ding, after all, that China was not to be
partitioned by the powers that had defended it against the Boxers, and
that private property was not to be confiscated, now proposed to break
his contract so eagerly made. And there seemed to be no hope that the
curious course of Chinese law would ever compel him to recognize his
previous agreements. But there was something in the persistent,
indomitable pressure of the quiet but firm young Belgian agent, named de
Wouters, who had come back with Hoover, and of the young American, which
did finally compel the old Chinaman, after much trouble and delay, to
live up to his contract.

Years later the situation, with kaleidoscopic picturesqueness, took on
another hue, and Hoover found himself defending Chang's interests from
the overzealous attempts of some of the foreign owners to get more out
of the mines than was their fair share. In making the original
contracts it had been agreed to have a Chinese board with a Chinese
chairman, as well as a foreign board. This led to much difficulty and
some of the Europeans declared that the young American had been much at
fault in consenting to an arrangement which left so much share in the
control to the Chinese, and they repudiated this arrangement. Hoover and
de Wouters had a long hard struggle in getting justice for old Chang,
but just as their persistence had earlier held Chang up to his
agreements for the sake of the European owners of the undertaking, so
now, directed in the opposite direction, it succeeded in getting justice
for Chang and his Chinese group.

The affair brought him into business relations with another Belgian
named Emile Francqui, of keen mind and great personal force, who, with
de Wouters, were, strangely enough, later to be chief and first
assistant executives, respectively, of the Great Belgian Comite National
during the long hard days of the German Occupation. It was with these
men among all the Belgians that Hoover was to have most to do in
connection with his work as initiator and director of the Commission for
Relief in Belgium.

But we are now, in the story of Herbert Hoover, only in the year 1900,
and the Belgian Relief did not begin until 1914. And Hoover was still to
have many experiences as engineer and man of affairs, before he was to
meet his Belgian acquaintances again under the dramatic conditions
produced by the World War.

He had now his opportunity really to do something in China in line with
his