conversion of the settlement into a Chinese town, I do not think that Her Majesty's Government will be induced to seek a remedy for them by extending its jurisdiction over a large section of the Chinese population. Because we protect Shanghai from falling a prey to a horde of brigands, it does not follow that we are prepared to interfere with the natural relation of the Chinese to their own Government.

These were strong words, coming from the representative of the British Government at a time when the telegraph did not extend to any point east of European lands, and a reply from London could not take less than three or four months by the monthly mail; and two years later the American Minister was even more emphatic in writing to the State Department:

There is a constant tendency on the part of foreigners, in making their municipal arrangements, to aggress upon the rights of the Chinese, and it is necessary constantly to recall them to the safe ground of principle. At the moment, however, there were 1,500,000 Chinese packed within the limits of the foreign settlements at Shanghai, a number which tended to increase up to the end of the crisis in 1864; and it was clearer to the handful of English and American merchants in Shanghai than it was to their envoys in the seclusion of their legations in Peking that the admission of the Chinese tax collector and the extortion which he constantly practised was incompatible with the maintenance of their own security and of the amenities of life in their reserved area.' Moreover, the diminution in the amenities was mitigated by the rich harvest of rent which flowed into foreign hands from the necessities of the Chinese refugees.

In 1865, a year after the suppression of the Taiping rebellion, the number of Chinese resident in the foreign settlements had fallen from nearly 2,000,000 to a bare 135,000, and their natural authorities were ready to resume jurisdiction over them. They also proposed to enter into the field from which they had been excluded for twelve years, and to tax Chinese subjects resident in the reserved area as they did those living outside. To this the foreign merchants, citizens of a frustrated republic, offered a sturdy resistance, pointing out that in those twelve years the Chinese authorities had shown their inability to protect foreigners in the treaty ports or on the coast, and had forced the foreigners to protect themselves and give shelter to millions of Chinese. The Chinese contention was, in the main, upheld by the foreign Ministers at Peking; but the logic of facts spoke louder than the theories of principle, and the Chinese administrator and tax collector remained excluded from the foreign area of Shanghai ; but the rent-paying tenant was retained.

In the sixty and more years which have elapsed since 1865 the number of Chinese resident within the foreign municipal limits,

whether international or French, has increased from 135,000 in 1865 to 345,000 in 1900, to 690,000 in 1910, and to 1,100,000 at the present day-a growth rapid enough in the first half of the period, but accelerated in the new century, and still more accelerated since the establishment of the republic. Two main causes contributed to this increase: the first comes naturally from the development of a great and wealthy mart; the second comes from the order and cleanliness maintained under the foreign administration, the freedom from noxious sounds, sights and smells, the protection from molestation in times of political commotion, and, above all else, the exemption under the foreign ægis from the extortion and oppression of their natural and native authorities. This last cause it is which has brought to the foreign settlement many wealthy Chinese seeking to escape their political enemies; some of these refugees are among the loudest in their protestations against the unequal treaties and the loss of sovereign rights; but under their breath they are praying that their audible prayers may not be granted-for much of their capital is lodged for security in the foreign banks of the settlement or is invested in land and houses within the settlement, held in the name of a foreign friend and registered in the foreigner's consulate. None the less, the genuine foreign interest in real estate which has been created at Shanghai in the eighty-five years since 1843 must be measured by hundreds of millions of pounds sterling; and this value will be very materially reduced if the Chinese tax collector is allowed a free run among the Chinese in the settlement.

Sir Rutherford Alcock, probably the wisest among the British Ministers to Peking, wrote in 1869 to the British merchants at Shanghai who were appealing for an extension of the privileges which had been secured by the ' unequal treaties':

Pressure, indeed, there must always be here if anything is to be achieved for the advancement of foreign interests and commerce. In one way or other, however we may disguise it, our position in China has been created by force-naked, physical force; and any intelligent policy to improve or maintain that position must still look to force in some form, latent or expressed, for the results.

Asia is now in revolt against European domination, and this revolt is manifested in China in a more pronounced way than elsewhere. The Governments of the East and of the West will have to consider their future policy with great care, and when they have decided, severally or collectively, how much of their present position they will maintain-at Hankow, at Tientsin, at Dairen, at Shanghai, at Hongkong-they must base their decision on a realisation of the fact that they must still look to force in some form, latent or expressed, for the results.'

H. B. MORSE.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND: A PERSONAL SURVEY

THERE are probably many people in this country who are unaware of the fact that there is still present in the Rhine Province of Germany a French army of some 50,000 men supported by smaller British and Belgian contingents. This force, nearly ten years after the Armistice, is still present on German soil in execution of the terms of the Peace Treaty. The heroic days of the occupation are now over, and the various contingents have settled down to their exile in the Rhineland, where they live as more or less independent communities. I was British liaison officer with the French Army of the Rhine from January 1923 to January 1928, and thus had an excellent opportunity of seeing the French point of view. They take themselves very seriously, as befits such logical folk, and like to think of themselves as 'La Garde sur le Rhin,' which is in effect what they are. Whatever other functions the occupation may perform under the Peace Treaty, so long as a force of this size is present on the Rhine it must fulfil the role in the national defence scheme of the covering force behind which the armies of France would mobilise in the event of war. The French outlook as regards their eastern frontier is rather similar to that of the old Punjab Frontier Force towards the North-West Frontier of India, or perhaps that of their predecessors the Roman Legions guarding the same frontier, and occupying in many cases the same posts against a possible invasion of the German tribes. I would like to take this opportunity of paying my tribute to the French army: the soldier is not responsible for policy-his duty is merely to carry it out; and any criticism that may be implied here refers to the policy, and not to its instruments. There is no more loyal and single-minded servant of his Government than the French officer, but he is none the less a loyal friend; I always found myself treated with the same degree of courtesy and friendliness at those times when French and British policy were most divergent as later when happily Britain and France' met again the other side of the wood.' The Belgian Army of Occupation has its headquarters at Aix-la-Chapelle, the old capital of Charlemagne.

The Belgians have been remarkably successful in applying the principle of an 'invisible occupation' in their area; I once found difficulty in discovering a taxi-driver in the town who knew the way to Belgian headquarters. Life in the British Army of the Rhine is very similar to that in an Indian station. The Briton in exile is much the same all the world over; a golf course, polo, cricket and football grounds have sprung up, and fishing and shooting of a kind are to be had. If the occupation ever found its Kipling he would find Mrs. Hawksbee,' that most immoral man' General Bangs, and all the old characters ready to his hand.

But the occupation has had its heroic days. When the Allied troops first entered the Rhineland after the Armistice the shadow of the revolution still lay over Germany. The officers of the retreating German army had had the badges of rank torn off their shoulders in the streets of Cologne. When the British troops marched in, workmen's and soldiers' councils were in power in a number of localities; the British authorities refused to deal with them, and the former burgermeisters emerged from their temporary retirement, much to the relief of the majority of people, for the German is essentially a lover of law and order. In those spacious days the French had hopes that the Rhineland would be handed over to them by the Peace Treaty. The Prussian has never been popular in the Rhineland, and there is a considerable French tradition in this part of Germany. The Département de Mont Tonnerre was French from the outset of the French revolutionary wars until 1814, and included the present Bavarian palatinate and a considerable extent of country to the north of it, with Mayence as its principal town. The Rhinelanders, like most frontier peoples, are of very mixed blood; previous wars had generally involved the cession of provinces to the victor, and at this time they appear to have been quite disposed to make the best of what fate had in store for them without worrying too much about the application to their case of President Wilson's Fourteen Points. But however individuals in the Rhineland may have felt at this time, their attitude was to change considerably when they had recovered from their war weariness, and, apart from local feeling, Berlin would have felt as strongly about the loss of the Rhineland as ever Paris did about Alsace-Lorraine, and with at least as much reason.

After the signing of the Peace Treaty the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission made its appearance as the supreme Allied authority in the Rhineland, the military authority which had previously been supreme being now relegated to second place. It is an interesting reflection that this differed from the practice of the Allies after 1815, when the military authority remained supreme in occupied French territory. This arrange

ment worked very well with Wellington in supreme command; to what extent it would have been an improvement in this instance is a matter of opinion. In the country districts the change was at first more apparent than real, as the personnel actually responsible for the local dealings with the German authorities remained the same in most instances. The former military governors and their staffs merely became civil servants, and ceased to be soldiers. But they now owed allegiance to a new chief in the person of their own High Commissioner at Coblence, the administrative capital of the Rhineland, where the new Allied civil authority took up its seat. There were three High Commissioners, the senior French, British and Belgian representatives, the French High Commissioner being automatically the president. There was also an American representative on the High Commission styled an 'observer,' in view of the fact that, although there was an American Army of Occupation, that country had not ratified the Peace Treaty. The High Commission derived its authority from the Rhineland Agreement, an annexe to the Peace Treaty under which it was empowered to issue ordinances having the force of law in the occupied territory; but its competence was restricted to matters in which the safety and maintenance of the armies of occupation were involved, a somewhat elastic formula in practice. In the absence of any very decided British policy there was an inevitable tendency to side with one or other of the two principal protagonists, according to the individual outlook of the person concerned. In general the army regarded the High Commission as proGerman, which was perfectly natural; indeed, the French army thought the same of their own High Commission representatives. But there was never any fundamental difference between the views of the British civil and military representatives, and such minor differences as there were really helped towards a more balanced judgment.

The Germans had by now got over any ideas they once had about being handed over to France, and no longer responded to advances on the part of the French. Now that the people had got over their war weariness it was seen that the war, the revolution, and all that had been endured in common had gone a long way towards promoting the sentiment of German unity. From the date of the signing of the Peace Treaty until the FrancoBelgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 feeling was running high between the French and the Germans. The Allies had been taught to believe that Germany was going to pay vast sums to relieve them of the financial burden left by the war. But these sums did not materialise, and the result was that there were constant threats of sanctions and much talk of German bad faith.