ages the Chinese Government thought the same, but when the partly-awakened China reached out to grasp its last chance of swinging commercially into line with other great nations of the world, there was to be no hesitancy. China must have railways. She could not build them herself--she had no money. Europe and America could build them; Europe and America had the money, and {240} were doing what any other right-thinking nation would characterise as a gracious act (although not quite free from the loaves and fishes element), and it was the duty of the Chinese Government to rule with an iron hand against any hysterical hooligans whose Imperial short-sightedness rendered them a dangerous element in the country. There was for several months during the initial trouble no anti-foreign movement. A Society boasting the name of the One Aim Society--the one aim being to get the railway loan rescinded--was formed, many scholars of repute being the leaders, who prided themselves upon conducting their campaign in quite a civilised fashion, and not in the old way of destroying public buildings and so forth. Where agitation existed against the missionaries and foreigners the leaders stepped in, agitated for and subsequently succeeded in getting many of the commoner ringleaders beheaded. For many hundreds of square miles the countryside was pamphleted to the effect that "not a blade of grass belonging to a foreigner must be touched," the writer going on to declare that "if we do this, we shall only injure our own cause and give the foreign nations a pretext to step in and divide up our country.... This has nothing to do with the missionaries of any nation. If foreign nations have money to lend, and China wishes to borrow, they have a perfect right to lend upon the very best terms that they can get. We, therefore, cannot blame the foreigners, but only our own Government."