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Show DOES IT MEAN PARTITION? v Great Britain is sending more ships to Chinese waters, so is Germany. Russia and Japan are maneuvering their ships within gunshot distance of each other and their land forces are being swiftly mobilized. We predict that if a clash comes there will be more Russian ships sunk in an hour than there have been since the Crimean war. But.it looks to us much more as though the great powers were reaching an understanding; that they are contemplating doing what they prepared pre-pared to do when they went to the relief of the missionaries in 1890 and what they then would have done except for the presence of the United States contingent with them and the vigorous work of , our state department. If a month hence it shall be announced that the great, unwieldly empire is to be divided, that Japan is to be content with Korea; that Russia is to take Manchuria and Northern China down to the Great Wall; that the great Central Valley is to go to Great Britain, that, next, Germany is to have a great addition to the province she seized on account of the killing of the eight German missionaries and that the possessions of France in Cochin China, are likewise like-wise to be enlarged; if such news comes no one need be surprised. It is much with avaricious nations na-tions as it is with avaricious men. When they covet something very much, it does not take them long to reason themselves into the belief that they can make a much better use of it than the real owner, and when they reach this stage it requires re-quires but a little more thought on their part to convince them that they ought to have it. As we see it, that is the position of the Great Powers in the East today and unless something unforseen transpires, that programme will be carried out. The two great land thieves of the world, Russia and Great Britain, though they possess vastly more land already than they can utilize, seem just as land-hungry as ever and we notice that . Englishmen in the East are already saying that, after all, the partition would be the very best thing even for China herself. May be it is to be, but then what? The prop sition will be to Russianize, Anglosize and Germanize Ger-manize China. What if John should play a trick on them all and Chinaize the whole crowd? Suppose Sup-pose Great Britain well established in the Yang tze Kiang Valley, what would be more natural than for her to adopt her India tactics; to train a Mongolian army with British Generals and keep this up as she has in India for a hundred years? Suppose the other Powers should do the same until there would be two millions of Chinese trained, to arms and then some morning the hive should begin to swarm? Suppose they would take the usual course of such movements, from East to West, then what? Locusts are sufficient, if the swarm is only large enough, to stop a railway rail-way train. Fromthe soil of China relics of a long-past civilization are often exhumed. An enlightened race owned that land once, but the Tartar with his expressionless face, his non-combatant smile, wuh a pole on his shoulder and a basket at each end of the pole nppeared and pushed out the more generous residents. When he substitute0 a gun for pole and baskets and starts on his march what is going to resist him? The Great Powers should try to reach a reasonable solution of this problem before they begin that partition. . |