The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-22
BARON ROSEN
AND HIS START IN THE DIPLOMATIC
 WORLD.
Secured Isle of sakhaiin-Negotiation Carried On Under Cover of Friv- oiity--Loss Now Irony
 of Fate.

|
 | Baron Rosen's presentation of his letters to President Roosevelt as the Ambassador of the Czar almost simul- taneously with Iapan's recapture or | the Island of Sakhalin and with virtual loss to Russia. seems the irony of fate. | It is to Baron Rosen that the Muscovite | crown had been indebted more than to | any one else for the possession of this
 big island. so rich in mineral wealth
 and commanding the mouth of that | great artery of Asiatic trade the River | Amur, says The Washington Post. True, | Rosen was quite young man in those days, a mere acting attache and acting | secretary. He had been rather wild ! and extravagant as an officer Of the
 guards at St. Petersburg, and 1t had
 been considered advisable to rusticate
 him by appointing him to one of the l most remote and out-of-the-way dlplo- | matic posts.
 | It was his good fortune, however. to find himself attached to a mission of | which the chief was M. de Struve, Tor many years afterward envoy at Wash i ington, where his wife, the gifted and brilliant, though homely Mime. de
 struve. left delightful memories. The | de Struves took a great fancy to young
 Rosen, and their influence played an | important role in shaping the success | full diplomatic career of the ex-guards- | man.
 The chief point at issue then between Japan and Russia was their respective rights to Sakhalin. which formerly be- | longed to Japan, forming as 1t does an | integral portion of the group of islands known as Japan. Through the negh- | gence of the Government of the Tycoon | the Russians had been allowed to settle | in the northern half of the island and | when, Tn 1867 and 1868, the Mikado de- posed the Tycoon and resumed the tenn poraI rulership of which his throne had been deprived for several hundred years, he was confronted by the fact i that Russia held the entire northern half of the island and was apparently bent on obtaining possession of the re- mainder.
 In those days, the early '70s. foreign CTS treated the Japanese with less con- sfderation than is accorded to them to- day. The foreign envoys at Tokio dis- dained to hold intercourse with any but the most exalted of Government of- hcials. Rosen, on the contrary, set to work to cultivate the acquaintance ana the friendship of the minor ofncials and of native society. to the amazement of his colleagues. He became particu larIv intimate with tho permanent heads of the various bureaus of the .eatmusho." oy Department of Foreign Affairs. and caused his chief and Mime. de Struve to invite them to iuncneons and dinners at the legation, comph- ments which no other foreign mission had thought it worth while to pay 10 them.
 D,nIomacy Under Cover of FrivOIity. Meanwhile the de Struves were bent on enjoying themselves. Garden par ties. picnics and entertainments LOOK much of their time. I was is Japan at the time and recall Sir Harry Parkes'
 the little red-headed, peppery English
 envoy. repeatedly expressing ms aston ishment that Russia which nad 50 many able diplomats In her employ should have trusted her interests in Ja-
 nan to so utterly frivolous man as oe Struve, who, apparently, attached much
 more importance to croquet touFha-
 ment or to the collection of teapots than to statecraft.
 One morning Sir Harry received from the foreign office in London dispatch
 which almost ended his days by fit or apoplexy It announced to him that
 Russia had quietly succeeded In com
 pleting the surrender of the entire lsl- and of Sakhalin to herself In exchanse for the absolutely useless Kurile group which were not only of no importance strategically, politically or economical ly, but to which, moreover, the title or Russia was by no means clear. Russia got everything and Japan less than nothing. Sir Harry and the other for eign envoys at Tokio had the addition al modification of discovering that the negotiatIons had been carried on and completed not at St. Petersburg, but at the Japanese capital, without their having the slightest inkling that any thing of the kind was in progress. Fur ther investigation revealed the fact that the Japanese officials who had brought about the surrender of Sakha- lin were those very bureau chiefs or the Japanese foreign office whose friendship Baron Rosen had cultivated with so much effect. For at the Gal musho. as in all other departments of foreign affairs. 1t Is the permanent heads of bureau who wield the real mower and shape the policy at the de- partment of foreign affairs, rather than the Secretary of State or minister whose tenure of office Is at the best ephemeral. ... "..:..