OCR Text |
Show 41, RUSSIA, THE GREAT ABSORBENT. In China, Japan and Korea there are seven H times as many people as in the United States. ' pi Hj Their trade with Europe, a Russian writer de- f H clares, amounts to 80,000,000 roubles annually. ,j H Russia built her Siberian road ostensibly as a ' H military road, but all the time she had this trade ' H and the trade of Central Asia in mind. Now that , H she and Japan are, so to speak, walking around H each other each with a chip on the shoulder, the H outside world should keep that trade in mind and H keep further in mind that Russia intends to have H that trade in spite of all the world. She may H compromise with Japan and partition Korea with her, or possibly for the present permit Japan to H do as she may please with that country, but the H main idea will not be relinquished, and she will , H never reach the time when she will think it safe s H to "evacuate Manchuria, at least not until that H country becomes thoroughly Russianized. Port H Arthur at one terminus of her great road is al- H ready a second Gibraltar; the dispatches say It H is crowded by Russian soldiers and that ninety H Russian ships of war are swinging on their chains H under the great guns of the fortress. Russia is H there for business. We suspect that if affairs fl were established on a safe basis for her In south- eastern Europe she would at once throw off her disguise, inform the wond that Manchuria be- ' H longed to her through purchase at the close of the Chinese-Japanese war, and that henceforth that province must be reckoned as a part of the I Russian empire. I Her tenure there is quite as strong, her title fl quite as sacred as is Great Britain's tenure and title to Egypt; as is that of Germany or Franca to such portions of China as they have appropri- ated. I Of course, when the final partition comes ,H Great Britain will expect the great central valley jfl of China as her portion and the best that the United States will be able to do will be by treaty to have guaranteed "the open door," |