The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-20
ISLAND OF sAKHALIN.
Japanese Sentiment Inspired Conquest of Former POaaenaiOn.

Japanese Sentiment Inspired Conquest
 Of Former Possession.
 Tokio Correspondence of London Times.
 Since the tide of victory began to flow steadily on the side of Japan, the thoughts of the Japanese people have been turning more and more toward Sakhalin on account partly of it's his torical connections, but mainly on it's practical value Forty-nine years ago namely in 1S56-the question of delim- itins the territorial rights of Japan and Russia in this island received ofhciaI attention for the first time, Japan's af- fairs were then administered by the Tokugawa Shoguns. whose ignorance or the outer word reflected the isolation to which they had themselves condemn ed their country two and half cen- turies previously The Yedo officials knew nothing about the details of Rus sia's Asiatic expansion; knew nothing about the circumstances under which her people had come to Sakhalin, or even about the period of their arrival there Hence, when Admiral Putiatin, representing the Czar, induced the Japanese to sign treaty with him at Shimoda on February '. 1856, he found no difficulty in procuring the insertion of the following provision:
 AS to the island of Sakhalin there shall be no delimitation of boundaries between Japan and Russia: things shall continue as they have been hitherto"
 This was one of the strangest ar. ticles ever inserted in an international covenant For, from Russia's stand point, the word hitherto" covered pe- riod of only three years. Only three yeaBg had elapsed since she had first laid hands on Sakhalin She possessed no manner of right to the island. Nearly all the expansion of her empire in far Eastern Asia from the time (1S4D of
 toPP Governor General of Eastern Siberia had been the work of the "man at the front" and that man was Nevelskoy It was Nevelskoy, who, acting on his own responsibility and without even Mura- viefrs knowledge, commenced the oc- cupation of the Amur by raising the Russian flag at Nikolaiefsk, virtually tearing up the treaty of Nertchinsk for the purpose, as is Russia's habitual method of dealing with treaties that incommode her.. It was NeVelskoy who, in the same year 0S52) sent an expedi- tion to explore Sakhalin which he him. self discovered to be an island. and 1t was Nevelskoy. who. in the following year, circumnavigated Sakhaiin and founded there the first Russian post, Ilinsk on the southwest coast. 1linsk had only six Russians to colonize 1t. Muraviesk, on the southeast coast, which was established year later
 Q854) had even smaller garrison. New ertheless the raising of the Russian flag at these points meant the annexation of Sakhalin by Russia, which annexa- ton had, indeed, been formally sane tioned by the CZar. The St. Petersburg authorities knew well that in this pro- cedure they were violating the rights
 of Japan, which had always claimed sovereignty over Sakhaltn. But the island became strategically necessary to Russia as soon as she seated herself on the Amur, and her own needs have always been a sufficient Justification in her eyes.
 The curious result was, however, that, when Admiral Putiatin came to nego- tiate a treaty with Japan in 1856. two "reminiscences embarrassed hm-first, that three years previously he himself had supported the Russian foreign min ister, Count Nesselrode, in protesting that the annexation of Sakhalin must involve trouble with Japan; secondly, that until three years previously not Russian subject had ever set foot on the island. If the admiral had any sense of humor he must have been much amused when. in these circum- stances, the Japanese commissioners agreed that there should be no delimit- alton of boundaries between Japan and Russia in Sakhalin. and that things should continue there as they had been
 
 things did not continue as they had hitherto been. Each year brought 70 Yedo tidings that the Russians were eX- tending their sway more and more ip the island, and at length the Tokugowa officials, becoming seriously alarmed, sent commissioners to remonstrate. Then (1S62), as always. the Japanese were ready to compromise. The fiftieth parallel of latitude divides Sakhalin into two almost exactly equal parts. There fore they proposed that the f0tieth parallel should be the line of demarka- tion But the Russians-the same Rus
 sians who in 1903 suggested the thirty ninth pariliel of latitude as suitable limit for a neutral gone in Korea-ridi- culed the idea of such an intangible boundary. It would surely lead, they said to complications.
 Could the Japanese commissioners in- dicate exactly the places in Sakhalin that lay on the fiftieth parallel? The Japanese commissioners could not do anything of the kind. No one could have done it. Then retorted the Russians, better preserve the hitherto arrangement; or, If you must have ! line of division, let us draw 1t at Ami wa Bay" Aniwa Bay is at the extreme south of Sakhalin. Therefore. the commissioners understood writes the Japanese chronicler of these events, that the Russians intended to seize the whole island, and reported accordingly 1 in Yedo." But Yedo's hands did not reach far in those days The Tokuga- wa Shogunate found that to preserve it's own life was the limit of It's capacities. Sakhalin was left to its fate. Five