Three groups of indebtedness and three groups of restrictions, corresponding with the three vital periods in Chinese history, lie to-day like three great weights on the body of the Chinese giant. First, there is the imbroglio of the Japanese war of 1894-5; second, the settlement following the Boxer explosion of 1900; and third, the cost of the revolution of 1911-1912. We have already discussed so exhaustively the Boxer Settlement and the finance of the Revolutionary period that it is necessary to deal with the first period only. In that first period China, having been rudely handled by Japan, recovered herself only by indulging in the sort of diplomacy which had become traditional under the Manchus. Thankful for any help in her distress, she invited and welcomed the intervention of Russia, which gave her back the Liaotung Peninsula and preserved for her the shadow of her power when the substance had already been so sensationally lost. Men are apt to forget to-day that the financial accommodation which allowed China to liquidate the Japanese war-debt was a remarkable transaction in which Russia formed the controlling element. In 1895 the Tsar's Government had intervened for precisely the same motives that animate every State at critical times in history, that is, for reasons of self- interest. The rapid victory which Japan had won had revived in an acute form the whole question of the future of the vast block of territory which lies south of the Amur regions and is bathed by the Yellow Sea. Russian statesmen suddenly became conscious that the policy of which Muravieff-Amurski in the middle of the nineteenth century had been the most brilliant exponent--the policy of reaching "warm water"--was in danger of being crucified, and the work of many years thrown away. Action on Russia's part was imperative; she was great enough to see that; and so that it should not be said that she was merely depriving a gallant nation of the fruits of victory and thereby issuing to her a direct challenge, she invited the chief Powers in Treaty relations with China to co-operate with her in readjusting what she described as the threatened balance. France and Germany responded to that invitation; England demurred. France did so because she was already the devoted Ally of a nation that was a guarantee for the security of her European frontiers: Germany because she was anxious to see that Russia should be pushed into Asiatic commitments and drawn away from the problems of the Near East. England on her part very prudently declined to be associated with a transaction which, while not opposed to her interests, was filled with many dubious elements.