If, however, the subsequent conduct of Russia in Manchuria has appeared to contradict the tenor of the Agreement, it is only necessary to point out how elastic and expansive its terms are. Paragraph 5, Article 2, of the Bank Agreement of September 8, 1896, imposing upon the Chinese Government the duty to protect the Manchurian Railway and the persons employed in it, is not only reinforced but also expanded so as to make it incumbent upon China “to secure within the boundaries of Manchuria the safety of all Russian subjects in general and the undertakings established by them.” Unless Manchuria is considered a territory distinct from the rest of the Chinese Empire, no Russians or other foreigners have the right to reside in the interior save in the treaty posts. Yet the Chinese Government is held responsible for the security of the Russians and their enterprises in Manchuria, which is regarded virtually as a Russian colony, into which immigrants from Siberia and European Russia have been sent with wonderful rapidity. Nor does this additional obligation on the part of China any longer bind her to a private company called the Russo-Chinese Bank, but henceforth to the Government of the Czar. The discharge of so onerous a duty is made a condition for the Russian evacuation of Manchuria. It is not generally known that this condition, otherwise so difficult, was practically impossible so long as the presence of the Russian forces kept the Chinese troops greatly reduced in number. The apprehended disorder must come, as it always has done, and as none knew better than the Russians, from the groups of unoccupied men, the so-called mounted bandits (_ma tseh_), who infested the Provinces of Sheng-king and Kirin, where they sided with whatever power suited their fancy and interest, exercised their own law, and in one way or another kept the country in a state of great instability. It should be noted that they were either disbanded soldiers or the possible candidates for the Chinese troops to be levied to safeguard Manchuria—for military life in China seldom attracts peaceful citizens. So long as the presence of the Russian forces rendered the regular service of the outlaws in the Chinese army unnecessary, their means of subsistence would be derived less often from a settled agricultural life than from plundering. Between March, 1902, and August, 1903, a Russian officer successfully enlisted the service of some 450 of these marauders, and employed them in the timber work which the Russians secured in Eastern Manchuria in the name of one of the chiefs of the bandits.[417] Before and after this period, however, the Russian officers continually reported sanguinary conflicts with the robbers, the fear of whom has seemed to constitute the main justification for the steady progress of the Russian measures of tightening a hold upon Manchuria.[418] Side by side with this grave situation, we should also observe that the Convention provided that,