Observe how powerfully Russia applies this argument. On February 4, M. Lessar said that Russia was merely asking privileges in Manchuria similar to those granted to Germany in Shan-tung.—The U. S. 57th Congress, 2d Session, _House Documents_, vol. i. p. 274. Russia, if she would, could with a certain amount of impunity inquire of Great Britain and other Powers how it was that they allowed Germany to acquire her apparently exclusive rights in Shan-tung, and now objected to Russia’s following her example only on a larger scale. Footnote 394: The U. S. 57th Congress, 2d Session, _House Documents_, vol. i. p. 929. Footnote 395: _Ibid._, pp. 277–279. Footnote 396: I. e., the draft of March limited the period of evacuation to one year, instead of a year and a half, as in the convention of April. CHAPTER XII THE ANGLO-JAPANESE AGREEMENT AND THE RUSSO-FRENCH DECLARATION The details of the negotiations preliminary to the consummation of this remarkable stroke of diplomacy have not been made public, but we are in possession of some salient facts from which successive steps leading up to the final conclusion may be inferred with tolerable certainty. It is well known that Great Britain, which had always occupied a predominant place in the foreign relations of Japan, had persistently opposed the latter’s ardent wish and continual struggle to revise the humiliating treaties which had, about 1858, been imposed by the Powers upon the weak feudal Government of Yedo. In 1894, however, contrary to her past policy, Great Britain led other Powers in according to Japan a cordial recognition of the latter’s progress in various lines of her national activity, and assenting to the revision of her treaties. During the war with China in 1894–5, the British attitude was one of friendly neutrality between the two Oriental Empires, but the events after the conclusion of the war, especially the forced retrocession of the Liao-tung Peninsula, closely followed by the tightening hold of the Muscovites upon the Peking Court, seemed to have aroused the sympathy of Great Britain with Japan, mingled probably with the fear of the loss of some of her own predominant economic interests in China. From this time on, the interests of the two Powers had been seen to coincide in the Far East to an increasing degree, and the relations of their Governments had steadily risen in cordiality.[397] At the rupture of the Boxer insurrection in 1900, the Cabinet of Lord Salisbury manifested so much faith in Japan as to request her immediately to dispatch large forces to the relief of the besieged Legations at Peking, Great Britain going even so far as to engage to undertake the necessary financial responsibilities of the proposed expedition.[398] Both during the campaign and throughout the negotiation for peace, the two Powers, as well as the United States, conducted themselves together, as is apparent