CHINESE EMPIRE                                        391                                              CHINESE WALL

some 700,000 militia troops, called the national army. The navy since the war with Japan does not number more than a tew small cruisers and several old torpedo-boats. China has never cared to have anything to do with western nations, but has been forced to do so. In 1516 the Portuguese, followed by the Spaniards, the Dutch and the English, appeared at Canton. In 1767 sprang up the opium-traffic. It was the traffic in this drug that brought on the war with England in 1840 and the war with England and France in 1855-57. By these wars China was forced to cede the island of Hong-Kong to Great Britain, to open many of its ports to trade and to let in missionaries and admit opium. It has recently been semi-officially announced that the importation of opium will after the lapse of a few years be prohibited.

On Feb. 24, 1844, Caleb Cushing arrived in China and negotiated the first treaty between that country and the United States. The present emperor came to the throne as a child of four years old. He became king in his own name in 1887; though in 1898 an imperial edict announced that the empress-dowager now directs the affairs of the empire. Of late years the Chinese have shown a tendency to seek a livelihood abroad, especially in California, British Columbia, the Straits Settlements, the East Indies and Australia. Chinese workmen or coolies began to come to the United States about the time of the discovery of gold. In 1882, 33,614 came. The low wages at which the coolie was willing to work threatened to destroy the high wages of American laborers; and this led to action by Congress excluding them from the country for 21 years from 1888, though merchants and students may travel or live in the country. British Columbia and some of the Australian colonies have also passed similar exclusion-laws. In 1894 China became involved in war with Japan, the result of rival interests in Korea. She however, proved no match for Japan on land or sea. Her armies were routed and her fleet destroyed, and in 1895 she secured peace by the payment of a heavy war-indemnity and the cession to Japan of the island of Formosa. Of 34 ports open to foreign trade, only 7 have less than 20,-000 population.

Since the close of the Russo-Japanese War (1904), China has been a nation in transition. The fact that, though civic administration of Manchuria was restored to China, Japan took over Russia's leasehold of Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula as well as that part of the Chinese Eastern Railroad which Russia controlled, is one of the factors that have awakened a universal and profound spirit of progress in every section of China and in every class of society. As evidences of this

awakening may be mentioned the substitution of European for Confucian subjects in the civil-service examinations and the creation of an army of 175,000 men drilled under European officers and constituting a modern fighting-force. Tens of thousands of Chinese youth are studying in Japan, the passion for western education pervades all China, and the government is as speedily as possible building up a western educational system and sending picked men and women to the schools of Europe and America.

Chinese Immigration to the United States. When the discovery of gold, the building of railroads and the introduction of fruit-growing on a large scale caused a demand for cheap labor in the western states of America, the Chinese coolies began to come to the United States in great numbers to meet this demand. Objections were soon urged against these laborers because of their racial, religious and social differences from Americans. They worked at so low a wage that other workmen could not compete with them. The feeling against them grew so strong that in 1882 Congress passed a bill forbidding the coming of Chinese to the United States. This law has at various times been amended and extended, but its main provisions are still in force. Some classes of Chinese, such as officials, students, merchants and travelers are permitted to enter under certain specified conditions, but laborers are excluded, and in case any of the latter who are now in the country return to China, they cannot come back to the United States. The immigration of Chinese to the Hawaiian Islands has also been prohibited.

Chinese in Canada. In common with Australia and the United States, the economic pressure of the Chinese and the consequent threat of lowering standards of living to an oriental basis have resulted, in the passing of laws intended to restrict immigration from China into the Dominion. The first act was passed in 1885, and since that time conditions of increasing severity have been imposed, a head tax of fioo under the act of 1890 being increased to $500 in 1903. In spite of this the number of Chinese in Canada has increased from 9,129 in 1891 to 17,299 in 1901, British Columbia, where they settle chiefly, going from 8,900 in the first-mentioned year to 14,869 in the last, an increase of 67 per cent. Up_ to June 30, 1904, the sum of $2,999,078 had been collected from the 44,640 Chinese who registered at Canadian ports.

Chinese Wall, The. The construction of this great feature of the Middle Kingdom was finished in 214 B. C, as a grand barrier along the north of the Chinese empire. It is 1,500 miles long, and is constructed of two strong retaining walls of brick, rising from granite foundations,