Things have quieted down very much here "ud Tam glad to say that a peaceful issue of the Manchurian complication may now be expected. There is not such activity in naval and military circles, and various tops that have been taken of Into by the authorities seem to indicate that, in their opinion, peace is assured. But I suppose one cannot say all's well" until the Japanes are of the same way of thinking. 'Che Port Arthur paper of Sunday' last contained the following leading ande on this subject. As will be seen, the writer begins by expressing surprise that Admiral Alexeieff has been taken for a jingoist and goes on to say that he is no such thing, that he is the representative of the Czar, which is the same thing as saying that he is in favour of peace. He points out that the Viceroy is not, any the more, a wan of the porce atony-price sort. If war is necessary ho will not shrink from it but will embark on it with vigour and re-elution. Russin is then represented as being in favour of the opening of Manchuria to foreign trade, ssu long as her own interests ure safeguard ed, uni as not objecting in the least to Japanese emigration to the peninsula of Corea, so long us the independence of Corea'is not_menaced. Rexding between the lines, and relying on other sources of information, I believe that the idea is to interfere with Japanese operations in Corea as little us possible, arid satisfy the demands of foreign trade in Manchuria a< much as po-sible though not, I win afraid, to such an extent us the average foreign trader wishes. Meanwhito a tight hold will be kept on Manchuria, in fact Lcannot believe that the Russians will ever relax their grip on the three provinces in the way sume Japanese and English publicists imagine. They believe, zightly or wrongly, that if they allow the practical sovereignty of Manchuria, which they now possess, to pass out of their grasp, Port Arthur and Dalny will remain on their hands dry and withered memorials of blasted hopes, like trees whose roots have been cutaway. They believe that the Manchurian railway will lose half its raison @étre and more than hall its prosperity. They believe that the restless xc ivity, commercial and p li tical, of the English: man and the Japanese, combined with the astounding business yeuius of the American will make of Manchuria a busy hive of industry in which the English tongue will be the "lingua franco" and in which the infrequent Russian trader will be stared at as an unknown and mysterious visitant, while the Russian troops will be toft perched high and dry on the bleak rocks of Liaotung, like St. Simon on his pillar with nobody caring in the least whether
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.