glances of expanding world powers. But China
exceeds them all as a field for commercial expan-
sion. More populous than all Europe, it contains
provinces which singly have a wealth of natural
resources that reduces European figures to in-
significance. The one province of Szechuen,
with its sixty-odd millions of inhabitants, its
vast and apparently inexhaustible coal fields, its
agricultural and mining wealth, is an empire in
itself.

There has been a marked change in opinion
concerning China since the war between that
country and Japan. Some thinkers, like Schopen-
hauer ¹ and Renan, ² it is true, foresaw the down-
fall of China as an inevitable consequence of its
pedantic civilization; but others, and prominently
among them, General Wolseley, ³ were at the same
time predicting for it an increasing strength. The
latter were even frightened at a vision of a "Yel-
low Terror," which was to sweep the older civiliza-
tions from the globe when the full possibilities of
the Chinese race should come to be realized. The
empire was looked upon as difficult for European
powers to deal with in matters of international
moment, and as bound, therefore, to pursue for an
indefinite time its own destiny, free from outside
interference. Since the war, however, opinion has
passed to the other extreme. Hopeless corruption

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