Readers of the "N.C. Daily News" who read in your columns towards the end of last. year a long account of the singular Trappist Monastery at Tobetst near Hakodate will be sorry to hear that this building and its outhouses have been all con sumed by fire. The monks have taken refuge in an orphanage they had built at kome distance from the monastery, but they are sadly hampered by the lack of the common conveniences of life; and as the letters that appeared last winter in the "N.C. Daily News" wore the means of procuring them some kind notice and assistance from residents of Shanghai, they are in hopes that this short reference to their disaster will have the -ame effect.
The Evacuation of Manchuria.
The Japanese are becoming somewhat excited about the evacuation—or rather practical non-evacuation—of Manchuria by the Russians; and thera is talk of the tionalist Party being again called into existence. This party greatly embarrassed Government about two years ago by its bellicose attitude and its insistence on the immediate settlement. of the Manchurian question. It. was so convinced, however, that the Anglo Japanese alliance meant the settlement of that question once and for all that it ostentatiously dissolved in spring last after a big final hanguet and lots of <elf-congratulation. Necing that the Manchurian question is about as far from settlement uow that a year has elapsed since the conclusion of the said alliance as it was before, the members of the defunct association are thinking of resurrecting it.
Meanwhile another somewhat. bellicose association which did not dissolve at the happy period in question is now making itself icuons. 1 refer to the Taigat Doshi-Kai (Society of Fellow-Thinkers in Foreign Affairs), which held a meeting in Tokio on the 8th April, and resolved to appeal to Japanese public opinion in order to force Russia out of Manchuria. One of the speakers complained that in spite of Russia's promises about evacuation, all the had done was to cause insignificant movements of troops. The orators wer? coming a menace to the public health. I rather fiery as a rule, but the most. tier of all w:
Professor Tomizu of the Imperial University, who has won quite a reputation for himself as an uncompromising Rusophobist. He frankly declared on the present occasion that the Manchurian problem can only be solved by war. The military and naval forces of Japan were, said he, ready for the fray and Japan's financial embarrassment. was no draw-back as Russia was in the same plight. Manchuria was necessary to Japan for her surplus population and if Japan now showed the white feather, Corea and China, which were at present wavering between Japan and Russia, would finally throw in their lot with the latter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.