History pays no more than a just tribute to commerce, when she accords to that agency important civilizing influences; yet it must be admitted that it has frequently pursued a tortuous course, has often been unscrupulous in the means that it has employed, and has not always been reciprocal in its advantages. Like religion, it has been used as an opening wedge to conquest. As the establishment of a factory in Bengal prepared the way for the battle of Plassy, so the founding of a mission in Manilla led to the subjugation of the Philippines. Or as, in our day, opium breached the walls of China, so the Society of Jesus, by its labor in Anam, has caused the dismemberment of that empire. British commerce demanded for its development successive wars. Gallican religion exacts from each dynasty the employment of the sword as an auxiliary of propagandism. These aggressions have been facilitated by the assumption, on the part of Christian powers, of the exemption of their subjects from local jurisdiction in Mohammedan and pagan countries. A factory or a mission is established, which, from the outset, is an _imperium in imperio_, and becomes a permanent conspiracy which soon finds causes of complaint against the government of the land in which, without invitation, its members have become domiciled. Essentially this is filibusterism, more dangerous because more insidious than an armed invasion; it has caused nearly all the collisions which have occurred in oriental and occidental intercourse. If, in the discussions that have arisen on eastern questions, this consideration of the subject had not been wholly ignored, the courses pursued by western powers would be even less defensible than they have been made to appear. No one can arrive at correct conclusions on questions affecting China, Japan, Siam and other pagan states without an attentive consideration of the claims which those weak countries have upon us in view of their being compelled to join the family of nations, and render themselves amenable to international law, while they are debarred from the semblance of reciprocity. Extraterritoriality originated in the Levant. The mercantile establishments that sprang up in Western Asia and Northern Africa, as Moslem power began to wane, partook of a semi-official character; being recognized as an appendage of the diplomatic corps of that country, it became the practice to accord to the trading Frank the exemption from local jurisdiction which was accorded to the official representative of his country.