ploughed over by the feared and hated locomotive, and the most profitable enterprises to be placed in the hands of the despised foreigners.[1]
But the most potent cause of the Boxer movement was neither the missions nor commerce, but the political influences which were operating for the dismemberment and destruction of the empire. These influences were especially manifest during 1897 and 1898. The cession of Formosa to Japan in 1895 was not so offensive, as it was the result of a great war and some compensation to the victor in territory seemed natural. But the effect of the next aggression was quite different. Following the murder of two German Catholic priests by a mob in Shantung in November, 1897, the German government sent a strong naval force to the spacious harbor of Kiaochau, ejected the Chinese forces from the fortifications, and occupied the place with marines. This was soon followed by the demand of the German minister in Peking for an apology for the murder of the priests, a large indemnity, and a lease of the harbor and an adjoining strip of territory, with the privilege of building railroads and exploiting mines in the province of Shantung. The remonstrances of the Tsung-li Yamen against the summary method of procedure and the exorbitant demands were of no avail. The German seizure of Kiaochau was followed a month later by the occupation of Port Arthur by a Russian
- ↑ The Problem in China, by A. R. Colquhoun, London, 1900; 1 Smith's China, etc. chap. vii.; Douglass's China, 447; The Story of the Chinese Crisis, by A. Krausse, London, 1900, p. 135; China and the Powers, by A. Ireland, Boston, 1902; Dr. Brown's Report, 9–13; Gen. Wilson's China, 394; Speer's Missionary, etc. 157, 161.
