292
RUSSIA AND MANCHURIA.
Daily Press, 14th April.) It was hardly to be expected that the attemp at dignified silence that marked Russia's first reception of the news that England and Japan, tired of waiting for the return to commonsense of the nations of Europe most interested, had put their heads together with the serious intention of stopping any further plunder on the part of Russia in Eastern Asia. Hitherto one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, of Russia's offensive weapons has been bluff and bluster; and the instinct has become so engrained in her constitution that we may calculate the shock to her nervous system by the length of time that elapsed before the ordinary bark rose to her throat. Now that it has come it reminds us of nothing so much as the bad boy's inane threat when the master has found him out in some unusually serious offence, that if he catch him any day in a bog-hole he will prod bis eye with a long stick. Russia in fact, like the school-boy, resents the master's scrutiny and thinks it a hardship that the master, warned by previous breaches of the moral law, should keep a sharp eye on his present doings; and half unconsciously threatens that if England and Jpan continue to maintain their look-out he will-when he gets the chance-plug his eye in Afghanistan, or even in Beluchistan. If the threat were new one, 'or the present offered any special opportunity for putting it in prac tice, we might be disposed to pay it some particular attention. As a fact it has hung over us ever since the Tsar ALEXANDER and the Emperor NAPOLEON conceived their grand scheme for the conquest of India. England was then particularly distasteful to both Powers, as she had had the temerity to interfere, and call hands off, when the two had their hands actually on the throat of the whole of continental Europe. The campaign of Alexander the Great was the model set before the two, and India was to be again invaded through Syria, Persia and Afghanistan. From various causes, one of which was the proposed division of the spoil in prospective, the two monarchs quarrelled before their scheme had been out of the shell, and the victory of NELSON at Copenhagen forged the first link in a long chain, which eventually ended in the Island of S. Helena.
2
None know better than the Russians themselves the difficulties that face any army that endeavours to reach India across the deserts of Central Asin, and that at all times prestige rather than actual power has hitherto been the actuating force. In- trigue and treachery have always been the main weapons made use of in these regions, and the introduction of fresh blood the least important; thus, except in times when corruption has prevailed to such a degree that government has ceased practically to exist, hostile troops have never succeeded in crossing the great desert. Russia was particularly favoured by circumstances in this respect, as she was able to attack the Khanates at a time when, owing to the individual failures of the individual rulers, revolution was already far advanced, and the entire of Transoxiana was ready to obey the first strong man who presented himself. Russia has hitherto exi ted by her Asiatic propensity of taking advantage of such conditions, but this policy though conducive to the rapid formation of enormous empires, is also equally con- ducive to their rapid fall. When in fact a rift is started in the loosely aggregated mass it spreads with terrible rapidity, and the first effective. rent made in the borders
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[April 21, 1902.
THE CHINA ASSOCIATION.
Mr.
&
(Daily Press, 16th March.) The report of the annual meeting of the London branch of the China Association, published in last Saturday's issue, will be read with much interest by members of the Associa- tion here and at Shangai. The subject most referred to was the proposal of Sir JAMES MACKAY for the adoption in China of a ten per cent. surtax in lieu of lekin. KESWICK, M.P., like the Chairman of the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce on recent occasion.. explained that his views were purely personal and that he was not, representing the Association in stating them. In both cases, however, such opinions are bound to influence the judgment of many of those merchants who may be called upon to give a decision on this most im portant subject. Up to the present the British merchants of Hongkong, either as members of the China Association, or as members of the Chamber of Commerce, or as a mercantile community independent of these two bodies, have expressed publicly no opinion on Sir JAMES MACKAY's pro- posals. Their views, it is true, have not been asked, but the proposal cf the surtax is to them such a serious matter that it is a question whether they would not be justified in seeking to obtain some decision and of giving public utterance to it. That, of course, is for the merchants themselves to decide, and usually they may safely be relied upon to estimate the value of their interests and to act when these are threat- ened. In soine respects the proposal has more serious aspects to the merchants in Hongkong thin to those in Shanghai, for its adoption would probably mean a disas trous result to the majority of our local industries. The Shanghai industries would presumably escape this. To the Committee of the Shanghai branch of the China Association this may come within the scope of what they somewhat loftily term "small matters," but the fact remains, that con- sidering the amount of money of all classes there is invested in our local industries it is not unbusinesslike to suppose that it will be considered.
of the tissue quickly, if not immediately repaired, leads to the disintegration of the entire. It was thus that the rift made in Russia's skirts by the Crimean war proved so serious a shock to the entire Empire that it took an entire generation and continual patching before the tendency to split was staunched. Russia feels instinctively that a similar check undergone by her in her eastern extension would have similar, or even more disastrous, results; even the publicity thrown on her methods of pro- cedure is having its result, and hence the action of Great Britain and Japan in throw- ing on her the full power of the flashlight is already felt as a restraining force. It is this intense light of publicity which has already turned against her the prestige which she hoped to gain from her slaughter of the unoffending Chinese settlers at Blagoves chensk. It has been customary with Russia, as with other nations in a similar stage, to endeavour at the commencement of an invasion to spread terror amongst the threatened nation by the display of some utterly uncalled-for piece of brutality. The advance of the Tartar hordes under JENGHIZ KHAN was marked by cruelties equally uncalled for, except to tutor the intended victim into a wholesome dread of what should befall him did he endeavour to make a stand. It was thus also that Russia's attack on Turkey in 1854 began with the useless massacre of Sinope, which, except as an indication of what lengths Russia was prepared to go, had no strategic effect on the fortunes of the subsequent war. The dismissal of the commander at Blagoves- chensk who interpreted his ambiguous orders in the way his previous experience taught him was intended by his masters, has been only intended as a sop to Europe, but will probably turn out to be equally a blunder in the eyes of her Oriental subjects, as indicating that with all her bluff and cruelty Russia still has a dread of the terrible retribution which is one day to fall on her for her reiterated crimes against human nature. It is very likely that Russia objects very strongly to let her future efforts in a similar direction appear too plainly. Had not the European Powers been content to permit a cloud of mystery It is very difficult to obtain any local to be thrown round her previous conduct concensus of opinion on the subject of the in Eastern Asia, such episodes as the proposal of a surfax, although it is generally massacre of Blagoveschensk, and the. irrup considered that some expression of local tion into Manchuria would have been opinion should be given before Fir JAMES impossible, nor should she be now able MACKAY's proposal is made formally to the to shroud her present doings with her own Chinese Government. It is true that the peculiarly Kimmerian darkness. In fact, other Powers may not accept his proposal, Russin herself has chosen her course, and as
and it would then fall to the ground. it is one fraught with danger to her neigh-It is also conceivable that having less to bours it has become of the last importance sacrifice they will do what_England may that she should be placed under espionage.decide to do. Sir THOMAS JACKSON spoke To prevent her obtaining any further base out very clearly at the Hongkong Chamber his personal of operations in the Pacific has now become of Commerce, and gave a matter of importance to the rest of the opinion as to the value of the guarantee of as being his world. It has not been from any instinct the abolishment of lekin of good feeling that she has hitherto kept strong belief in the far-reaching power of out of Afghanistan, but because she had "the Chinese Government," a guarantee which to most men here is very feeble and un- not the opportunity, so that her,threats are only further evidence of bad faith. It is no convincing. It is difficult even for a banker new game of hers to seek to push her way to the Indian Ocean and the shutting her out from her darling project of absorbing Eastern Asia, while it will certainly reduce her power, will in no measure increase her longing to get to the Persian Gulf, Russia has elected to become the Esau amongst the Nations, and in receiving the treatment of a pariah only obtains her logical reward.
Mr. F. S. A. Bourne will be Acting Chief Justice at H.B.M.'s Supreme Court at Shang- hai, and Mr. H. F. King, Acting Assistant Judge during the absence on leave of Mr. H. S. Wilkinson, the Chief Justice.
|
to do business on those terms. In some matters the power of the Central Govern- ment is very great; in lekin it has no power at all. We question very much its means to abolish it. It is unnecessary to enter into the ramifications of the lekin system, or the numbers of people its much-desired abolishment would affect. Without the system of international police suggested by Lord CHARLes Beresford its eradication outside the principal centres would be almost impossible. The supporters of Sir JAMES MACKAY's proposal adopt the magnanimous position that the sacrifice of ten per cent. surtax, and the serious effects