The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-06-02
IN MANCHuRIA.
Her Policy In the East Outlined
by Edwin Wildman.
NOT TO PLUMBER A HEMISPHERE

Out of q Chaotic Territory She I
Establishing Form and Ii Brinyi
: Life to the Lnten Possibilities q
a senile People. Says Ex-Americn,
] Consul at HonEkonE-Black Dea
. Watclful of England.
stop thief" Great Britain cries ey
cry time Russia lays Il new tie O
pitches a Cossack tent on Manchuria1
soil. Maintain the status quo!'' sh
shrieks. keep the door open!"
Fine sounding phrases! Lofty sen
timents! Disinterested warnings. Blu
belated. says Edwin Wildman, forme,
United States consul at Hongkong, il
the New York Herald.
Russia is not in Manchuria by tn,
accident of war. not to avenge the mur
der of a missionary nor to wrench from
China an indemnity as u sop for in
jured feelings. Her presence in the
east is constructive. racial and per
manent. She is not there to plumber q
hemisphere Of it's wealth. to sap ii na.
ton Of its strength. to enrich herself
by the energies of pauper labor nor to
subjugate a people. Russia is not a
vandal. q freebooter or a territorial
highwayman.
She has come to Asia with a full
purse and a strong arm to build rail-
ways and cities, to cultivate and de-
velop productive but neglected soil. to
employ a population in the arts Of
peace and industry. Her mission is
not phi%lanthropic. neither is it destruc,
tive. In Manchuria she is planting her
civilization. She is paying her gold,
Injecting her energies and out of a
chaotic and hitherto unfruitful terri
tory is establishing form. enforcing or
der and bringing to life the latent pos.
sibilities of Il senile people.
There is the stamp of permanency
upon Russia's structural operations in
Asia. She is there to stay. Her rail
road is there. her Siberian peasants
are docking thither, her Cossack
guards are there, her Notifications are
there. her outlet to the Pacific is there,
her civilization is there, her trade will
grow there. and her sturdy race Of
men and women will increase and pros
per on the fertile soil Of the vast ter
ritory that her enterprise has. opened
up to the inhabitants of the cold north
and to the trade of the world.
There is no evidence in her policy
that it is Russia's aim to denude the
territory of its forests, to take from
the country it's gold and silver and
coal. to suck up the soil of it's richness
and then retire. There is no such
precedent in Russia's history.
The Boxer outbreak and the nearing
completion of the Transsiberian rail
way threw the white light upon Rus
sia's activities in Manchuria. The
Englishman read the handwriting on
the wall and sounded the alarm, rush.
ed into German and Japanese alliances
and warned the United States that the
presence of Russia meant death to the
''open door, and the end of the Amer
lean trade extension in the north;
meant the partition of China and the
yellow, or Asiatic. peril" the Slav
conquest of the universe!
Russia became the object Of fierce
suspicion. Her railroad. her troops.
civilization, were the dragnet that
threatened the sovereignty of Man
churia. Her armada lowered along
the coast from Port Arthur to Vladi-
lay off the bar by Taku and
pushed its nose up the Woosung river
Shanghai. Her peasants pour
e ID across the Amur river, and her
Cossacks raised the standard of the
czar in the coveted territory of
Manchuria.
Russia has spent a hundred millions
Of dollars to open the window on the
Pacific. she had pushed her treaty
to the doorstep of British in
gressions in China, and she had es-
fablished her physical and moral in
Huence along the northernmost border
of u province covering 100000 square
niles II containing eve and Il half
OF people. and the "Son of
Heaven" sitting on the dragon throne
n Peking, had not protested. On the
contrary. he had granted rights and
the comparative nations in
he Chinese mart. He had by treaty
recognized that Russia should possess
| station that she can defend" and had
eased for twenty-five years Port Ar
.hur, Talienwan and adjacent seas,
he lease to "be extended by mutual
between China and Russia.
10 the north of the territory leased, to
he Amur river, perhaps. shall be a
'one China may not quarter her
roops there without the consent Of
Great Britain was aroused. The
evidences of the increasing
friendship of Russia and China stag
her. China had made an ally Of
Ter neighbor. She had checkmated
ambitions of Foreigners" for
russia was never looked upon as other