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Why should not Count Cassini, a diplomatist of the same type as Ignatief, imitate his adroit predecessor, and secure for Russia, if not the formal annexation, at least the permanent occupation, of Manchuria? Remembering all this, we can perceive that the great mistake of the Russian Government is not so very difficult to explain.
The events of the twentieth century the Boxer insurrection, the capture of Peking by foreign armies, the retention of Manchuria by Russia, and above all the mighty lesson of the Manchurian war, which demonstrated admirably the revolution which modern methods had made in Japan proved more than even the conservatism of China could endure.
The list of demands which the Japanese Government first presented to the Chinese Government consists of five groups, the first relating to Shantung, the second relating to South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, the third relating to Hanyehping Company, the fourth asking for non-alienation of the coast of the country, and the fifth relating to the questions of national advisers, national police, national arms, missionary propaganda, Yangtsze Valley railways, and Fukien Province.
In the northeast of China, beyond the Great Wall and bordering on Corea, lies the province of Liautung. Northward from this to the Amur River extends the eastern section of the steppes, known on modern maps as Manchuria. From these broad wilds the Kins had advanced to their conquest of Northern China.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency's note of this day's date in which you state: "The Chinese Authorities will notify the Japanese Consul of the Police laws and ordinances and the taxation to which Japanese subjects shall submit according to Article 5 of the Treaty respecting South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia signed this day so as to come to an understanding with him before their enforcement."
And in a day or two they promise us much fighting, which we will be allowed to witness from a hill. This is a very queer old city but the towns and country are all very primitive and we depend upon ourselves for our entertainment. I expect soon to see you at home. In three more days I shall have been out here five months and that is too long. Good luck to you all. MANCHURIA, August 18th, 1904.
A dozen times I have said, 'Let them come and take Manchuria openly if they dare, but let them cease their childish intrigues. Why do they not do so? Because they are not sure they can swallow us not at all sure. Do you understand? We are weak, we are stupid, we are divided, but we are innumerable, and in the end, if they persist, China will burst the Japanese stomach."
Concerning Manchuria and all the issues involved in the present struggle for its possession, all kinds of misconceptions are rife. That it is a small country; that it is an infertile country; that it must be already well developed in point of population and consumption of goods: this is only the ABC of Manchurian misinformation.
When Secretary Hughes brought this subject up before the Far Eastern Committee, Japan entered an emphatic objection to its consideration, and the matter was dropped immediately without argument. The treaty, therefore, is not retroactive, for it recognizes the status quo in Manchuria and to a less extent in other parts of China.
This imperial acknowledgment dismissed a matter which apparently was promptly forgotten in the discussion of events in Manchuria. But the apparition of Krovitch, in arms, would not so easily down in the minds of the thoughtful present, even though an autocrat had dismissed the notion as frivolous.
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