This Principle Could Only Have Been Enforced By War, In
Which England Would Have Needed The Assistance Of Japan; But
Japan was not
yet ready to engage in a contest, for the reason that she still had to
receive $60,
000,000 of the war indemnity due from China, and because the
war vessels which she had ordered to be constructed in foreign shipyards
were not yet sufficiently near completion. Being thus constrained to
abandon the hope of maintaining its treaty rights in the ceded parts of
China, the British Foreign Office changed its ground and fell back on the
policy of exacting an equivalent for the advantages gained by Russia,
Germany and France. In the pursuance of this policy it obtained Wei-hai-
Wei, which, as we have said, is one of the two keys to the Gulf of
Pechihli. It is, however, very inferior to Port Arthur; only by the
expenditure of a large sum of money could it be made a naval fortress of
high rank, and, even then, it would require a large garrison for its
protection. This was not all that England gained, however; she secured a
promise from the Pekin government that the valley of the Yangstekiang
should never be alienated to any foreign power except Great Britain. The
limits of the valley, nevertheless, were not defined, and the Pekin
authorities have acted on the hypothesis that the covenant against
alienation did not debar them from giving commercial and industrial
privileges within the basin to the subjects of European powers other than
England.
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