The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-09-01
DIVIDING UP ASIA.
1t Is Now Parceled Out Among Russia,
England and China.

1t Is Now Parceled Out Among Russia,
England and China.
Asia today is practically parceled be-
tween three powers. Russia holds all
Northern Asia. China occupies Eastern
Asia. Great Britain is dominant in
Southern Asia. Russia comes nearest
being alone in the tract over which its
powers extends. From the Pacific to the
Baltic it has no rivals and its advance has
met with opposition only as it began to
extend southwark near to English or
eastward over territory tributary to
China. In neither direction has it made
any advance since these powers protested.
and it has returned to China territory in
Iii once occupied by Russian troops. the
only backward step they have taken in
Central Asia in century. China is not
alone on the eastern coast, but its posi-
ton at its center is unquestioned, and the
instant France began to press northward
to point which threatened the southern
Chinese coast China 1nterposed resist
ance which was effectual.
England is still less alone on the south
ern coast of Asia, but not less supreme.
For century it has been cardinal point
of British policy in the east that no strong
European rival should be permitted on
the Indian ocean. When Louis XVI be-
gan and Napoleon Ill completed the &C
QUESTION of Tonquin, it was undoubtedly
with the expectation of acquiring all Of
the great peninsula of farther India.
comparable in extent to Hindostan,
though insignificant in value. AS long as
the French colony remained as it is now
for nearly half century, mere strip
along the eastern face of this peninsula,
albeit strip as large as New York, Penn
sylvania and Ohio, with a population of
nineteen million-England has not inter-
fered. Nearly ten years ago, when M.
Voissor, now French consul in this city,
and the French consul at Mandalay, be-
gan a policy likely to lead to French an
nexation, Lord Dufferin promptly &C.
uuired the regions and the French repre-
sentative was left, as French representa-
tives have been but too often from the
days of Duplex down, without adequate
support at home.
TO the present movement of France as
far as it is aimed at the lower Me-Kong
river, legitimately the back country of
Cambodia, neither England nor China
can object. The acquisition of this region
still leaves Tonquin and Cambodia mere
coast colonies without continental rela-
tons. Entering the region on the Upper
Me- Kong, still more ascending the
Menam and occupying Bangkok, is an
other matter. This tract "opens great
native trade highway to South China,
which only needs to be cleared of the
savage hill tribes which bar the way to
become the scene of as brisk trade as it
had 400 or 500 years ago. French lnfiu-
ence and supremacy over Siam will con-
fer a strip OF valuable sea coast on the
Indian ocean. 1t gives control of the
natural waterways, by the aid OF which
the Craw canal will in no distant day
cross the Malayan isthmus. 1t creates a
colony sufficiently large, when Siam is
Joined to Tonquin, AMMAN and Cam bodia,
to give France q right to speak in the
affairs of Southern Asia.
Practically this will introduce fourth
power into the control of Asia. Great
| Britain may or may not be ready to go to
war on this issue. 1t is impossible to say.
| But it is perfectly clear that small as the
original cause may be, and trivial Siam
| by the side OF the great interests involved
in war between France and England,
| yet the issue raised is one on which Eng
! lish public opinion wonld justify an
English. ministry in going TO war. No
ministry, however, would risk such a
war if it could be avoided. There is, be-
sides. the long experience of two centu-
RES which shows that time in Asia is apt
to rob France of all the advantages the
energies of her agents gain. Ii England
merely trusts to this, a quarter OF a CEN
| fury will probably find her, for all the
present advance OF France, still one Of
| the three powers which divide Asia among
! them. II Philadelphia Press.