Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-29
THE RISE OF DALNY
RUSSIA PRACTICALLY ABANDoNS
CITY OF vLADIvosTocK.
Quest for an Ice-Free Port-Termi7us
of the Siberian Line, as Plan
ed, is Dead.
From the London Mail.

Vladivostock the Lord of the East,~
upon which cool million has been spent
by Russia, is no MORE the great terminus
of the line, as originally planned, mas be-
come a branch station. and in a few months
the enormously expensive railway between
Vladivostock and Khabarovsk will be in a
fair way to Justify the famous definition
two streaks of rust and a right of way"
Dalny is king now.
1t is necessary to look at the largest atlas
you possess. Otherwise the significance OF
this change Of intention will be lost.
The fce-bound Russian empire like a huge
plant In the dark, has sent out a creeper
to the one speck of light there was, and
has thought the huge expense of the Siber-
Ian railway as nothing compared to the
blessings OF an open port. Until this year.
for four months of the twelve, a Russian
might only leave his country export his
goods by courtesy of another nation. On
the north crushed by an ice cap. to the
south barred by other countries. the end
and aim of her policy has been nothing but
thfs-an ice-free port, an ice-free port!
Cost of Vladivostock
The money she has wasted on Vladivos-
took is of interest because 1t proves as no
official assurance of hers could perhaps
prove, that she originally had no intention
of annexing Manchuria.
SidOINoSloCh WAS d compromise, ana
nothing else. 1t was merely less bad than
other places From two to three months
of each year 1T is frozen over. and If Russia
had ever deliberately planned her present
hold over Manchuria she would never have
thrown away the tens of millions of roubles
that are represented by the line from the
port to Khabarovsk and the line from
Tchita to Sretensk, fragments Coined to-
gether by the Amur) of an all-Siberian
route to Vladivostock from the west.
The occupation of Manchuria three years
ago enabled the Russians to cut off the
huge corner involved by this Siberian route,
and yet almost at the same moment de-
stroyed the value of Vladivostock by giving
them at last their long coveted ice-free port
in Dalny, which is a few miles north Of
Port Arthur.
The Future of Dalny.
Very few aliases yet mark Dalny.
Probably there not 500 Englishmen in
the east who are yet quite sure where IL
is. But in two years time Vladivostock.
with it's great railway station and raw new
wharves and warehouses, houses and
streets, will be relegated to the pages OF
geography books, and Dalny--the Far
port-will have thrust itself among the full
era and the points of anxiety of the world.
1t is the entering of such an appearance
on the part of Russia among the powers
of the east, not the presence of a hun
dred warships could have effected. Ger
many's mailed fist expedition was but
the scream OF Il CfllO compared
with this sudden and silent entrance upon
the stage of the extreme orient.
And Russia knows its importance well
enough. There is no hurry about Dalny-
Three years ago the twelve Chinese villages
that occupy it's site at Talien-wan were
swept away and the governors house and
the church built. Then the streets were
marked out for city of a hundred thou
sand, and the roadwayS were made. HARD,
smooth ways OF cement and macadam,
curbed with granite and planted with trees.
they as yet delimit rectangular patches or
raw Manchurian veldt. CRASHES, gritty and
gray and they end with a suddenness that
takes ones breath away Then the houses
began to rise.
Like a London Suburb.
This is the extraordinary part of Dalny.
The whole of Siberias buildings, churches.
houses, huts and novels were probably
built at less than half the cost of Dalny.
1t is no town like Irkutsk-fat capital
of shanties, one-storied and wooden.
Here the houses Unrestricted stone and
brick, red and blue, rise. each one detached
in its own little Enclosure, each with an
iron railing to the street, for all the world
like a London suburb. The architecture
here is a mixture of Margate and Man
upcurving type of China with dragon at
either end of the ridge-pOle Above that
twelve-foot false gable, below spring
blinds sashes and villainous little attempts
at ornamentation In imitation stone. HAIR
the houses are empty, but still they go on
building, building.
There is no doubt as to Its earnestness-
Four million pounds are being spent on
Dalny Australia will finch from spending
one-third of that sum on its new capital
If it ever builds one. Immense docks are
being added to by the building of docks
still greater Dalny is to Port Arthur
what Capetown is to Simonstown, and yet
there are few in the east who understand
that from unknown Dalny the influence or
Russia will flow Stewards till II reaches.
If any man could fill in the gap 1t would
be worth a hundred millions to us.