The great importance of this money question was nowhere better understood than at St. Petersburg, and one cannot help admiring the boldness and ability of the policy pursued by Russia. That countries like France and England, literally overflowing with money, should have ventured to secure a preponderating position in China by means of financial manœuvrings is not at all to be wondered at; but that Russia, already heavily indebted with a public foreign debt amounting to over £240,000,000, should have been shrewd enough to subject China to a sort of vassalage, through the pecuniary services she rendered her, was indeed a masterly achievement. M. de Witte, the Tsar’s Minister of Finance, who devised this remarkable scheme and conducted it to a triumphant issue over the head of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, exhibited throughout the rarest political ability and foresight combined with business acumen. Russia was unable to lend China money, but she was willing to become her guarantor, and thus enable the Celestial Empire, backed by the principal banks of Paris, where Russian funds were at their height, to float a loan of £16,000,000 at 4 per cent. issued at ninety-four—that is to say, at the same issue price at which, before this security was granted, the French and German financial houses had offered to raise a loan at 5 per cent. The annual interest to be paid by China, thanks to Russian intervention, was thus reduced by a fifth, whereby the Celestials, although they obtained a bargain, at the same time committed a grave political error. In accepting a foreign Power as guarantor, the Chinese Government rendered itself responsible to that Power only, and placed her financial and, above all, her political independence in far greater peril than she could have done had she negotiated directly with individual capitalists of various nationalities, whose pressure, in case of non-payment, would have been considerably weakened by the inevitable differences which would subsist between their Governments. This danger seems to have been thoroughly understood at Peking, where the necessary documents were not signed until the expiration of the last day’s delay granted by Russia, and then only under extreme pressure, because the Chinese Government had evidently failed to find assistance elsewhere.