Omaha daily bee., 1898-09-03
or,urn LANDS THAN ouns.

pctcrsburg 10 will bc no Russian loss, hut
o distinct gain, to have England join the
other powers in the policy OF spheres OF in
nuence. One Of its first practical conso-
Qucnces will likely be the disayowal OF Rus
sian support Of the proposed rcldn-iiankow
railway, and this will be followed In due
diplomatic course 10y Russian guarantees that
Englauds authority over the Nang-Tsc val
lev shall be respected. 1t is tradition
with the forward" school Of English
diplomacy that Russian promises are not to
be trusted and this feeling will doubtless
make a settlement OF the question more
difncult Lord Salsbury's yagillauon hith-
erto may with good reason be considered due
to the difficulty of choosing between the
open door and the bounded sphere of in
flucnce. Now that he has chosen he can
exact his own guarantees. He has force to
back his demands, while Russia has neither
tho force nor the probability of it for some
years to come. The open door will remain,
of course, within the English sphere
On the Nile, at Omtcrif the Anglo
Egyptian army is now concentrated for the
desperate battle in front of Omdurman,
which Is to decide the fate Of the Dervsh
empire. 1t is about thirty miles only from
Omterif to Omdurman, and an advance Of
Sblllt ttll AllltS 10 maui bbllS' AiN ~ '''''
commander is confident OF success, though
his army numbers little over 10000
men, while the Dervishes are ead
to number 10000. But the former has
science, the best modern weapons dis
ciplne and intelligence, while the lat
ter have little more than numbers and
brute courage Even courage with the Der
wishes does not now mean what II did in
the time of the Mahdi when their fanatic
faith was vivid and death in battle was
believed to be a sure door to the joys Of
Paradise. Paradise seems less certain and
at present only the ordinary secular motives
sustain the Dervish host. Accordingly there
are no more of those mad rushes that dis
| concert and dCmoralize the bravost troops,
as the period from 1854 to 1883. On the
other hand the Egyptian army, under British
training, has gained in spirit as much as
| the Dervishes have lost. The fight is on
equal terms as respects personal prowess.
AS respects the adjuncts to courage-guns,
cordte, gunboats, etC-the Deryishcs are
wocfully inferior and will be beaten. The
| result will be the Crumblins of the remains
| of the Mahdi's empire and British mastery
of the Nile valley from the Mediterranean to
! the lakes that constitute the source of the
| Nile.
The Dutch system in Java would not be
| applicable in all colonies, nor is it by any
| means wholly admirable. Under the eco
nomic regime devised by Van den Bosch the
condition of the natives akin to
| slavery. At all events they were com
| PEELED to be industrious and learned to rec
ogn2e the fact that hard toll has its ad-
vantages. Most of their grievances have
now been remedied and the harsh policy of
| the stern cid governor was not an unmiNed
evil The lessons it taught the natives
| have helped them to support some trying
burdens brought by recent years. German
beet sugar has imperiled Java's sugar in
dustry. Disease has wasted many of her
coffee farms and her tea industry has suf-
! fered severely from the competition of
India and Ccylon. But no one hears of
starvation in Java and the island continues
! to be the most densely pcorled equatorial
region in the world. The S,OOO,O00 Filipinos
| have never had a chance to reach Java's
stage of development. Their opportunity is
only just beginning to appear With hu-
name and good government and practical
| business sense in the conduct of its affairs
the archipelago will undergo, in the next
! twenty years, a transformation such as
no Oriental country except Japan has ever
ever seen in so short a time.
1t cannot be taken for granted that, in
| becoming the apostle of humanity, Mich
| olas ii has demonstrated his power to call
hart in the secular policy of Russia.
| That is a policy of which generations have
gone to the making and which, autocrat as
| he is the czar cannot suddenly reverse.
Its fruits during the last six months have
been the acquisition of a new empire con-
tanning 100000 people in the northern
part OF China. Its irresistible movement
| has been likened to that of a glacier and
| the most formidable menace at present eX-
| isting to the peace of the world is the pros
! pect of its further advance. If the powers
| that object to that advance are to consent
| to disarm they must have some very sub
| stantal assurances that the course of the
| Russian ambition for territorial expansion
| has exhausted itself. In short If the czar
| be the ardent devotee of international peace
that his message entities the world to as
sumo, his first step should be to remove
on the part of Russia all the existing in
| elements to war.
| Two Chinese women have been appointed
| by Lii Hung Chang to be delegates to the
| International Congress of Women next year
in London. This appointment will be sure
to prove of importance in the history of
Chinese thought The intellects as well as
| the feet of Chinese women are being freed
from bondage. Their first steps toward
| individuality Of existence are profoundly
interesting. 1t is said that the frce-foot
society in China is rapidly extending its
| influence. The fact that the Empress Tuen
came from the people, and therefore did
not have her feet bound in childhood is Of
course a fact Of great help to the move
| ment. But it is not merely a fashionable,
! it is ar5o a rational reform which is going
on and will do more to save China from
her own ignorance than can yet be guessed.
| When Chinese ladies learn to walk and
read by millions there will be different
state of things in the Celestial empire. III
| Hung Chang learned several things when
he went round the world, as a good trav-
| eler should.
|
| Prince Henri dOrleans having returned
! from Abyssinia without having succeeded
in establishing the quas-Fren empire on
| the Upper Mica result for which the
! Abyssan monarch is supposed to have been
partly responsible-the colonial party of
| France has come to the conclusion that