River and the ocean gate
way to the capital. Seeing the benefit of this road, the Chinese
raised further funds, borrowed more from the English, and
gradually extended it 144 miles to Shan-hai Kwan on the
north, while they ran another line to Tien-tsin, twenty-seven
miles from Tong-ku, and thence onward seventy-nine miles
direct to Peking. This system forms the Imperial Railway and
belongs to the Chinese Government, though bonds are held by
the English, who loaned money for construction, and though
English and American engineers built and superintended the
system. The local staff, however, is Chinese.

No more concessions were granted to foreigners till 1895,
but then they were given so rapidly that, in 1899 when the
Boxer Society first began to attract attention, there were, including
the Imperial Railway, not only 566 miles in operation,