The European Ambassadors in Pekin have at last arrived at
a final agreement as to the indemnity to be paid by China. It is to amount to £64,000,000, bearing interest at 4 per cent., and is to be entirely paid off by 1940. Payment of the instal- ments, which will not commence till 1904, is secured on the foreign Customs as yet unappropriated, on the transit duties, and on a portion of the Salt-duty, and will be made to a Committee of bankers at Shanghai, who will distribute the funds. The arrangement is probably as reasonable a one as could under the circumstances be made, and amounts sub- stantially to this, that for thirty-seven years China will pay to Europe a tribute which will begin at about 23,000,000 and constantly decrease. The drawback is that the payments, with the interest on previous indemnities, will consume the whole free revenue of China, will for a generation be a per- petual irritation to the Mandarins, and will furnish an excuse for any exactions they may be able to levy. No people would pay such a tribute without hating- those who levied it, or without devising schemes of evasion which will, whenever convenient, be a ground of quarreL All discussion as to further punishments is to be waived, and negotiations as to trade privileges will be with the separate Powers, and not
with Europe as a whole. China, in fact, has baffled all demands except the one for tribute.
