sky, viz., how to recover the right
of control over foreigners, wherever they may be in the Empire.
If it were in their power, the Chinese would cancel not merely
the franchises of foreign settlements, but the treaty right of
exemption from control by the local government. This is a franchise
of vital interest to the foreigner, whose life and property would
not be safe were they dependent on the native tribunals as these
are at present constituted.

Such exemption is customary in Turkey and other Moslem countries,
not to say among the Negroes of Africa. It was recognised by treaty
in Japan; and the Japanese, in proportion as they advanced in the
path of reform, felt galled by an exception which fixed on them the
stigma of barbarism. When they had proved their right to a place
in the comity of nations, with good laws administered, foreign
powers cheerfully consented to allow them the exercise of all the
prerogatives of sovereignty.

How does her period of probation compare with that of her neighbour?
Japan resolved on national renovation on Western lines in 1868.
China came to no such resolution until the collapse of her attempt
to exterminate the foreigner in 1900. With her the age of reform
dates from the return of the Court in 1902--as compared with Japan
four years to thirty! Then what a contrast in the animus of the
two countries! The one characterised by law and order, the other
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by mob violence, unrestrained, if not instigated, by the authorities!

When the north wind tried to compel a traveller to take off his
cloak, the cloak was wrapped the closer and held the tighter. When
the sun came out with his warm beams, the traveller stripped it
off of his own accord.

The sunrise empire has exemplified the latter method; China prefers
the former. Is it not to be feared that the apparent success of
the boycott will encourage her to persist in the policy of the
traveller in the north wind. She ought to be notified that she
is on probation, and that the only way to recover the exercise of
her sovereign rights is to show herself worthy of confidence. The
Boxer outbreak postponed by many years the withdrawal of the cloak
of ex-territoriality, and every fresh exhibition of mob violence
defers that event to a more distant date.

To confound "stranger" with "enemy" is the error of Bedouin or
Afghan. Does not China do the same when she mistakes hostility to
foreigners for patriotism? By this blunder she runs t