Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-02-04

furnishes base of supplies by which the
Pacific colonies can be constantly recruited
from the interior of the empire. The seizure
OF Corea would of course be utterly without
justification. The people of that country,
numbering as is supposed, between ten
and eighteen millions, are simple and as a
rule peaceful, only asking to be let alone
by the rest OF the world. There is no
excuse for interference with them, but
they have the misfortune to be Russias
nearest neighbors on the Pacific, and her
restless aggressive policy must inevitably
bring them into collision with her sooner
or later, unless the United States or some
other great power interveassfor the pro-
lection Of the threatened country.
This country and England are indeed
equally interested in the question now
opened up. For should Corea become
Russian dependency it is certain that our
nascent trade with China would be very
seriously affected, and that England would
find rival intrenched at vital point in her
connections with India. Corea geogrsphi.
cally dominates that coast of China on
which are the majority of the treaty ports.
A power armed with modern war machin.
cry, occupying the Corean ports, could die
tate terms at Picking whenever it chose.
and it would possess a commercial vantage
ground which would give it possession of
whatever proportion of the trade OF the
surrounding regions it desired. The move.
ments of Russia on the Pacific have in
truth been so skillfully concealed that very
few people have any adequate conception
of the progress she has made in the Amoor
country during the past ten or fifteen
years. Yet the United States Government
is bound to inform itself on this subject,
nor can it affect to ignore the possible con.
sequences to its own commerce, and even
to its own sovereignty, of the warlike pre-
parations which are going on so silently,
but also so expeditiously, at Vladivostock
and Nicolaievesk, and in fact all along the
Manchurian coast from the mouth of the
Amoor to the confines of Corea.
California is directly interested in this
matter, moreover, and has right to in.
sist that the Washington Government
shall examine into it. The United States
has hitherto relied upon the magnitude of
its resources and the weakness of its i'm
mediate neighbors, and has consequently
neglected those precautions which Euro
pean powers find indispensable to their
security. Bat Russian history should
teach US that the Great Northern empire
is not to be trusted implicitly, and that its
territorial and commercial aspirations may
ultimately impel it to a course which
would make collision with American in
terests unavoidable. During the last
twenty years Russia has created naval
station on the Pacific. She began with the
acquisition of the sea-front Of Manchuria
The cession of Saghalien was the next
step. These measures enabled her to erect
naval colony, which has been expanding
and increasing in strength ever since. Now
we hear that she wants Corea, and that
demand appears to us to make it our duty
to ascertain to what all this systematic
aggrandizement is tending, and to take
whatever steps the situation may necessi-
tate for the protection of American inter
ests, menaced, as we firmly believe them
to be, by Russian ambition. 1t may be
doubted whether the latter power would
undertake to push her aggressive policy in
the face of American remonstrance, but if
her movements at present are suffered to
to result from the apathy of the Govern
ment at Washington.