ABSTRACT
The last chapter covered a series of leases, concessions,and acquisitions of railway rights in east Asia. These events set in train in China a process which to the journalist went by the name of 'slicing the melon'. More technically, it was an acquisition of spheres of interest by the various powers. 'Spheres of interest' in China were rather vaguely drawn zones spreading from a lease on the coastline into the hinterland where the acquiring power tried to claim, and seemed likely to exercise, monopolistic powers and commercially exclusive rights. These spheres were liable to injure the competitors of the 'monopolist' and thus break down the conceptions of free trade in China; they were also liable to injure her political integrity. While each of the spheres was a challenge to China's integrity, it was widely believed that there was nothing more injurious to the survival of China than Russia's sphere of interest in Manchuria, since it came so close to the Chinese capital itself.
