the proposed amendment.[385] Li soon passed away, on November 7, leaving the gravest problem of China in a state of extreme uncertainty. As to the contents of the Russian proposition, it is interesting to observe that they were presently revealed from a source whose veracity could hardly be questioned. On December 11, Prince Ching disclosed them to Mr. Conger.[386] They coincided with those that the latter had reported to Secretary Hay on the 3d, namely, that, stated briefly, Russia should evacuate Manchuria, under the usual conditions, in three years; that China should protect the railways and Russian subjects in the territory; that she might station, in places other than lands assigned to the Railway Company, mounted and foot soldiers, whose numbers should, however, be determined by an agreement with Russia, and who should exclude artillery; that troops of no other nationality should be employed in protecting the railways; that the Anglo-Russian Agreement of April, 1899, should be strictly adhered to; that subjects of no other nationality should without Russian consent be allowed to build railways or bridges in Southern Manchuria; and that the Shan-hai-kwan-Niu-chwang-Sinminting Railways should be returned to China after her payment to Russia of the expenditure incurred by the latter in their occupation.[387] Prince Ching, it appears, presented a counter-proposition to the Russian convention, which, among other things, seems to have requested that the evacuation of Manchuria should be completed within one year, instead of three, as was provided in the original draft. Russia’s reply to this arrived in Peking the last of January, 1902, agreeing to reduce the period of evacuation from three to two years.[388] At the same time, however, the Russian Government now strongly supported, in addition to the proposed convention, a separate agreement proposed by the Russo-Chinese Bank. The latter, according to Prince Ching, contained, besides the railway concessions already granted to the Bank, provision that China should herself undertake all industrial development in Manchuria, but if she required financial help from the outside, application should always first be made to the Russo-Chinese Bank; only when the latter did not wish to engage in the work might citizens of other countries be allowed to undertake it. A clause was also to be inserted, the practical value of which is not clear, that citizens of every country should have the same rights as they then did to trade at the open ports and in the interior.[389] Prince Ching was obliged to acknowledge to Mr. Conger, on January 19, 1902, that, owing to the pressure which Russia increased simultaneously with the apparent concessions she had made, she would yield no further, and “he was convinced that, if China held out longer, they would never again secure terms so lenient; that the Russians were in full possession of the territory, and their treatment of the Chinese was so aggravating