Left to themselves, the traders on either side, though without law, would have been a law to themselves, both parties having been habituated to a discipline of custom more potent within its sphere than any code, commercial or penal. But as no problem in life can ever be isolated, so in this case the twofold interference of the State and the populace constantly obstructed the genial flow of commercial intercourse. The interference of the Chinese bore no resemblance to the restrictions imposed on trade by Western Governments, for these, even when most oppressive, are usually specific and calculable. There is a tariff of duties, there are harbour and police regulations, and there are the laws of the land. The peculiarity of the Chinese official supervision of foreign trade was that it was incalculable and arbitrary, governed by cupidities and jealousies, and subject to individual caprice. Having barbarians to deal with, the Chinese authorities followed the maxims of their ancient kings and "ruled them by misrule, which is the true and the only way of ruling them." And finding the barbarians submissive, they grew accustomed to practise on them such indignities as a wanton schoolboy might inflict on a captive animal, unrestrained by any consideration save the risk of retaliation. The Chinese had no conscience to be shocked by the persecution of foreigners, for in relation to them justice and injustice were meaningless terms. Such arrogance was not so much the result of any formulated belief as of a traditional feeling lying at the bottom of their moral conceptions; and just as the Chinese people to-day speak of foreigners, without consciousness of offence, as "devils," so did the best educated officials in the days before the war sincerely regard strangers as an inferior, if not a degraded, race. As late as 1870 a British representative writing to the Chinese Prime Minister complained that "the educated class, both by speech and writing, lets the people see that it regards the foreigner as a barbarian, a devil, or a brute." And there has been no change since except what is enforced by prudence. To the absence of law in their intercourse was therefore superadded a special negation of human rights, naturally accompanied by an overbearing demeanour on the side of the natives. The strangers were in effect outlawed. The attempts made from time to time to assert their independence resembled the spasmodic kicking of the ox against the goad which led rather to aggravation than amelioration of the pain. The prevailing tone was that of submission, inviting more and more aggression, until the cup overflowed and war ensued.