The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-27
ASIA AND EUROPE.

Japan, Defeating Russia, May be Mis-
 tress of the Orient
 A good many persons among us, and at least one or two journals. seem anx- ious that the government should act with much greater precipitation in the Russo-Japanese affair; should, that is. declare war on Russia whenever Japan does. Otherwise, they think, we may have to do it just when Japan is too ex- hausted to be an effective ally We are wholly unable to concur in that opinion. and regard the agitation in it's favor as entirely mischevous. If we must fight for cause which, except through the operation of treaties, is none ofa ours, we must fight rather than break our word;s but we may at least wait till the obligation is obvious or the necessity past all question, more. especially as we have already done Japan most impor- tant service in neutralizing France. That discussion, however, may wait, for Parliament is not sitting, and the gov ernment is not likely to declare war un- til Parliament has signified in some way or other it's approval. The local war, moreover, is not yet officially declared.
 Our object to-day, therefore, is rather to point out what may prove to be the historic importance of Japanese sue- cess. If they clear Russia from the seas, they will undoubtedly control the policy of Picking; and with the Chinese as allies, they may destroy great part of the trans Siberian railway, and give Russia the most distinct setback she has received for the last two hundred years. The Crimean war exhausted her, but did not set her back at all. It is the custom to regard China as neg ligible quantity in war, but China is not so weak on the frontiers as in the vice. royalty of Pechli Tribes assist her there which have more or less a habit of fighting. and both France and Rus sia have been compelled from time to time to acknowledge defeat in contests with Chinese "brigands" and moun- taineers Our readers will remember the retrecession of Kuldja, and the ter rible lesson read to the people of Kash- gar.
 If Russia were driven fairly back into Central Asia, out of which she is now emerging. the position of Japan would be a very imposing, and even formidable one, for she would have at least ten years within which to organ i ize the endless masses of China, who i include, we repeat for the hundredth time at least, an enormous minority of men capable of being made into good soldiers. It was not a European army which was behind Gordon. If the yell low power, thus victorious, can fill the district it occupies with immigrants re- ceiving their land on condition of serv- 1 ing in the militia, the next Russian ad- vance will be a terrible difficult affair, l for she will have to advance over tribes penetrated with the conviction, now ab- sent, that the Chinese emperor can pro- tect them. That emperor, 1t must be remembered, too. may be man with ideas and aspirations widely different from those which now prevail in the l imperial palace.
 1 This result, it will be argued, must be | DeIleIIcldl LO GTedCs bTltdlIl. lHG pressure upon India in the northwest, which is one main cause of our. military expen- diture being thus relaxed. It may be beneficial, and it also may not. The ambition of Russia, if curbed in the far east, will be directed with even greater Concentration toward western Asia, and India may be menaced through Persia or through Turkey as easily as through the khanates of Turkestan. Moreover, the old historic lesson that Asia, though yielding to every European at tack, in the end survives them all,
 which has been repeated certainly four
 times since the days of Alexander, may I be taught to the world afresh Asia
 has comity of it's own, and throughout l the vast continent there will be an ex-
 ultant feeling that a whuite and Chris
 tian power has been driven back by one native to the continent, and that a new era is at hand. London Spectator.