The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1905-02-23

ing the Prussians, and Fern1or the Rus
slams, the Germans had every strategica]
advantage Frederick's troops were sea
soned veterans their commander was
the greatest general of his age. But
Fermor got away in solid order, with
all his guns, and in twenty-four hours
was in position which rendered pur~
suit impracticable. The parallel is found
in the battle of Lao Yang. Kuropatkin
knows his own troops, and, perhaps,
equally as we'll as those of his enemy.
When he assumed command his forces
were scattered far and wide throughout
Manchuria. The Japanese were practi-
cally in control of the whole seaboard of
the seat of war. But within a few weeks
he contrved perfect concentration,
and though his army has been repeatedly
forced back, it has never been demor-
allied, never routed.
| When a careful student of the situa-
ton counts all the pieces of both sides
still on the board, and when he has esti-
mated all the possibilities of reinforce
n1ents for the contending armies, he
must still hesitate to predict the end.
If Russia and Japan were allowed to
fight it out to the bitter end, the prob
able end would be an approach to ex-
haustion on both sides, and interfering
Powers might be in position to dictate
a settlement in the general interest. At
the end OF the last Turko-Russian war
Europe stepped in-Great Britain lead
ing-and Russia was checked almost in
|sight of her ultimate objective. Later
on, when Japan had China at her mercy,
a combination of the great Powers ma
teria1ly revised and amended the terms
of peace which Japan proposed, and
which would have gone into effect but
for that interference. But in the pres
ent war Japan has made good her right
to appear in international controversies
as principal, and especially in contro-
versies affecting her quarter of the
globe.
Meanwhile, here is this strange war
going on. Never before in modern times
| has there been any doubt as to the ul-
innate result of war between a white
race and race of any other color. But
the Japanese have adopted all the ma
teria1 appliances of the most advanced
Western civilization. They have in
vented nothing. discovered nothing !;
| they have borrowed everything. They
have taken up the mathematical, en-
gineering, physical and military science
of Europe and America, and mastered
the whole thing in fifty years. They
have never in the past ages pretended to
be an original people. They got their
alphabet, their literature, their art, and
tsuch science as they had from China
| Now, within so brief term of years.
they have left China inn1,easurably be
hind, and are more than holding their
own against European nation numeri-
cally three times greater than their own.
| Class the civilization OF contemporary
Japan with the enignas of history; Rus
sia furnishes another, not, perhaps, quite
so novel. The Russian peasantry nun,-
Der about ninety millions. Morally and
intellectually they stand about where
they did FIVE hundred years ago. But
they are, substantially, the Russian peo-
pie. Without them the Russian of to-
! II, VI,
like morning mist in the light of the
rising sum- What is the matter with the
Russian peasantry? Ignorance. No re-
dictionary under the sun would question
that answer before an intelligent public.
The strength of the Russian autocracy
consists in the loyalty of the peasantry
but it is very difficult to comprehend a
devotion which seems to be wholly I'M
rewarded The Grand Duke Sergius
said recently that the Russian peasants
knew nothing about free institutions
nothing about suffrage; what they knew
i about government was all summed UP
in their attachment to the Gar. They
have as yet NO conception of the ways
| and means of self-government but il
lis. perhaps. about time that their po-
Ilitical education was begun.-Picayune
# TRUCK GROWERS INSTITUTE.
i The Fruit and Truck Growers Insti,
tute, which was to have been held I'm
der the auspices of the State Board o.
4 Agriculture and immigration at Chou
drant, Lincoln parish, on February 4
but which was postponed on account O
! incIement weather at that time, swill b.