384-
19
not directed at the foreign Powers' demands for payment in gold, with interest. "So far,” the writer said, "there is no ground for com- plaint." Theawful point is made that whereas China had the £1,200,000 ready to hand over ou January 1st, the Powera could not agree upon a date for accepting it, and the latter now have the "grasping pretension to insist that when she does pay, China must pay four per cent. interest on it from January 1st. This, we must admit, grieves us more than it grieves the Times. If we had only known on December 31st that such wickedness was intended, we would have accepted the £1,200,000 next day from China, and saved her from the imposition by ourselves paying the four per cent. to the Powers until they decided to take delivery of the money! We should, more- over, have tried not to lose by our philan. thropy. Much is made of the fact that China is being penalised for a delay for which she was not responsible. It is, indeed, something new for China to be in the position of bewailing delay, even by proxy. But at four per cent., it seems likely that Russia, for instance, would rather have had her share, and foregone that amount of interest. We do not see, in view of the customs and conditions of financial business in these parts, how the Times is able to declare that the incidental claims arising out of the indemnity payment are for "a profit which we know to be dishonest." Such expressions, including not only the respective Governments, but also the Ministers in Peking who have to conduct the negotiations, seem wholly objectionable. The representative at Peking of the journal which editorially made them will probably not like them any more than we do. The leader referred to closed with these words: "The present system [in China] affords them two of the dearest pleasures known to Chinese human nature -the hope of illicit gains and the excite- ment of an incessant gamble. Those are joys they will not lightly forego." The present system has drawbacks as well as joys, and if the official Chinese are enabled to realise this much while paying for their criminal folly of 1900, the wickedness ex- posed by our contemporary cannot be regarded as altogether an unmixed evil.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
| admitted its responsibility for their misdeeds, but in its apology urged that British shipping had not beeu especially singled out for such attentions, and pleaded that it was difficult for it to get into com- munication with its officers so as to order them to desist. It will be remembered that Great Britain undertook to convey any such orders; and that the offences were stopped, and forgiven, on Russia's explicit assurance that nothing of the kind would occur again. Now it has occurred again, as we have said, in an aggravated form. We pass over the Dogger Bank affair aa irrelevant, an affair that was settled, and cannot now be counted in the total of Russia's indictment; but we cannot but consider that the sinking of the St. Kilda re-opens the whole subject of Russia's trespasses against us. We are not surprised that her assurances and promises have been set at naught by her own officers. Russian pledges are proverbially untrustworthy. But we shall be surprised, and somewhat disappointed, if the British Government rests satisfied with another evasive apology, and any such feeble excuse as that the accident would not have happened but, for the disorganisation of her navy. If Count LAMBDORFF means that the Dnieper was, as it were, insane from defeat, and running amur, we would like to hear of its prompt suppressal as the amuking fanatic is usually suppressed. The excuse savours strongly, however, of the criminal who pleads drunkeuness as a reason why he should not be punished. It may even be that the Russian tongue was in the Russian cheek when it was made, as we suspect was the case when the explanation was made that inore British ships were molested because there happened to be more of them. We will not suggest, as some will undoubtedly do, that this was still another attempt to involve England so that face night be saved by surrendering to some Power other than Japan. If such a theory is to be seriously considered, we would say that Great Britain need not handle Russia with gloved hands because of it. In the eyes of the whole world, the Russo-Japan war is over. Russian might and Russian prestige is the admitted captive of Japan's bow and spear. Where Great Britain's might may be sup posed to be, or how her prestige will stand the strain, if she fails to exact a most ample
RUSSIAN INSULT AND INJURY. apology and adequate compensation for
(Daily Press 22nd June.)
Reflectrag upon the admissions of Count LAMBDORFF, Russia's Foreign Minister, admissions that were none the less remark- able because mainly implied, we conclude that our London correspondent's telegram, announcing the purport of the reply to Lord LANSDOWNE's enquiries regarding the treatment of the British steamer St. Kilda, indicated a more serious state of affairs than has yet been realised. The behaviour of the Russian officers of the Dnieper, now fully described in the interview reproduced elsewhere in this issue, was of a peculiarly impudent and provocative character, all the annoying features that were present in the assaults on British shipping in the Red Sea being present in aggravated form. The allusion to the British flag's conspicuity during the infamous target practice is par- ticularly galling; and the high-handed meddlement with His Majesty's Mail is another feature that will not tend to make the Russian offence appear less heinous in British eyes. When Russian naval men were misbehaving in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, it will be remembered that the Russian Government
this latest insult and injury, it would be
hard to say.
GERMAN POLICY.
(Daily Press, 23rd June.)
(June 26, 1905, price has never found favour in his eyes. We are not, therefore, as there seems a disposition to do in soufe quarters, to hastily assume that the EMPEROR is engaged in wantonly upsetting the status quo, but rather we must believe that he has some abject very near his heart, in the pursuit of which he bas seemingly strained amic. able relations almost to the breaking point. However diplomatically he may seek to conceal the fact, there is no doubt that the EMPEROR has not seen with satisfaction the current of affairs in Eastern Asia. The defeat of Russia was probably not alto- gether distasteful; but that it should be so complete as.to involve the practical des. trustion of her fleet, and should temporarily endanger the very existence of the Autocracy, was a sad reversal of many of his most cherished schemes. Under cover of, at the least, Russia's benevolent neutrality, the map of Europe, when the time came, was capable of great improve- ment. Germany, for instance, was by no means the self-contained Empire she ought to be: she had an insufficient outlook on the North Sea, and was altogether shut oul from the Adriatic: and, worst of all, Bavaria was not so amenable to reason as she ought to be under the constitution of the Empire. Of course Austria would need to be consulted, and the Emperor FRANCIS JOSEPH was getting old, and was not amenable to the logic of these self- evident facts. Russia was there and, with her reaily admirable system of autocracy, was open to reason. There was here much in common, the TSAR was ። good friend, and had a persuasive way about him; but those terrible Japanese, not con- tent with their success in the war were, contrary to all good manners, actually pressing things a l'outrance! Something must be done, and that quickly. True, be had little sympathy with President Roos- VELT, but he (the EMPEROR) had always posed as an advocate of peace, so he could not be charged with inconsistency if he joined hands with him; especially as it might be the means of getting his friend out of a very unpleasant scrape.
There is some reason to believe that some such line of argument passed through the EMPEROR'S thought as he sat recently cogitating over the turn events were taking. Russia's navy was, he probably quite understood, a thing of comparatively small account; but as a dark horse it had its uses in the game he was playing, and its annihilation was not a thing to be con- templated with equanimity, The battle of Tsushima had so weakened it that further
damage was to be prevented at all hazards : many of its best ships were interned in his own ports, and the restoration of these to That the German EMPEROR in seeking their rightful owner might make all the to uphold the SULTAN of Morocco, and difference. The practice of international thus hazarding a contest with France, has law forbade his returning them as the case other objects in view than the mere promo- stood, but the obligation ceased on the tion of German interests in that somewhat conclusion of peace; evidently there was benighted state, is evident to most minds every reason why he should throw his conversant with the present political posi influence into the cause of peace. An tion in Europe: but what those objects are unlooked-for opportunity presented itself is not so self-evident. Strangely enough, of pr. ssing peaceful sentiments on one, at while thus apparently indifferent as to dis-
least, of the belligerents The SOVEREIGN Of turbing the peace of Europe, he desires to Japan had received from the KAISER an in- appear foremost in restoring the already vitation to be represented at the marriage of broken peace of the Far East, and almost the CROWN PRINCE, and Prince ARISUGAWA, officiously would take from President a near relation, had been sent. Not un- ROOSEVELT the credit of bringing about willing to bury past grievances, the KAISER peace between Russia and Japan. Of received him with marked attention, and course the Emperor WILLIAM II. has never posed as an advocate for consistency, and it is only fair to him that we should, in forming our judgment, keep this fact in mind. Peace with him is a good thing, to be striven for earnestly; but peace at any
there is no doubt that the incident had some effect in rendering the Imperial representations, subsequently made, inore acceptable In all things we do not seek to impute to the German EMPEROR any unworthy motive; they are exactly the
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