Mongolia has been "alien domination of a subject race." The ruling Manchu caste at Peking, which has in the past placed itself in privileged positions both socially and politically above the other races of the empire, has always, in spite of the fact that Manchu and Mongol originated once from a common nomad ancestor, adopted a particularly hostile attitude towards the non-Chinese population of North-West Outer China. Partly in revenge for their former conquest of China, and partly in fear of a national awakening, the Manchus imposed upon the Mongols special social and political disabilities, which within the last decade have been increased, till they have at last become intolerable. When the writer was in North-West Mongolia, in the summer of 1910, he was one of the last Europeans to see the country under its old Manchu domination. The most oppressive tribute was being levied from the Mongol tribes through the khans, amounting in many cases to more than the whole annual increase of the native flocks. Among the Dorbot Mongols several sub-tribal sections had been mortgaged by the khans to Chinese moneylenders as a return for advances of silver, with which to pay the Chinese tribute. In addition to this, the Mongols were subjected to military service for the formation of Chinese banner corps without remuneration. They had been dispossessed of considerable areas of their most fertile tracts by Chinese immigrant colonists. Although no large area of Mongolia is capable of cultivation, nevertheless what land of this description there was had been already mortgaged in great part to Chinese immigrants. The khans in the eastern "Kalkas" Hoshuns were compelled in 1910 by the Chinese
