9th April.
Rarety in history has there been a more clearly defined issue hidden in verbiage than that which resulted from the Russian demand for Manchuria. When some six months ago China threw down the gauntlet to the world there was momentary surprise, a shrug of cosmopolitan shoulders, and the comment, Quos Dens yuit perdere, ete. But China was weak, as everybody knew, quite incapable of carrying out the programme laid down by the Empress Dowager and her Boxer friends. So the Allies, Russia amongst them, went to Peking. But they had no sooner arrived than a proposal was made that they should at once withdraw. This was the suggestion of Russia. Many of us were sure then that there was a deep-laid scheme behind the seeming humanitarianism. But in course of time the object of Russia's solicitude was made apparent, She was conspiring with the traitors in power to despoil China and fool the Allies. In a word she had determined with the aid of the party in power at Hsian and their pliant "plenipotentiaries" at Peking to throw down the gauntlet not only to the Western world (always excepting her complaisant friend, France) but to the Eastern as well, no less as it turns out to China than to Japan.
{t was magnificent, but of course it was not war, and was never intended to be. Russian assurance is a model for all to copy who admire her methods. First' she wheedles, then she tatiers, next she paves her way with gold. By this, the time has come for suggestion. leads to diplomacy, to demand, and demand to To what, depends on the opposing party or parties. If they are weal enough there is bluster, throat, talk of rupture of diplomatic relations, even of war. If they are strong, or have sufficiently powerful backers, matters are rarely allowed to re this stage. 'The graceful retirement is made without loss of face. Waere the opponent is weak, as China long has been, the end is usually achieved, Thus was Port Arthur attained, and many another privilege to which Russia has less right' than_ others whose connection with China is more intimate than hers.
But on the present occasion resistance has been more effective than was expected. There was nothing to be feared from China, it was thought. Nobody, autocratic Russia least of all, expected an expression of public opinion from the Chinese people. Who had ever heard of such athing? There is no public opinion, but such as is permitted, in Russia, how much less should it be looked for in the sleepy hollow of the Celestials? But the unexpected always
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.