BRITAIN AND CHINA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 82, 11 August 1913, Page 4

BRITAIN AND CHINA.

Great interest has been aroused in China by the announcement an influential committee is approaching the British Government with a request that a portion of the British Boxer indemnity be assigned for the foundation of a proposed British University in Central China. Britain, a Times correspondent writes, could take no more honorable step. The imposition by the Powers in 1901 of the monstrous national fine of £67,000,000 was never justified on any grounds except gross political expediency, the object being to. cripple China so permanently that no “Yellow Peril” would be possible. As it is impossible to imagine that such crude political doctrines were inspired from British sources, it is only right and proper that Britain dissociates herself, just as America has done, from a piece of real international cruelty. Frotunately, Great Britain’s share is small compared with that of others, namely, £7,500,000, or 11 per cent, of the total indemniy. Recently the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs stated in Parliament that half this amount, based on the actual expenditure of the surplus, would bo ultimately returned. By endowing, an educational, system in the manner suggested the stigma of, injustice which tinctures the. Boxer, settlement would : undoubtedly be further, wiped out.; - ( Three other,, immense-: claims, however, merit attention, namely, Russia £19,000,000, Got many £14,000,000, and France £lO,500,00. All statisticians ag’ee that more than half these totals represent non-existent expenses. Thus, ihe main item in the Russian schedule was “employment of 12,000 soldiers for'the suppression of ' he B ixer revolt at £IOO per man, equals £12,000,000.” China is thus made to pay the year’s Bill for every Russian soldier east of the Baikal in 1900, simply as a punishment. Justice demands that all the Powers alike, in pursuance of Sir Edward Grey’s policy of international co-operation in China, should readjust their bill on the basis of the actual expenditure incurred.