The morning call., 1894-10-15
RUSSIA IN ASIA.

The ST. Petersburg correspondent of the
Berliner Tdgebldtt states that detachment Is
of Cossack cavalry. followed by artillery
and infantry, have been thrown into the
Russian towns ON the Chinese frontier,
and that they brought with them amte
supplies of provisions, ammunition and
tent furniture, including portable stoves.
The correspondent infers that they are
stablshing a base for a forward move
ment upon China.
The action of Russia at the present crisis
will largely depend upon the fortunes of
war. II the Chinese should drive the jar
anese back into Korea, Russia would
probably best attain her object-which is
the occupation of a Korean seaport as a
terminus for the Siberian ralroad-by
negotiation with China, rather than by
fighting. If, on the other hand, ths Jap
anese should capture Moukden and make
themselves masters of Man tchooria, il
might be necessary for the Russians 10
take the field so as to secure their share of
the plumber Of the peninsula. A military
demonstration from Siberia would proba-
bly, convince japan that it would be policy
10 comply with Russia's demands without
provoking an actual recourse to arms, and
those demands would naturally assume a
more serious shape if they were backed by
a massing Of troops in the valley of the
Amoor.
The task which now devolves upon
Russia seems easy enough when it is
studied by the light of the maps. But the
latest reports of travellers in the AmOor
country show that it presents difficulties
of no common magnitude. Within the
last thirty years about 625.000 Russians
have migrated willingly or forcedly to
Siberia. 1t is mainly upon these immi-
grants that Russia relies to people her
Asiatic province and to scatter settlers
along the line Of her new railroad. But
the emigrants from European Russia will
not move east except at the point of the
bayonet and at heavy cost to the Rus
sian treasury. Forty per cent of them re-
main in or near Tobolsk. perhaps % or 30
per cent are scattered through Irkutsk
and hardly 1 per cent reach the meridian
of Yakutsk. Where the Government in
ssts on their moving east they sicken and
die. At Irkutsk and Tiumen the NOR
tally in five years is reported at 20
per cent The empty places in East
ern Siberia are being filed I'D not
with settlers. but with corpses. East
ern Siberia is in the same stage Of
creation as Labrador and Alaska. People
will not 90 there to live if they can
help it,
1t seems, too, that the stories of the
early completion Of the Siberian railroad
are Over-sanguine. The corruption which
permeates the Russian civil service is tell
ing seriously on the prosecution of the
work. Whole sections are said to be so
imperfectly constructed that they will
have to be rebuilt before 1t will be safe to
run trains over them. In places the con-
tractors are IN paid; their hands are unfed,
and they are roaming through the country
robbing the farmers and the villages. In
stead of being completed within three or
four years. as the Russian pamphlets an
nounce, it seems that the line may not be
opened for traffic till we are some years
into the twentieth century.
The question of an eastern terminus ia
thus not pressing, and unless the Japanese
make short work of the Chinese in Mapt-
chooria, the Cossacks who are now being
massed on the Amoor may not readily
find an early field of usefulness. To carry
on war in Man tcho0ria, Russia would have
to send her troops distance of three or
four thousand miles from their depots and
their supplies would have to be transport.
ed over an equal distance. OF course, as a
military proposition the Chinese could no L
hold their own in the field against the Rus
slams, however their numbers might pre-
ponderate; but II would DE difficult 10
operate the Siberian railroad if the country
which borders it on the south were in
hablted by hostile people.