Estimates in the budget. All based on the Fourth Annual. CHAPTER II THE “CASSINI CONVENTION” AND THE RAILWAY AGREEMENT Regarded, however, from a broader point of view, no one could predict a happy consequence of so ominous a beginning, as has been described, of the new Eastern situation. By her successful intervention, Russia had conferred upon China a signal favor, for which a reward was expected; but the reward, again, assumed such a form that it at the same time served as a new favor looking toward a fresh reward, so that the final resultant of the repeated process proved altogether out of proportion to the initial deed of patronage. The first step of this process was a 4 per cent. loan[144] to China of 400,000,000 francs at 94⅛, and payable in thirty-six years, beginning with 1896. Not only were these liberal terms attended by no security, but also the interest was guaranteed by a special edict of the Czar.[145] The loan was issued principally from Paris in July, 1895,[146] and the income was intended to cover one half[147] of China’s indemnity to Japan.[148] In order to facilitate the transactions in connection with this loan, as well as to promote the commercial relations between Russia and Eastern Asia, the Russo-Chinese Bank was organized late in 1895. In August, 1896,[149] the Chinese Government was induced to contribute 5,000,000 _taels_ toward the capital of the Bank, which seem to have been paid out of the new loan.[150] Later in the same year, Prince Ukhtomsky, president of the Bank, who had come to Peking with an immense number of costly presents to be distributed among the members of the Court, succeeded in securing the consent of the Chinese Government to the Statutes of the Bank, which were subsequently published on December 8.[151] The privileges of the institution as enumerated in these Statutes included the receiving of tax returns, management of local finances, coining, payment of the interests of the public bonds, and construction of railways and telegraph lines in China, in so far as concessions should be made by her Government to the Bank. The latter now has more than thirty branches and agencies in East Asia, and this professedly private corporation has since proved to be a great instrument through which the Russian Government has obtained from China enormous concessions in Manchuria.