TRAGEDY AND HOPE Chapter 3-6 Analysis
* Turmel analysis has indented paragraphs, Quigley's text does not.
* R&R = Rothschilds and Rockefellers
CHAPTER III: THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE TO 1917
Page 88
The abolition of serfdom made it necessary for the landed nobility to
cease to regard the peasants as private property. Peter the Great
(1689-1725) and Catherine the Great (1762-1796) were supporters of
westernization and reform. Paul I (1796-1801) was reactionary.
Alexander I (1801-1825) and Alexander II (1855-1881) were reformers
while Nicholas I (1825-1855) and Nicholas II (1855-1881) were
reactionaries. By 1864, serfdom had been abolished, and a fairly
modern system of law, of justice, and of education had been
established; local government had been somewhat modernized; a fairly
good financial and fiscal system had been established; and an army
based on universal military service (but lacking in equipment) had
been created. On the other hand, the autocracy continued in the hands
of weak men and the freed serfs had no adequate lands.
JCT: The fact that Russia was this advanced is just not something
that I was ever aware of. We've always been given the impression that
Russia was some backward country full of serfs and a dictatorial tsar.
Page 93
The first Russian railroad opened in 1838 but growth was slow until
1857. At that time, there were only 663 miles of railroads, but this
figure went up over tenfold by 1871, doubled again by 1881 with 14,000
miles, reached 37,000 by 1901 and 46,000 by 1915.
JCT: Again, sounds very advanced considering what I had always
been led to believe. Yet, I was raised during the Cold War and it's
not that amazing that they never told us much of the truth.
Page 94
In 1900, Russia had 48% of the total world production of petroleum
products. The State Bank was made a bank of issue in 1897 and was
required by law to redeem its notes in gold, thus placing Russia on
the international gold standard.
JCT: And as we know from Astle's Babylonian Woe, that put them
under the control of the gold bullion brokers as had been most rulers
throughout most of history.
Page 97
In 1902, a cartel created by a dozen iron and steel firms handled
almost three-fourths of all Russian sales. It was controlled by four
foreign banking groups.
JCT: Makes sense that the International bankers would end up
owning everything once we realize that Russia was hooked to their gold
bullion money system.
Page 100
Until 1910, Stolypin continued his efforts to combine oppression with
reform, especially agrarian reform. Rural credit banks were
established; various measures were taken to place larger amounts of
land in the hands of the peasants; restrictions of immigration of
peasants, especially to Siberia, were removed; participation in local
government was opened to lower social classes previously excluded;
education, especially technical education, was made more accessible;
and certain provisions for social insurance were enacted into law. He
was assassinated in the presence of the Tsar in 1911.
The fourth duma (1912-1916) was elected by universal suffrage.
Š JCT: As we read on, assassination and coups seem to be the fate
of any politicians who dare enact land reform and Russia seems to be
no exception.
CHAPTER IV: THE BUFFER FRINGE
THE NEAR EAST TO 1914
Page 111
The Ottoman Empire was divided into 21 governments and subdivided into
seventy vilayets, each under a pasha. The supreme ruler in
Constantinople was not only sultan (head of the empire) but was also
caliph (defender of the Muslim creed).
Page 121
The Great Powers showed mild approval of the Baghdad Railway until
about 1900. Then, for more than ten years, Russia, Britain and France
showed violent disapproval and did all they could the obstruct the
project. They described the Baghdad Railway as the emerging wedge of
German imperialist aggression seeking to weaken and destroy the
Ottoman Empire and the stakes of the other powers in the area.
Page 122
The Germans were not only favorably inclined toward Turkey; their
conduct seems to have been completely fair in regard the
administration of the railway itself. At a time when the American and
other railways were practicing wholesale discrimination between
customers, the Germans had the same rates and same treatment for all,
including Germans and non-Germans. They worked to make the railroad
efficient and profitable although their income from it was guaranteed
by the Turkish government. In consequence, the Turkish payments to the
railroad steadily declined, and the government was able to share in
its profits to the extent of almost three million francs in 1914.
Moreover, the Germans did not seek to monopolize control of the
railroad, offering to share equally with France and England and
eventually with the other Powers. France accepted this offer in 1899,
but Britain continued to refuse and placed every obstacle in the path
of the project.
JCT: Of course, at the time, Britain was the seat of the
moneylenders and we'll soon see that just like here, their vassal, the
English government, obstructed almost everything everywhere. Quite a
sad performance.
When the Ottoman government sought to raise their customs duties from
11% to 14% in order to continue construction, Britain prevented this.
In order to carry on the project, the Germans sold their railroad
interests in the Balkans and gave the Ottoman building subsidy of
$275,000 a kilometer. In striking contrast, the Russians demanded
arrears of 57 million francs under the Treaty of 1878. The French, in
spite of investments in Turkey, refused to allow Baghdad Railway
securities to be handled on the Paris Stock Exchange.
JCT: I can understand why Quigley's book never made it to the
bestseller list when he describes the Germans as honest and
honorable. That's not the impression of the murderous Hun we've always
been left with to explain why we got involved in the war to end all
wars.
Page 123
In 1903, Britain made an agreement for a joint German, French, and
British control of the railroad. Within three weeks this agreement was
repudiated because of newspaper protests against it.
JCT: And who owned the newspapers of the day? The Rothschilds,
Rockefellers, and their moneylending ilk were able to scuttle
Šinternational agreements which I'm sure eventually led to the Great
War they were so eager to finance.
When the Turkish government tried to borrow, it was summarily rebuffed
in Paris and London, but obtained the sum unhesitatingly in Berlin.
The growth of German prestige and the decline in favor of the Western
Powers at the sultan's court is not surprising and goes far to explain
the Turkish intervention on the side of the Central powers in the war
of 1914-1919.
Britain withdrew her opposition to the Baghdad Railway in return for
promises that:
1) it would not be extended to the Persian Gulf;
2) British capitalists would be given a monopoly on the navigation of
the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and exclusive control over their
irrigation projects;
3) 2 British subjects would be given seats on the Board of directors;
4) Britain would have exclusive control over commercial activities in
Kuwait, the only good port on the upper Persian Gulf;
5) a monopoly over the oil resources given to a new corporation: Royal
Dutch Shell Company in which British held half interest, the Germans
and French a quarter interest each;
JCT: Now let's take a look at these conditions again insisted
upon by the British government not to obstruct someone else's
railroad.
2) British businessmen were to be made rich with a monopoly;
4) British businessmen were to be made rich with control over
commercial activity in Kuwait, the richest part of Iraq.
5) British businessmen were to be made rich with an oil monopoly
for their company.
Isn't it interesting that making some of their British
businessmen rich seemed to be of such great interest to the British
government. And everyone else from Turks to Germans were to lose on
the deal until these privileged British were given all these
concessions.
Over and over, we'll see governments interceding on behalf of a
few rich businessmen to the detriment of everyone else. This doesn't
prove any conspiracy controlling the political apparatus of those
nations but sure gives us a good hint.
THE BRITISH IMPERIAL CRISIS TO 1926
Page 127
In England, the landed class obtained control of the bar and the bench
and were, thus, in a position to judge all disputes about real
property in their favor. Control of the courts and of the Parliament
made it possible for this ruling group to override the rights of
peasants in land, to eject them from the land, to enclose the open
fields of the medieval system, to deprive the cultivators of their
manorial rights and thus reduce them to the condition of landless
rural laborers or tenants.
JCT: Sounds like much of the Third World governments today,
doesn't it? Small ruling groups controlling legislatures and
judiciaries to the detriment of everyone but themselves.
Page 130
Until 1870, there was no professorships of Fine Arts at Oxford, but in
that year, thanks to a bequest,John Ruskin was named to such a chair.
He hit Oxford like an earthquake, not so much because he talked about
fine arts but because he talked about the empire and England's
downtrodden masses as moral issues. Until the end of the nineteenth
century, the poverty-stricken masses in the cities lived in want,
ignorance and crime much like described by Charles Dickens. Ruskin
spoke to the Oxford undergraduates as members of the privileged ruling
Šclass. He told them that they were the possessors of a magnificent
tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and
self-discipline but that this tradition could not be saved and did not
deserve to be saved, unless it could be extended to the lower classes
and to the non-English masses throughout the world. If not extended to
these classes, the minority upper-class would be submerged and the
tradition lost.
JCT: 120 years later, we can safely say that despite the big
talk, there was little action in their quest to spread good times to
the poor of the world. If there was ever any intention of doing more
than flapping their gums for posterity.
Ruskin's message had a sensational impact. His inaugural lecture was
copied out in longhand by one undergraduate, Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes
feverishly exploited the diamond and gold fields of South Africa, rose
to be prime minister of Cape Colony, contributed money to political
parties, controlled parliamentary seats both in England and South
Africa.
With financial support from Lord Rothschild, he was able to monopolize
the diamond mines as De Beers Mines and Gold Fields. In the mid 1890s,
Rhodes had a personal income of a least a million pounds (then five
million dollars) a year which was spent so freely for his mysterious
purposes that he was usually overdrawn on his account. These purposes
centered on his desire to federate the English-speaking peoples and to
bring all the habitable portions of the world under their control.
JCT: This all sounds very contradictory. Cecil Rhodes writing
down Ruskin's great idea to help the poor as he later helped the
Rothschilds oppress the whole world with usurious debt. Unless it was
written down to later provide a good laugh.
Page 131
Among Ruskin's most devoted disciples at Oxford were a group of
intimate friends who devoted the rest of their lives to carrying out
his ideas. They were remarkably successful in these aims.
JCT: Though they may have been remarkably successful in talking
about these aims, they were quite remarkably unsuccessful in carrying
any of them out.
In 1891, Rhodes organized a secret society with members in a "Circle
of Initiates" and an outer circle known as the "Association of
Helpers" later organized as the Round Table organization.
JCT: These are the behind-the-scenes groups who have conspired to
keep the poor shackled to their debts and we'll hear much more about
Round Table Groups and their nefarious doings.
Page 132
In 1909-1913, they organized semi-secret groups know as Round Table
Groups in the chief British dependencies and the United States. In
1919, they founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Similar Institutes of International Affairs were established in the
chief British dominions and the United States where it is known as the
Council on Foreign Relations. After 1925, the Institute of Pacific
Relations was set up in twelve Pacific area countries.
JCT: And even though the Council on Foreign Relations has been
for proving ground of American rulers, whose members usually comprised
of both candidates for president as well as the bulk of their
administrations, it remained relatively unknown by the general
population as it was never written about by the major newspapers whose
publishers more often than not belonged to this secretive group. The
lid of secrecy on this organization of influential rich people over so
many decades seems to be more than accidental.
ŠPage 133
They were constantly harping on the lessons to be learned from the
failure of the American Revolution and the success of the Canadian
federation of 1867 and hoped to federate the various parts of the
empire and then confederate the whole with the United Kingdom
EGYPT AND THE SUDAN TO 1922
Disraeli's purchase, with Rothschild money, of 176,602 shares of Suez
Canal stock for #3,680,000 from the Khedive of Egypt in 1875 was
motivated by concern for communications with India just as the
acquisition of the Cape of Good Hope in 1814 had resulted from the
same concern.
JCT: This is one the greatest stories about the Rothschild family
where even the Rothschild of the day mentioned how silly it was for a
whole nation to be coming to get credit from a private individual.
Page 135
As a result of complex and secret negotiations in which Lord Rosebery
was the chief figure, Britain kept Uganda, Rhodes was made a privy
councilor, Rosebery replaced his father-in-law, Lord Rothschild, in
Rhodes secret group and was made a trustee under Rhodes' next and last
will.
JCT: Cute, making it sound like Rothschild was just another
member of the group when in reality, he was probably the leader of the
gang. Usually the guy with most money is.
Page 137
By 1895, the Transvaal Republic presented an acute problem. All
political control was in the hands of a rural, backward, Bible-
reading, racist minority of Boers while all economic wealth was in the
hands of a violent, aggressive majority of foreigners, (Utlanders)
most of whom lived in Johannesburg.
JCT: Boers had all the political control, aliens had all the
money, and the natives had nothing. Sounds like most of the Third
World today.
The Utlanders, who were twice as numerous and owned two thirds of the
land and nine-tenths of the wealth of the country, were prevented from
participating in political life or from becoming citizens (except
after 14 years residence) and were irritated by President Paul
Kruger's intriguing to obtain some kind of German intervention and
protection.
At this point, Rhodes made his plans to overthrow Kruger's government
by an uprising in Johannesburg, financed by himself and led by his
brother Frank, followed by an invasion led by Frank Jameson from
Rhodesia. Flora Shaw used The Times to prepare public opinion in
England while others negotiated for the official support necessary.
When the revolt fizzled, Jameson raided anyway and was easily captured
by the Boers. The public officials involved denounced the plot, loudly
proclaimed their surprise at the event, and were able to whitewash
most of the participants in the subsequent parliamentary inquiry. A
telegram from the German Kaiser to Kruger congratulating him on his
success "in preserving the independence of his country," was built up
by The Times into an example of brazen German interference in British
affairs, and almost eclipsed Jameson's aggression.
JCT: Of course, let's give credit to the Times for having
fomented what later became a war costing thousands of British lives,
sort of a rehearsal for the cheerleading for the upcoming Great War
where they'd lose millions of British lives.
Rhodes was stopped only temporarily. For almost two years, he and his
friends stayed quiet waiting for the storm to blow over. Then they
Šbegan to act again. Propaganda, most of it true about the plight of
the Utlanders flooded England from Flora Shaw. Milner was made British
High Commissioner to South Africa; his friend Brett worked his way
into the confidence of the monarchy to become its chief political
advisor. Milner made provocative British troop movements on the Boer
frontiers in spite of the vigorous protests of his commanding general
in South Africa, who had to be removed; and finally, war was
precipitated when Smuts drew up an ultimatum insisting that the
British troop movements cease and when this was rejected by Milner.
JCT: I find these behind the scenes activities by small groups of
men which push nations to war most interesting. I just wish they got
more credit for their hard-fought-for results. I hope these writings
will give them their due.
Page 138
The Boer War (1899-1902) was one of the most important events in
British imperial history. The ability of 40,000 Boer farmers to hold
off ten times as many British for three years, inflicting a series of
defeats on them over that period, destroyed faith in British power.
Although the Boer republics were defeated and annexed in 1902,
Britain's confidence was so shaken that it made a treaty with Japan
providing that if either became engaged in war with two enemies in the
Far East, the other would come to the rescue. This treaty allowed
Japan to attack Russia in 1904.
Page 138
Milner's group, known as "Milner's Kindergarten" reorganized the
government. By 1914, the Smuts government passed a law excluding
natives from most semi-skilled or skilled work or any high-paying
positions.
Page 139
By the Land Act of 1913, 7% was reserved for purchases by natives and
the other 93% by whites. The wages of natives were about one tenth of
those of whites.
JCT: Just Milner's way of extending the great British tradition
to the poor people of the world.
Page 141
These natives lived on inadequate and eroded reserves or in horrible
urban slums and were drastically restricted in movements, residence,
or economic opportunities and had almost no political or even civil
rights. By 1950 in Johannesburg, 90,000 Africans were crowded into 600
acres of shacks with no sanitation with almost no running water and
denied all opportunity except for animal survival and reproduction.
JCT: Once again, sounds like the typical U.S. Third World
protectorate. Somosa's Nicaragua, Papa Doc Duvalier's Haiti, Marcos's
Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, all these American
supported dictatorships have natives natives living on inadequate and
eroded reserves or in horrible urban slums, drastically restricted in
movements, residence, or economic opportunities and with almost no
political or even civil rights, crowded into slums of shacks with no
sanitation with almost no running water and denied all opportunity
except for animal survival and reproduction.
Is there any wonder the U.S. is hated all over the world. Let's
remember that it's not the American people, not even the American
soldiers that they hate, it's the American administrations which do
this to them in the name of their rich businessment, just like the
previously mentioned British government.
Page 142
In 1908, the Milner Round Table group worked a scheme to reserve the
Štropical portions of Africa north of the Zambezi river for natives
under such attractive conditions that the blacks south of that river
would be enticed to migrate northward. Its policy would be to found a
Negro dominion in which Blacks could own land, enter professions, and
stand on a footing of equality with Whites. Although this project has
not been achieved, it provides the key to Britain's native policies
from 1917 onward.
Page 143
In 1903, when Milner took over the Boer states, he tried to follow the
policy that native could vote. This was blocked by the Kindergarten
because they considered reconciliation with the Boers to be more
urgent.
In South Africa, the three native protectorates of Swaziland,
Bechuanaland, and Basutoland were retained by the imperial authorities
as areas where native rights were paramount and where tribal forms of
living could be maintained at least partially.
JCT: I wonder what became of these experiments?
MAKING THE COMMONWEALTH 1910-1926
Page 144
Back in London, they founded the Round Table and met in conclaves
presided over by Milner to decide the fate of the empire. Curtis and
others were sent around the world to organize Round Table groups in
the chief British dependencies to give them, including India and
Ireland, their complete independence.
JCT: Notice that they were deciding the fate of the empire. I'd
bet that not many people realized that these back-room boys controlled
their front-room politicians that the ordinary people usually got to
vote for. Still, their policies always betrayed whose interests they
were really protecting. As their policies resulted in the deaths of
many needy in their own countries, we can let those results speak for
themselves.
Page 146
The creation of the Round Table groups was so secretive that, even
today, many close students of the subject are not aware of its
significance.
JCT: One good reason for this is that anyone who suggests that
secret groups planning the fate of the British or American empire
would be immediately derided as 'conspiracy theorists" and everyone
who is not a nut knows that the world's upheavals are purely
accidental and never the result of planning no matter who gets rich by
them.
Page 147
Curtis said, "The task of preparing for freedom the races which cannot
as yet govern themselves is the supreme duty of those who can.
Personally, I regard this challenge to the long unquestioned claim of
the white man to dominate the world as inevitable and wholesome,
especially to ourselves. Our whole race has outgrown the merely
national state and will pass either to a Commonwealth of Nations or
else to an empire of slaves. And the issue of these agonies rests with
us."
JCT: I'd certainly agree that the responsibility for the agonies
of the world should be laid with them. That's what these writings are
all about.
EAST AFRICA 1910-1931
Page 149
Publicity for their views on civilizing the natives and training them
for eventual self-government received wide dissemination.
Š JCT: But as usual, all talk, no action. Remember that these slave
drivers are really good at talking the caring line as long as their
deeds never agree with their words. x
Page 150
By 1950 Kenya had discontented and detribalized blacks working for low
wages on lands owned by whites. It had about two million blacks and
only 3,400 whites in 1910. Forty years later, it had about 4 million
blacks and only 30,000 whites. The healthful highlands were reserved
for white ownership as early as 1908. The native reserves had five
times as much land although they had 150 times as many people.
JCT: Other than being white, these small rich minorities exist in
every Third World Hell on earth. While the natives perish from poverty
and disease, the elites jet-set around the world with others of their
ilk.
The whites tried to increase the pressure on natives to work on white
farms rather than to seek to make a living on their own lands within
the reserves, by forcing them to pay taxes in cash, by curtailing the
size or quality of the reserves, by restricting improvements in native
agricultural techniques and by personal and political pressure and
compulsion.
The real crux of the controversy before the Mau Mau uprising of 1948-
1955 was the problem of self-government; Pointing to South Africa, the
settlers in Kenya demanded self-rule which would allow them to enforce
restrictions on non-whites.
Page 151
From this controversy came a compromise which gave Kenya a Legislative
Council containing representatives of the imperial government, the
white settlers, the Indians, the Arabs, and a white missionary to
represent the blacks. Most were nominated rather than elected but by
1949, only the official and Negro members were nominated.
JCT: Just spreading Ruskin's good news for the poor as usual.
Page 152
As a result of the 1923 continued encroachment of white settlers on
native preserves, the 1930 Native Land Trust Ordinance guaranteed
native reserves but these reserves remained inadequate.
Page 153
Efforts to extend the use of native courts, councils and to train
natives for an administrative service were met with growing suspicion
based on the conviction that the whites were hypocrites who taught a
religion that they did not obey, were traitors to Christ's teachings,
and were using these to control the natives and to betray their
interests under cover of religious ideas which the whites themselves
did not observe in practice.
INDIA TO 1926
Although the East India Company was a commercial firm, it had to
intervene again and again to restore order, replacing one nominal
ruler by another and even taking over the government of those areas
where it was more immediately concerned and to divert to their own
pockets some of the fabulous wealth they saw flowing by. Areas under
rule expanded steadily until by 1858 they covered three-fifths of the
country.
JCT: Once again, we have the situation of a private company
pocketing all of the fabulous wealth while leaving the local
population to starve. Always backed by the British government, these
companies benefited while the mass of the English people or the
oppressed natives did not.
Š
Page 154
In 1857-1858, a sudden, violent insurrection of native forces, known
as the Great Mutiny, resulted in the end of the Mogul empire and of
the East India Company, the British government taking over their
political activities.
Page 157
Numerous legislative enactments sought to improve the conditions but
were counterbalanced... by the growing burden of peasant debt at
onerous terms and at high interest rates. Although slavery was
abolished in 1843, many of the poor were reduced to peonage by
contracting debts at unfair terms and binding themselves and their
heirs to work for their creditors until the debt was paid. Such a debt
could never be paid, in many cases, because the rate at which it was
reduced was left to the creditor and could rarely be questioned by the
illiterate debtor.
JCT: And of course, this is just the same picture of the world
that we see today. Moneylenders enslaving everyone with unpayable
debt. It just doesn't seem as deadly in richer countries but in the
poorer countries, it's quite murderous.
I have a videotape of a CBC Man Alive episode called Beautiful
Bombay where we see Indian peasants carrying loads of wood around
while singing a song with the verses "Damn this usury that chains us
down." Later, one of them in his loin-cloth was interviewed by a
reporter who asked him if he had any savings. Here is this sentient
being who replied to her "Savings? Savings? Lady, I don't even have
any clothes."
Just another indictment of Rothschild World waiting for them on
the other side.
Page 158
In spite of India's poverty, there was a considerable volume of
savings arising chiefly from the inequitable distribution of income to
the landlord class and to the moneylenders (if these two groups can be
separated in this way).
JCT: Just like it works in most of the world today. Again.
Page 161
Hinduism was influenced by Christianity and Islam so that the revived
Hinduism was really a synthesis of these three religions. Played down
was the old and basic Hindu idea of Karma where each would reappeared
again and again in a different physical form and in a different social
status, each difference being a reward or punishment for the soul's
conduct in at it's previous appearance. There was no real hope of
escape from this cycle, except by a gradual improvement through a long
series of successive appearances to the ultimate goal of complete
obliteration of personality (Nirvana) by ultimate mergence in the soul
of the universe (Brahma). This release (moksha) from the endless cycle
of existence could be achieved only by the suppression of all desire,
of all individuality and of all will to live.
IRELAND TO 1939
Page 173
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the seventeenth century had
transferred much Irish land, as plunder of war, to absentee English
landlords. In consequence, high rents, insecure tenure, lack of
improvements and legalized economic exploitation, supported by English
judges and English soldiers, gave rise to violent agrarian unrest and
rural atrocities against English lives and properties.
JCT: Once again, same system, only in a different time and place.
We'll see that the same formula applies over and over throughout all
Šof our recent history.
THE FAR EAST TO WORLD WAR I
THE COLLAPSE OF CHINA TO 1920
Page 176
The destruction of traditional Chinese culture under the impact of
Western Civilization was considerably later than the similar
destruction of Indian culture by Europeans
The upper-most group derived its income as tribute and taxes from its
possession of military and political power the middle group derived
its incomes from sources such as interest on loans, rents from lands
and the profits from commercial enterprises. Although the peasants
were clearly an exploited group, this exploitation was impersonal and
traditional and thus more easily borne.
JCT: But still, exactly the same kind of debt oppression at the
root of the inequity.
Page 179
Only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century did peasants
in China come to regard their positions as so hopeless that violence
became preferable to diligence or conformity. This change arose from
the fact that the impact of Western culture on China did, in fact,
make a peasant's position economically hopeless.
JCT: In the case of oppression by American corporations and
moneylenders, whenever the peasants found their lot so hopeless that
violence became preferable to starvation, the American administration
simply labeled them communists and sent in the Marines to the approval
of the sheeple at home who believed it all. I think it was General
Smedley Butler who said that he and his Marines were simply gangsters
for American corporations in the Third World.
Page 180
Chinese society was too weak to defend itself against the West. When
it tried to do so, as in the Opium Wars of 1840-1861 or in the Boxer
uprising of 1900, such Chinese resistance to European penetration was
crushed by armaments of the Western Powers and all kinds of
concessions to these Powers were imposed on China.
Until 1841, Canton was the only port allowed for foreign imports and
opium was illegal. As a consequence of Chinese destruction of illegal
Indian opium and the commercial exactions of Cantonese authorities,
Britain imposed on China the treaties of Nanking (1842) and of
Tientsin (1858). These forced China to cede Hong Kong to Britain and
to open sixteen ports to foreign trade, to impose a uniform import
tariff of no more than 5%, to pay an indemnity of about $100 million,
to permit foreign legations in Peking, to allow a British official to
act as head of the Chinese customs service, and to legalize the import
of opium. China lost Burma to Britain, Indochina to France. Also
Formosa and the Pescadores to Japan, Macao to Portugal, Kiaochow to
Germany, Liaotung (including Port Arthur) to Russia, France took
Kwangchowan and Britain took Kowloon and Weihaiwei. Various Powers
imposed on China a system of extraterritorial courts under which
foreigners in judicial cases could not be tried in Chinese courts or
under Chinese law.
JCT: So the Chinese had to suffer all these concessions because
they didn't want the British peddling heroin to their people. When you
realize what the imperialist countries have done to them, it's no
wonder that they have a great mistrust, even hate, of these aliens.
After four chapters, I think that the pattern of how Rothshild's
world of oppression works is quite clear. Corporations take all the
profits from resource development and their governments intervene to
kill anyone who objects. It's a sad record to be responsible for.
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