Omaha daily bee., 1899-02-18
OTHER LANDS THAN ours.


Within the last hundred years or so the
British people have learned some valuable
lessons in the art of governing colonies,
the most important Of which is to let them
alone when the colonists think they are
able to govern themselves. Whether the
Australian federation shall now or in the
near future dissolve all political relations
with Great Britain, the inhabitants OF
Australia will remain attached to the mother
country by strong ties OF interest and blood.
The heavily indebted colonies will be long
dependent on Great Britain for financial
and industrial aid The British will con
tinue to buy agricultural products from the
colonsts, and to seek in the vast unde-
veloped regions Of Australia new oppor-
tunities of enterprise and investment. With
the British people these are the main con-
siderations and 1t is matter of minor
concern whether or not a governor general
shall still be sent there as a merely nom
nal representative of the crown.
one has only to compare a map OF Cen
trail Asia of thirty years ago with the latest
Russian military chart to be astonished at
the vast changes wrought in striving for the
mastery of the east. There is no longer
any Iretense of concealment of Russia's
designs to exercise predominating in
huence over China and to appropriate the
largest share of the vast empire that Is
topping to its fall While Russia has been
steadily developing her power in China the
Russian outposts in Central Asia have been
pushed forward until they are within hear
ing of the drum beats of British garrisons
in India. To the silent advance of Russia
in China Great Britain responds by crying
for an open door" to trade in the east.
Go Tar ~ tnn ig hnsy hn
door will not be kept open by idle threats
against Russian military power, Russia's
vast policy of territorial aggrandizement,
which makes necessary a constant increase
of military strength, seems utterly incom-
patible with the Cars philanthropc prop
osition that the nations shall diminish their
warlike expenditures in preparing for uni
versal peace. But when the peace congress
shall meet at The Hague next May it will
be incumbent on the representatives of the
czar to convince the world that there is no
incompatibiity between his proposition and
Russia's continuous preparations for war
and conquest. The task will be a diff
ficult one.
If it is true that an arrangement has
been reached between France and England
with regard to the claims of the latter to
Il
district on the White Nile, the source of
very dangerous and irritating controversy
between the two countries has been removed
in a manner which does credit and should
afford satisfaction to them both. England
has a moral and a legal right by virtue of
conquest and of her Egyptian protectorate
to exercise an exclusive jurisdiction over
the watershed and basin of the Nile, and
the firm stand she took upon the question
of Fashoda had both equity and policy to
commend it. But France also has some
rights in the premises The extension and
development of her African possessions are
from east to west. She possesses important
territories upon both coasts and she can
reasonably seek a line of uninterrupted
communication between them. Such a line
must unavoidably bisect the British sphere
of influence which stretches from north to
south from Cairo to the cape, so that
collision between the two contrary move
ments of expansion could only be avoided
by mutually amicable arrangement.
With the advent of spring and the open
ing of the passes in the Balkans it is con-
fidently expected that there will be trouble
in Macedonia between the Turks and the
Christians, and If an uprising does occur
the powers will be unable to prevent Bull
garia being drawn into the fight The Bull
garian troops are to large extent officered
and recruited among the Macedonian refu-
gees who for years have been pouring over
the border and making Sofia their head
quarters. Prince Ferdinand has been more
than cordial to these refugees, and besides
allowing the revolutionary committee to or
ganize and conduct its campaign in Bull
garian cities has appointed many of their
chief men to places of trust and emolument
in his own government. The fact is that
Prince Ferdinand wishes to annex Mace
donia and seeks an outlet for Bulgarian
products on the Mediterranean. If the ter
ritory from Sofia to Saonica were under
Bulgarian control it would not be long be-
fore railroad tapped the immense grain
fields which now have no port of shipment
nearer than the Black Sea. Turkeys sui
tan is fully aware of the ambitions of his
one-time vassal, and for months the troops
which served so effectively in Greece have
been heavily garrisoned and the Albanians
have been turned loose in the interior,
where their excesses have been driving ever
more and more of the inhabitants from
their homes.
OF all the powers of Europe Great Britain
is most interested in the military preparn-
ton5 OF Russia; ana, naturally enough, the
British people are rather skeptical concern
ing the good intentions OF the Russian auto
crat in the plan OF disarmament. For mAny
years the British government has watched
the silent but resistless march OF Russia 10
the conquest of the east. One prince 81 Cen
tral Asia after another has succumhrd 20
Russian arms or diplomacy, until Bokhara,
Khiya, Khokand and Morv have been alb
sorbed in the Russian Empire without one
effective step or the part OF Great Britain 10
alter the course Of events. Boundary COM
missions backed by armies OF Cossacks and
scientific expeditions" in which there was
no science and an abundance of artillery,
have added many a strip of land in Central
Asia to Russian territory and 1t is apparently
only a question of a little time when AZ
ghanistan will become a part OF the cars
dominions.