The following apologia by Mr. George Meiklejohn, Astiatant Secretary of the U.S. War Department, explains the motives and objets of the recent action of the United States in China The Boxer insurrection in China, animated by a fanatical hatred of foreign ideas, methods and purposes, and resulting in unexampled outrages upon the life and property of foreigners, has created one of the most difficult problems in diploma history. The Emperor of China, person: ly desirous of reforming and modernizing the ancient institutions of his country and of adapting them to the conditions of modern life, has been surrounded by a conservative, reactionary and anti-forei element which has rendered his pos not only difficult, but precarious. The Boxer movement, rising ostensibly fvm the great masses of the Chinese population; has undoubtedly -been aided and abetted by powerful persons in high places, nome of them influential in the inmost circles of ths Chinese Imperial court.
To have held the Chinese government to a strict and immediate account for its nonsuppression of the Boxer movement would undoubtedly have precipitated a general war between the foreign powers whose interests were imperilled in China and the feeble government which has been unable to suppress the insurrection. Such a war would have led inevitably to the conquest of China bya number of foreign powers, result fatal to the policy of the open door " of trade and commerce, for it would have subdivided the Chinese Empire not only into spheres of foreign influence, but of actual occupation and possession, each encompassed by a barrier of discrimination or exclusion erected against the importation of American products. The spirit and traditions of the American ublic would not permit its participation in such an act of dismemberment, but without a partnership in determining the destiny of the Empire it is dificult to receive how our treaty rights with China could have been protected.
In dealing with this delicate and com. plicated situation the United States took the lead in trying to preserve the existing central government of China, and thus open the way for the maintenance of the integrity of the Empire.
Scrupulously avoiding all unnecessary aggression upon Chinese territory, the government of the United States has refrained from needless attacks upon the forts and possessions of the Empire, while at the same time it has been active and energetic in stinulnting the rescue of th besieged legations and in effect-g escape and procuring the safety of American citizens upon Chinese territory, sending a contingent of troops no longer than was needed to perform these duties, Consistently following out this theory of the situation when all the world bulted in believing the legations destroyed and their occupants massacred, Secretary accepted the solemn assurances, convey through official channels, that the diplomats were still alive, and thus rendered possible their final relief and rescue. In the midst of adverse and conflicting purposes our government has steafiily held to the necessity of rehabilitating the imperial authority, thus restoring to China a central control of the provinces and bringing into relations with the foreign powers n responsible government with which negotiations might be conducted and by which reparation might be made. When it was proposed to humiliate China by an unprecedented demand for the surrender of persons for punishment without trial and upon mere designation by the foreign powers—s demand which would have awakened hostility and prevented the return of the Im-Reel Government to Peking—President [kinley saw and indicated a better way.
iting the return of the Emperor and court to the seat of government, he pointed out that the punishment of those responsible for the outrage committed was a proper function of the Chinese Government itself, whose authority end very existence were threatened by a demand impossible of execution without actual war. Asa fruit of this policy of continuous effort to point out to the Chinese Government the necessity of its own rehabilitation, decisive steps have been taken by that government toward the punishment of the principal offenders.
The critics of the President's line of action should have been able to see that the situation presented but two alternatives, (1). The reconstitution of the Imperial authority from within, or (2) the declaration and prosecution of war from without, Had the course of the United States been other than that which the President has chosen, one of the two consequences must have happened. It was possible 10. abandon
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.