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. Extraterritoriality, by creating the "treaty
port" in China, had been the most powerful weapon in undermining
native economics; yet at the same time it had been the agent for
creating powerful new counter-balancing interests.
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