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wise, being entirely without force to insist upon exceptional treatment. From the Chinese point of view, however, the record cannot have commanded much respect. An intercourse "commenced in rapine and aggression towards a nation which had never provoked them," was continued by fruitless obsequiousness, and included an act comically inconsistent with the claims they advanced in their own behalf, namely, an interdict (1839) against the admission of Chinese settlers to any of the Dutch Indian colonies, since the skill of the immigrants threatened to engross the labour market. The Spaniards massacred Chinese colonists or discriminated harshly against them. But the Spaniards did not persist in forcing their own company on the Chinese in China. It was left for the Dutch to practise exclusiveness against others while claiming liberality for themselves. Other nations, however, are not ashamed to follow the same course in this twentieth century.

If the overland route be considered as well as the oversea, Russian intercourse with China antedated that of the Dutch. But it bore no fruit, political or ethical, until a comparatively late date. Associated with it, however, is a notable fact, namely, that the first foreign treaty ever concluded by China was with Russia. There is reason to believe that the Russians had been in contact with the Chinese for several years before the latter associated the former with Europe, or differentiated them from the group of hyper-