Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-09-11

terview by the emperor, and mission
aries in the interior never felt perfectly
secure. After that, sporadic outbreaks
occurred at intervals and at last Gull
minated in the Boxer uprising of the
present year.
AS TO the real cause of this insurrec-
tion--whether owing to the zeal of mis-
sionaries in proselyting, to the mer-
cenary exactions of traders, or to the
advent of neutrality-suspicious. are di-
vided; but it was probably to all these
causes combined, added to another,
which will shortly be mentioned.
1t should be borne in mind, Chinese
apologists say, that the country had
been thrown open despite the protests
and earnest opposition of it's rulers,
who were forced to sign treaties
against their will and admit foreign en-
voys who were never welcome. Behind
them were the dumb masses, compris-
ing the four hundred millions of China's
population, who viewed with disfavor
these concessions to foreigners, but
who were helpless from their century
long apathy and Indifference. When,
however, as an aftermath of the Chino
Japanese war, some of the most i'm
portant strategic positions on Chinas
coast were bestowed upon nations that
took no direct part in the conquest,
the Mantchoo rulers heard from the
hitherto silent and long suffering mil
lions. They had endured all the evils
Of a foreign domination, ruled by
class (the Mantchoos) at every point
out of touch and sympathy with them,
but they had not murmured, being con-
tent to maintain in certain sense their
autonomy.
But, with the advent of the foreign
devils" and in view of theirpersistent ag-
gressions 1t became at last evident even
to these Chinese cattle that they were
being betrayed by the very ones who
should have safeguarded their inter-
ests The mutterings of the masses in
creased until they reached the volume
of a tidal wave, in the advance of
which the mandarins and viceroys saw
their destruction threatened. When,
eventually, there occurred the upheaval
that had been long predicted by their
soothsayers, it is not strange that the
ruling classes should have been in SYM
pathy with ii, and, though bound by
pledges and treaty stipuations to put
down all risings that jeopardized the
lives of foreigners, should have covert
ly given the Boxers their assistance.
That they have done so has been tao
lily admitted by them, and that the
empress dowager and her Mantchoo ad-
visers promoted, If they did not really
incite, the Boxer movement, has been
proved by dispatches from Picking since
the legations We're relieved. There is
no doubt that China has acted in bad
faith with all the powers. but her ex-
cuse is that the powers, though in a
different manner, have not kept faith
with her. Reasoning along the mistak-
en- lines that two wrongs may make a
right, China has assumed that, since
she was forced at the bayonet's point
to admit foreign ENJOYS and traders to
her territory to yield up valuable ports
and railway concessions-to continually
outrage the feelings of her own sub
jects, in fact-she was at liberty to
make reprisals in her own way.
Therein, of course, lay her mistake,
and though it is universally admitted
| that she has been deeply wronged by
some of the powers, who took advan-
| tase of her weakness and yacillation,
1 yet the day has passed for revenge, and
will perhaps never arrive for repara-
| ton. China has made her bed, and she
must lie in it, even though it be some
what thorny. Her people are said to be
| thick skinned and insensible to pain,
| Indifferent to death and impervious to
insult. and SO long as the foreigners
rule them discreetly, furnishing food
for the starving and work for the poor,
| they may prove submissive and pliable.