The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-03-31
THE MANcHUR1AN RAILWAY.

Although a great deal has already been written on the subject, 1t will still be a long time before western Europe thoroughly appreciates the great i'm portance of the enormous changes which Russia's railway to the Pacific coast will rapidly effect in regard to Siberia and the Far East. What the Transcaspian railway has done for cen tral Asia, and is still doing by it's ex- tensions now being made towards He rat on one side and to Tashkent, Andi- jan and Marghilan on the other will be repeated on d larger scale by the pro- gress of the great trunk line through Siberia and Manchuria; and in the not very distant future these two railway systems of Siberia and central Asia will be united across the intervening space between Turkistan and Orenburg oI Omsk.
 Russia has secured a passage for her Siberian railway through Manchuria by clever use of the situation created
 by the late war between Japan and
 China; and Russians, who are taught by their newspapers to believe that only England profits by other peoples misfortunes, may now admire an ex-
 ample of this sort in their own country
 The circumstances recall to mind those
 of Russla's acquisition of Chinese ter
 ritory in 1S60 when the presence ot
 English and French troops in Picking
 gave General Ignatief the opportunity
 of putting Russia into possession of the
 large maritime province of the Anu,
 and Ussuri The present case, it is true, Is not one of immediate annexa-
 ton, but the locomotive cannot fail tc
 carry Russian ascendency into the wilds of Manchuria as easily as 1t has
 been introduced into Bokhara the no.
 ble. The railway through Bokhara ant the coming one through Manchuria are
 significant signs of Russia's power ant
 responsiveness in the east; and the time
 may come when third Russian rail- way will pass through Persia This
 railway policy of encroaching on neieh. | boring Asiatic states is only in it's is. fancy.
 One of the most remarkable features in the present case is the change which has come over China as regards the native land of Its reigning dynasty
 which was always so jealously guarded against foreign intrusion. Russian travellers like the late General Prjevals ky might march his Cossacks through
 Mongolia and distribute the Czar's DOT. trait among the natives with impunity but that kind of scientific exploration
 was never attempted in Manchura tcrIty f,,ao t1r rP cie
 was conceded to Russian merchants O. freely navigating the Sungari a Man, churian tributary of the Amur, but the
 exercise of that right was never ir fact permitted The first Russian trader, man named Chebotareff, who appeared on the Sungari in 1861, was | murdered at Sansin, and down to the time of the Japanese war no more Rus sian boats were ever seen on that river
 A few years ago a well-known Chinese authority declared to a friend of mint that the Chinese would never allow Russians to navigate the Sungari Nevertheless, as soon as the issue ot the war was seen to be going unmistak ably against China the Russians, witt | their clever diplomacy, obtained the practical recognition of the right O | using the river, and Count Cassini IT | Picking, in telegraphing the fact to tht | governor-general of the Amur district | advised him to take advantage of it a | once. Accordingly the Amur Steam boat company sent steamer and two barges right up the Sungari to Tsitsi
 har or very near to that town. an( | they met with good reception iron
 the Chinese authorities.-St. Petersburs Correspondence London Times.