Protecting Missionaries in China
ONE of the chief causes operating at present to force interference on the part of the “Christian nations” in the affairs of China, is the necessity that is felt for giving governmental protection to Christian missionaries laboring in that country. This supposed necessity is especially felt at this time, because of the active hostility of a Chinese organization known as “the boxers,” who aim to drive out or kill all the missionaries and “foreign devils” within their reach. As the missionaries are in many instances several hundred miles inland, the problem of giving adequate protection without landing troops on Chinese territory is a difficult one. A Washington dispatch says on this point:— “The state department is in a quandary to devise means to render effective protection to the American missionaries at Shan Tung. The difficulty lies in the fact that the missionaries have in most cases gone as far as 200 miles inland, and are thus beyond reach of any aid that can be extended from a war ship. Minister Conger’s advices show that the situation is further complicated by the fact that the location of the present troubles is so far inland as to make it difficult to determine whether or not the ‘boxers’ are operating in Shan Tung, or across the border in Pechili province.”