On the 27th, Sir Claude reported further that he had heard on very good authority that all the French demands had been granted, and added: "The Yamên have since denied to me that they have committed themselves to granting them, but I have little doubt that they have practically done so. The reason for making the Railway Concession a separate matter is that the Chinese are anxious to avoid establishing precedents for compensation for attacks on missionaries taking the shape of commercial Concessions, and they hope, rather foolishly, to do so by nominally closing the missionary case before the other matter is taken up. They did this in the case of the German Agreement for the lease of Kiao-chau Bay, which begins by declaring that the Shantung missionary case has already been closed. The French demands are not at all excessive. I have already expressed my belief that the proposed railway will not injure us commercially, provided, of course, that no differential rates are allowed, as to which I shall insist on specific assurances from the Yamên." _Great Britain, Papers by Command: China, Number 1, 1899, pages 91, 146, 150._ Alluding to this incident, and to that which the German government made its pretext for seizing Kiao Chau (see, above, A. D. 1897-November), a German writer has remarked: "Never before, perhaps, has so much material value been attached to ministers of the Gospel in foreign lands, and the manner in which, after their death, they are used to spread civilization is somewhat foreign to our older ideas of the functions of the bearers of spiritual blessings." CHINA: A. D. 1898 (June-September). Momentary influence of a reform party in the palace. Futile attempt of the young emperor to uphold it. The decaying state of the Empire had now become so desperately plain, and the predatory swarm of governments and speculators which gathered to despoil it had grown so greedy and so bold, that a party which could see that the only hope for its salvation must be sought in some modernizing reforms, of education and administration, was able to win a momentary footing of influence in the palace at Peking. Its leading spirit appears to have been one Kang Yeu Wei, an extremely radical reformer who came from Canton. In an article which he wrote some months later, and which was published in the "Contemporary Review," Kang Yeu Wei gave this account of himself, and of the mode in which he was brought into relations with the young Emperor: