The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-07-12
Japan's Occupation OF Sakhalin.

On July Japanese military force,
conveyed by a division Of the fleet
landed on Saghalien or Sakhalin Island,
took the town of Korsakovsk on the fol-
lowing day. and is expected presently to
gain possession of the whole island, mas
much as the Russian garrison is too weak
to offer much resistance. BY this con-
quest the Toxic Government will have
redressed what it has looked upon as a
historic wrong, and will have contra
dicted the Russian assertion, put forward
at one time as a pretext for refusing
pecuniary indemnity, that the Japanese,
in spite of their Wanted successes on sea
and land. had failed to occupy square
inch of Russian soil. Since the fall Of
Port Arthur there had been no solid
ground for the assertion, for although
nominally the Russians were only tenants
OF the Liaotung peninsula under twenty
five year lease from China, they unques-
tionably intended to hold it in perpetuity.
Geographically and geologically the
island of Sakhalin, or Saghalien as the
old navigators called it, belongs to the
Japanese archipelago, of which it con-
stitutes the most northern link. 1t is
some six hundred and seventy miles
long, by twenty to one hundred and fifty
broad, and comprises nearly twenty-five
thousand square miles, an area about
equal in size to Belgium and Holland
put together, and a little smaller than
the State Of Maine. Since the process
Of Muscovite absorption began about
half century ago, there has been
considerable emigration from the neigh
boring mainland, and the population
now includes some Oroks of fungus
origin and about two thousand Gilyaks,
like those of the Amur region. There
are also some six thousand Russians.
who are mainly convicts, Sakhalin hav-
ing been made for some years a penal
settlement The indigenous inhabi-
tants OF the island are Amos, who are
also the aborigines of the rest Of the
Japanese archipelago. AS they differ
from Mongol races by the lu1uriance of
their hair and beard, their racial affini-
ties have been the subject of much dis
cussion on the part of ethnologists,
among whom the opinion now prevails
that they are Of Aryan stock. While
the island belonged to Japan it was
chiefly priced for its fisheries, but it is
now known that the clay formations
contain layers Of good coal, some of
which have been worked by the convicts
under the Russian occupation.
Sakhalin was nominally under the do
minion of China when it was made known
to Europeans by travellers in the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries. BY
the beginning Of the nineteenth century,
however, the Japanese had made some
settlements in the southern section, the
most important of which, Kushunkotan,
was pillaged and burned by the Russians
in 1905. In 1857 the Russians began
to settle permanently in the northern
half Of the island, and in 1862, when the
Government Of the Shotgun, after a
series of fruitless protests, proposed an
accommodation, Russia asserted claim
to the whole of Sakhalin. Five years
later she agreed to partition, taking
for herself the northern half. In 1875
when the restored Government of the
Mikado was unable to offer effective OPP
position, Russia extorted from it the
cession of the southern half of the ISL
and in pretended exchange for the in
significant Kurile group, to which Rus
STA had no claim. Certain fishing rights
were at the time reserved to the Japa-
nese, and these, in spite of frequent in
reference by the Russian authorities,
have been turned to considerable ac-
count. There is no doubt that with tn,
whole of Sakhalin once more in their
possession they will draw from its fish
cries large revenue. and it is equally