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Show B THE ASIAN STRUGGLE. B Tne news from tne 0rient during the past B week has keen so conflicting that it is difficult B to understand the real situation, except that Rus- B sia is fencing for time and Japan is hurrying her B preparations to strik the Russians by land and " B sea so soon as sne can Bet ner frces in position. B II seems to us that for the present, Russia is In B a raost precarious position in the Bast. She has it B: seems superceded her admiral there, but it ap- B Pears Pam that the personnel of the Russian H crews the men behind the guns do not com- M pare with those on the Japanese ships. In this K respect there seems to be as great a dlscrepency Mm as there was between the Spanish and Americans B at Manila Bay and off Santiago. Ambitionless B conscripts are pitted against alert, thinking and K passionately patriotic men fighting for life and B for deliverance from a vastly more numerous and m merciless enemy. With one successful, great land HI battle on the part of Japan, it would not be a week B until Russia's single railroad would be cut-off K and then the surrender of Port Arthui would be Hj inevitable. K Russia has ' retired its Asian headquarters WM to Harbin, which is 600 miles north of IB Port Arthur and about the same distance west Hj' of Vladivostok and Harbin is henceforth to be B her base. That amounts almost to an admission that her fleet cannot protect Port Arthur and that her land forces cannot prevent the tearing up MM of her railroad tracks north of Port Arthur. It JH is an old trick on the part of Russia when defeat-Is defeat-Is ed on the sea-shore to retire to her interior fast-B fast-B nesses; but what kind of statesmanship must JK havq ruled In St. Petersburg, when Russian refusal WM to ueal openly and squarely with Japan, finally B caused the anger and mistrust that precipitated the war, and found Russia helpless to meet its exactions? B One , disquieting dispatch was received during H the week, to the effect that a high Chinese of- H ficial nad expressed the belief that China's sym- B Pathles were all with Japan and that in a little K pm hIna wouId cease t0 be neutral. Were H thlna to Join in the war, it would not be three Km weeks until all the great powers of Europe would B e ,n accord for the purpose of partitioning China. In that event It would require the exercise of most superior statesmanship In Washington to keep our own country from becoming embroiled. All the indications point to trouble In Southeastern South-eastern Europe with the opening of the spring. Mars surely seems to be in the ascendant In the Old World, and the millennium seems to be as far away as It was when the cross was first up-reared. up-reared. If the Moslem hive is really swarming that fact will soon be the concernment of all Europe, Eu-rope, for it will mean Ancient merciless Asia In array against Christian' Europe. It is a striking fact that the spirit which dominates Asia does not change with, the centuries. The old law of might is the only one appealed to and when it triumphs it is followed by the same cruelties that followed in the wake of the victories of old Cambyres. The wild beast In man Is still dominant. The situation sit-uation is not a cheerful one for men who believe in free government and the natural rights of man. |