64
But
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND the hardships of establishing themselves that uo divergence of interests has occurred in new surroundings, they are to be beyond the powers of ordinary friendly assisted by subsidies from the fund referred intercourse to arrange, without any loss of to. It is quite possible that this unusual prestige or power ou either side. Practically interest and apparent earnestness of effort national feeling in Great Britain on ques- was connected with Peking's wish to sendtions of foreign policy, and more especially Viceroy SHUM to the border provinces. Asiatic policy is identical. This has been Next year it is expected that the indemnity emphasized by the fact that although a to Great Britain will have been discharged, ministry has come int, office with ideas on and the British occupation have come to au all point of domestic policy the very end, and Peking has perhaps been con-
reverse of its predecessors, not one question sidering subsequent responsibilities and dictated by differences of party has been possibilities. At present its efforts have raised with regard to our external relations, not been welcomed any more cheerfully which have gone on with ut a break. than have Japanese efforts in Korea. In is the case similar with Russia? The late fact, the comparison gives the Japanese war with Japan indicated that there was a some advantage. Japanese colonists have
very strong parly in that state whose object been fain; their enthusiasm has occasionally was unlimited aggression, which it attempt proved embarrassing to the Tokyo autho ed to soften down by calling it a forward rities. Chinese colonists see things dif- policy, but whose object was undisguised en- ferently. Removal to such outlandish croachment, and even to the extent of throw scenes, even when their present environ-ing down the gage for the possession of ment is an unprofitable one, has no attraction for them. They receive the official proposals with more than suspicion. The grants of money promised would stick, they fear, to the hands of the distributing officials; and they ought to know what is likely. Meanwhile, the Russian bogie having dwindled to less threatening pro- portions, the Indian Government cares less about Tibet. The amount of Britisu trade does not seem worth troubling about. The British trade representative has a fairly easy time at Gyangtze, SVEN HEDIN and others have talked of the immense mineral possibilities of Tibet, but if the Chinese continue paramount, it will be a long time before we har of any serious exploitation. When the Chinese bave repeated their former failures in that part of Asia as they almost certainly will, there may be some awakening of interest in India and Great Britain, and the proposals of the section of Chinese officials who would prefer, for a consideration, a policy of laisser aller, may become more important to us.
BRITAI
1 USSIA AND
(Daily Press, August 1st.) That an effectual agreement should be entered into between England and Russia, the two nations whose frontiers counter- march for the longest distances, and who have the largest influence amongst peoples of a lower stage of culture, would be a ratural desideratum in which all who desire to see the progress of humanity would join. To both England aud Russia, as the countries most interested, a practical arrangement would mean the saving not only of endless bickerings, but a more substantial economic saving in the matter of armaments only intended by each to be used against the other, while in the opening up of the intermediate countries each might find a vent for all its latent energies, not only political but commercial. That it has bee reported that the main difficulties in the way of a truce have been surmounted will therefore be looked upou with satis faction by all friends of both one and the other country. But, unfortunately there is abut' in the case: can we le sure that any real desire exists on the part of one at feast to bring about an agreement? Or, if the desire exist, are both parties in a position to enter on any real binding truce wherely the mutual interests of both can be conserved? France and England, for instance, have been brought together, and both feel that the entente between them is based on something stronger than words or seals, and the experience of a century has gone to show that, as far at least as Europe is concerned, their interests are the same; and with regard to the rest of the world'
India; not becuse there existed any cause of hostility, but that the party considered that it was Russia's mission to become the sole and entire master of Asia. Now it is doubt- less the case that the wiser heads of this party have learned the lesson that a policy of encroachment, unless it be accompanied with consolidation of the territories arquired by conquest or otherwise, renders them a source of weakness rather than strength, and that the mere possession of armies does not render a nation invincible. But if they have learned this much of the lesson, it is by no means so evident that they have discarded the policy of aggression; they may only have put it off for a more con- venient season. It is quit possible that such a party might even be dispuse! towards entering into an agreement which. it fancied, might give it a little breathing space; with the full intention of turning its
res ite from active interfrence into an
[August 5, 1997. But there are other and even stronger reasons in the prese it stage of affairs of doubting Russia's treaty-making ability, Of Russia it may literally be said she know. not what a day may bring. forth. Russin of to-day is 8 Tery different State from what she Was when the Emperor Nicolas I. with light heart sent his troops in 1854 across the Pruth. To offer a British Ambassador to divide with him the whole of Europe, is not the most likely thought to enter the mind of his great-grandson. Yet there is no reason to suppose that the idea is absent, and would he uppermost did the power to gratify it still exist. It is just in the fact that there is no security for continuity in its present system that the difficulty arises. With all his autocratic power the Tsar is conscious that he is not his own master, but is merely the shuttlecock of a destiny which he can by no means control. Tu-morrow be may be called ou to reverse in every particular what he has engaged to do to-day. It would not be the first time in his short experience that he has had, with what grace he could, to break the solemn faith plighted but a few days or months previously. These are the doubts that have been rising in men's minds regarding the policy of a protended understanding with Russia, which from the very nature of things can in the end really only be biuding on one side. We have entered into only too many of such understandings with Chiua not to know their inconvenience, and it may very well be a moot point whether we shall fare any better in our attempted treaty with Russia. Still the conclusion of an understanding would have a certain amount of utility, inasmuch as its breach would show that the evil complained of was acknowleged in ber sober moments by Russia herself, and though moral obligations might not count for much on the part of Russia, on England's side they would certainly strengthen her position internationally. On the whole, if ordinary discretion be used, and there has not been as yet any occasion to charge Sir EDWARD GREY with want of it, the a Ivantages of an uuderstanding may outway i's acknowledged inconveniences. Only it will throw on our Foreign Office the extra task of seeing that the performance keeps equal pace with the | P
opportunity of working its aggressive ends in private, when it considered its presumed opponent was lulled to inaction. But there is a further and a less sentimental cause at work to render such a proposel settlement unstable. In the Unite Kingdom, however we way differ on pints of private politics, there is an underlying national sentiment which no minister dare gainsay, and which lies sufficiently near the surface to be felt and seen. Public opinion in the United King dom has so many ways of making itself felt that usually on these points it is an im- winent power; but is it so in Russia? Russia as yet hardly possesses the fun- damentals of a public opinion: it does not even possess a Cabinet, much less a mean of expressing the general opinion of the country at large. The present Gorerument atter playing with it or some time, has finally given up the idea of an assembly from whose lucubrations it could learn the various views of its statesmen. Even the assembly of ministers of the Crown has un means of ascertaining its own views. The Minister of War may hod very different doctrines on public policy from him who bas charge of Foreign Affairs, and both probably differ widely from the Minister of the Interior or the Financial Secretary. We have sceu, not ouce but many times, even of recent years, that what one minister decided, was not law unto his fellow in a different department, though both were trusted ministers of the Tsar. A treaty of this nature when a strain comes is of little valency. It is none of my doing, is a suffieut reason for openly contravening the work of a presume colleague. Even the Tsar himself has bad to submit to the refusal of a favourite minister or sllier, rather than risk the danger of exhibiting | the want of coherence of his autocracy.
omnis.
ETHICS OF CONQUEST.
(Daily Press, 2nd August). A contemporary in the north has been to the ethics of turning its attention colonizing. It opens very promisingly with the following passage:
There are certain political propositions which certain people receive as axioms but which are not axioms at all. One of these is that no people have a right to any portion of the earth's sar- foe unless they can make the best possible use of it. There are a dozen debitable things about such a statement as this, but in a rough and ready sort of way most of the so-called divilised nations of the world acquiesce in it. And so India, France about Algiers, Germany about Great Britain is quite eisy in conscienes about
the Kamerun, the United States about the Philippice, and all of them about the Japanese position in Korea.
Too many of such "axioms" are taken for granted, it is true; but there inevitably come in life moments when all that sort of thing must be ignored. As Zangwill has remarked, it is unreasonable to expect of men that they should live togically; all that we demand is that they should argue logically. Hereupon appears the difference between the artist and the critic, the states- man and the political commentator.
Life
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