The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-01
THE YEAR ABROAD.

THE YEAR ABROAD.
Most notable are the indications of
increase in the war spirit. England
adds to her navy; the German emperor
tries to Dragon a reluctant reichstag
into appropriations for the enlargement
Of his navy; the increase of armies,
the improvements in ornaments, go
increasingly on while the crowned heads
are assuring the world that the pur-
pose Is only to preserve peace. The
feeling between nations increases in
bitterness. England is Isolated. The
United States has no friend on the con-
tinent outside of ST. Petersburg. The
press of the two countries Is doing
its best to breed discord between the
two countries most closely allied by
natural ties, ours and Great Britain.
The days when a foreigner was per Sc
an enemy seem to be returning. The
bellicose feeling burst into fame with
the beginning Of the year and quickly
burned out in the Graeco- Turkish con-
flict, leaving to Greece but the shell of
national existence, and to the Moslem
the security bred of the jealousy of
his self-constituted guardians The
partition Of Africa goes on, commissions
sitting to effect a delimitation of bound
aries Of their respective countries
spheres Of influence" with occasional
clashes that threaten to send sparks
into the powder magazines. Rhodes
ties England's possessions, South Afri-
can, together with the completion of
the railway to Buluwayo, while tom
my Atkins" invades farther the land of
Fuzzy Wuzzy."
Africa having been parted among the
powers with tolerable agreement. the
partition Of Asia, begun long ago bv
England in India and by Spain and Hol-
land in the fringe of islands, is fol-
lowed by France in Siam and NADIA
gascar. Russia craftily, under guise of
railway concessions, gets a solid foot
ing in Manchuria and Korea that will
ultimately carry her southern Astatic
boundary down the great wall of China
The year fifty ends with the seizure of
Kfao-Chou by Germany, the dispatch of
a fleet of warships to sustain the oc-
cupation and the not incredible story
that the German emperor expects
Prince Henry, the fleets commander.
to become emperor Of China. Meantime
there is an ominous significance to the
statement that seventeen English war
ships have appeared in Chinas waters
with Japan's war vessels in APPARENT
support.
Impassive spectators of this spoliation
Of Asia, the United States have not
been without their own little interns.
tional complications during the wear
The proposed annexation Of Hawaii
that came in with the restoration. -"
brought out sharp protest from ia
pan, twenty odd thousand Of whose
subjects are domiciled in the islands
and whose rights the treaty ignored.
The jingoes made the most Of the Incl
dent, and the squandering of money on
needless warships and coast defenses
got an impulse from the duly magni-
fed import Of the protest; but the fright
suhsided under the modifying assur-
ance that Japan had no hostile designs
upon the islands, and Secretary sher-
mans assurance that the rights Of the
Japanese would be preserved. The year
closes with the treaty in suspense, with
the administration pushing it and a
strong hostile public sentiment grow
ing as the moral questions involved he
gin to be sensed and the possibilities
realized.
Another heritage Of foreign disagree
ment that has furnished red fire for
the jingoes and brought us neither
honor nor profit is the recrudescence
Of the Boring sea seal question, now
eleven years old and nearing no appar-
ent end. We have made treaties with
Japan and Russia, unpublished, but
supposed to relate to the prevention of
private sealing by their respective peo-
pies, a supposition supported by the
passage Of the act forbidding citizens
of the United States to catch seals in
the waters Of Boring sea- Into this
agreement Mr.. Foster special negotfa-
tor. sought to bring Canada, through
England, and some very peppery CORE
spondence was given out in which Mr..
Foster made our venerable secretary