however, to be found in what is known as the Lu-han concession in the hands of the Belgian Syndicate. That proposed railway is to run from Peking to the river port of Hankau, and, if it be built, there need be no doubt that another railway from Canton will run northwards to meet it. The terms of the Lu-han concession are: That the railway shall be constructed by a Chinese company, with its head-quarters at Shanghai, and that the Belgian Syndicate shall lend to that Chinese company the money needed to build the line. That Belgian Syndicate has made an agreement to be financed by the Russo-Chinese Bank. I have already adverted to the fact that the Belgian concessionaires seem to be mere political nominees of the Russian Government, and I have also stated that the concessionaires repudiate that view. The question turns upon the conditions that are agreed upon as to the settling of disputes between the company, the concessionaires, and the Chinese Government. In the event of such dispute the arbitrators are to be the Belgian Minister at Peking and a Chinese official. The umpire is to be nominated by the country that shall be most financially interested in the line, or by the country where the bonds of the railway are to be issued. Now, since the Belgian Syndicate is to be financed by the RussoChinese Bank, and since the bonds are to be, presumedly, issued in Paris, it follows inevitably

that in case of disputes the final decision shall rest with the Russian Minister or with the French Minister. How much interested in this concession the Russian Minister has been may be judged from the fact that, at the last, the concession was rushed through the Tsung-li-Yamen under great pressure from the Russian Legation, in breach of a promise to Sir Claude Macdonald that further time would be allowed for consideration. If the Belgian concessionaires have no especial relations to Russia, one cannot understand why the Russian Minister should have been so keen to push the matter through. Apart from that, it seems a legitimate assumption that, since the Russo-Chinese Bank finances the company, the Russo-Chinese Bank shall have a controlling interest in the daily working of the company. Add to that the current assumption that the Russo-Chinese Bank is to all real intents a department of the Russian Government, and you arrive at the result that the Government of Russia, having claimed exclusive railway privileges in Manchuria, proposes also to control the railway that shall tap the Great Plain and the Yang-tsze Valley. It is a serious situation.

In discussing all these railways I have said nothing about the proposed gauge. That is a matter of no little political importance. The standard railway gauge of the world is four feet eight and a half inches. The gauge of the Russian railways is five feet. That

gauge was fixed by the Emperor Nicholas in order that the invasion of Russia by such neighbours as Germany or Austria might be made the more difficult. The Russian railways having a five-feet gauge, the Trans-Siberian Railway has the same, and that gauge will continue as far south as Port Arthur and Talienwan. What, then, is to be the gauge of the new Chinese railways?

CHAPTER VI.

MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA.

WHEN we arrived at Kalgan we put up at the ordinary Chinese inn, to which we had become accustomed. From thence we were rescued later by the kind hospitality of the Rev. Mr. Sprague, the head of the American missionary station established at Kalgan. We stayed with Mr. Sprague, within the walls of the mission premises, and as guests at his table, for fully two days, and during these days we naturally talked much of mission work in China and Mongolia. We did not talk of that exclusively, for we found Mr. Sprague to be a man of wide human interests, and of much local knowledge, able to give me some useful information as to the Mongols, among whom I was about to travel; but yet, naturally, we did talk much of missions. Some of that talk I would like to repeat, condense, and discuss.

First, let me note that the American mission at Kalgan occupies a pleasant site outside the town. It was not always so. For years after the mission

was opened the missionaries with their wives and children strove to live right in the heart of the Chinese town, among and of the people whom they were going to teach. They failed to carry out that plan of campaign, because it was, for them, an impossible one. Only the Roman Catholic missionaries can do that, and they can do it partly because they are celibate, and partly because if they die there are more priests to follow and carry on the work. But a Protestant missionary, with perhaps a wife and a couple of children, cannot live the life of Chinatown, and if he persisted in attempting to do so, he ought to incur much disapproval for unnecessarily sacrificing the interests of his wife and children. Gradually the missionaries came to realize that, and ultimately the mission was removed to a site outside the town. There, surrounded by a mud wall, they have a considerable plot of gardenground, with a church, a school-house, and several separate cottages for the different families of missionaries.

There were three male missionaries resident when I was at Kalgan, but the wife of one of them had died, and the wife of another had been sent home to America, and consequently there was only one woman, Mrs. Sprague, attached at the moment to the mission. The mission premises were charmingly situated, and were comfortably furnished with all the reasonable necessities of life; but there cer