The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1903-05-18
RUSSIA IN MANCHURIA.
Her Policy In the East Outlined
by Edwin Wildman.
NOT TO PLUMBER A HEMISPHERE

Out Of a Chaotic Territory She Is
Establishing Form and Is bringing
Life to the Latent Possibilities Of
senne People. says Ex-American
Consul at HongIxong-Blacls Bear
watchful of England.
astop thiefrs Great Britain cries ev-
cry time Russia lays new tie or
pitches a Cossack tent on Manchurian
soil. Maintain the status quoH she
shrieks. Keep the door openl"
Fine sounding phrases! Lofty SEN
timents! Disinterested warnings But
belated, says Edwin Wildman, former
United States consul at Hongkong in
the New York Herald.
Russia is not in Manchuria by the
accident Of war, not TO avenge the MUIR
der Of a missionary nor to wrench from
| China an indemnity as a sop for in
/ jured feelings. Her presence in the
east is constructive, racial and per-
manent. She is not there to plumber
hemisphere of its wealth, to sap a ma
ton Of It's strength. to enrich herself
by the energies Of pauper labor nor to
subjugate people. Russia Is not
yandal, a freebooter or a territorial
highwayman.
She as come to Asia with a full
purse and 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 philanthropic, neither is 1t destruc-
tive. In Manchuria she is planting her
civilization. She IS paying her gold,
injecting her energies and out Of
chaotic and hitherto unfruitfuI terri
tory is establishing form, enforcing or
der and bringing to life the latent pos
sibiIities Of a 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 flocizing thither, her Cossack
guards are there, her fortiications are
there, her outlet to the Pacific is there,
her civilization ID there her trade will
grow there, and her sturdy race Of
men and women viii 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 Russias aim to denude the
territory Of its forests, to take from
. the country its gold and silver and
coal, to suck up the soil Of its richness
and then retire There is no such
J precedent in Russia's history.
The Boxer outbreak and the nearing
i 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 perl" the Slay
: conquest OF the universal
Russia became the object Of fierce
& suspicion. Her railroad, her troops.
her civilization, We're the dragnet that
Z threatened the sovereignty Of Man
E churia. Her armada lowered along
Z the coast from Port Arthur TO Vladi-
vostok. lay off the bar BY Taku and
] pushed its nose up the Woosung river
3 toward Shanghai. Her peasants pour
ed across the Amur river, and her
s Cossacks raised the standard Of the
4 white car in the coveted territory Of
! Manchuria.
I Russia has spent a hundred millions
Of dollars to open the window on the
! Pacific, she had pushed her treaty
: rights to the doorstep Of British In
. gressions in China, and she had es-
j tablished her physical and moral in
81 auenee along the northernmost border
81 Il province covering 100000 square
s miles and containing seven and half
millions Of people, and the son Of
e Heaven" sitting on the dragon throne
j in Picking, had not protested, On the
contrary, be had granted rights and
astounded the comparative nations IN
q the Chinese mart. He had by treaty
recognized that Russia should possess
Il / station that she can defend and haG
eased for twenty-five years Port Ar
b thur, Talienwan and adjacent seas
z The lease to "be extended by mutua
agreement between China aud Russia
To the north Of the territory leased, (
, the Amur river, perhaps, shall be {
zone +e China may not quarter be-
troops there without the consent O
Russia
Great Britain was aroused. Th'
alarming evidences Of the increasing
friendship Of Russia and China stag
yered her. China had made an ally o
her neighbor. She had checlzmatet
the ambitions Of foreigners" TO
Russia was never looked upon as othe
than Asiatic by the Mantchoo rulers Q
China. and the "break up that nigh
rive Great Britain and Germany a.
oriental empire had been averted. Th
two great Asiatic races were doyetail
"a, and at last, after century, Chin
...,.s f,os ouafanf fpp