THE CHINESE DESPATCHES.
WE wish our Jingo contemporaries, with the Times at their head, would be a little more frank in their comments on the situation in the Far E Lst. Do they think it would be wise to go to war with Russia for the sake of ascendency at Pekin ? Because if they do not, they are censuring the Government, and especially Lord Salisbury, most unfairly. That our Foreign Office has been tricked, deliberately tricked, in a most irritating way by the Russian Foreign Office is undoubtedly true, but that they have lost anything worth a war is not true. We, who are advocates of an agreement with Russia, acknowledge that trickery as fully as any Russophobe, and indeed it is written on the face of the Chinese corre- spondence about Port Arthur. What occurred we believe to have been very nearly this. Count Muravieff made up his mind from the beginning, as we think on the solid and reasonable grounds which should influence statesmen, that Russia must hare Port Arthur as a fortified depot for coal and munitions of war, that is, in fact, as a close military fortress not to be entered by strangers, and not to be spied upon. He could not leave the terminus of the Trans-Asiatic Railway, which within twenty years will be as important to Russia as the Thames is to London, exposed to the chance of being raided by any maritime Power, whether England from Hong-kong, or Germany from Kiao-chow, or Japan from Nagasaki. He ought to have said so in so many words, and he would have carried his point and been trusted; but he had a suspicion that if he did Sir Claude Macdonald, the acute British Agent at Pekin, would persuade the Tsung-li- Yamen not to make the concession. He therefore, in a way which we fear Prince Bismarck or Clive would have approved, gave a quantity of " confidential " verbal " assurances " that if the Chinese granted the lease of Port Arthur it should be left open to commerce. Lord Salisbury, either distrusting these assurances, or, more probably, anxious for a document to show to the Queen and the Cabinet, pressed for something in writing, and at last it came. Count Muravieff had an interview with his Sovereign, and in some way, to us, of course, unknown, elicited from his Majesty some opinion favourable to the opening of Port Arthur. He then addressed to the British Ambassador a despatch, No. 120 of the collection, in which he either reported or transmuted the Imperial saying so that it became a positive promise that Port Arthur should be left open. Lord Salisbury believed that assurance, doubtless because he thought it came from the Throne, and not from Count Muravieff alone, resistance ceased in Pekin, and the agreement to lease Port Arthur was signed by the Vermilion Pencil. Immediately Count Muravieff, exulting in a triumph which was undoubtedly a great one for Russia, and which was also his own first great success, and we suspect at heart excessively angry at the British pressure put upon him, withdrew the assurances. They were, he said, nothing but confidential expressions of his own ideas. He could not by any possibility have made promises before the cession was accomplished, and now that it had been accomplished he could not possibly " abuse " Chinese friendship by opening a port which, for military reasons, Pekin, while it reigned there, had strictly closed !
A more cynical trick was never played, even by diplo- matists, nor can we recall a more naif exhibition of delight in successful chicanery ; but when we have said that, what remains to be said ? Clearly only this, that Russia in her Asiatic diplomacy must be considered a tricky Power, and studied as we study China, or Persia, or Abdurrahman Khan. We do not expect Pekin, or Teheran, or Cabul to adhere to promises, and in future we shall not expect St. Petersburg either. That is an immense addition to the difficulties in the way of peace, and still more in the way of alliance between Great Britain and Russia, but it does not render either peace or alliance quite impossible. Most men in a large way of business have transactions with very tricky people —just try to deal for wheat with a Levantine—and still manage to get along and make profits. Russia, we may be sure, for all Count Muravieff's little ways, will keep her word whenever it is to her interest to keep it, and that is a very solid, though a very low, basis for negotiation ; while as to peace, nations do not go to war merely because they have been rather egregiously "done." The thing statesmen have to think about is, first, whether the deception is worth a war, and, secondly, what are the best means of baffling its effects. Lord Salisbury dearly thought the matter was not worth a war, and we doubt if any statesman in Europe will disagree with him. i If it is an interruption to trade we fear, we can fight when the interruption comes ; and if it is influence at Pekin we dread, we cannot help ourselves. The day the Russian railway is completed Port Arthur as a foothold against Pekin ceases to be of importance, for Russia can pour fifty thousand regulars into Kirin, the capital of Manchuria, without our even perceiving what she is about. That source of influence, while China remains in a state of catalepsy, must always exist and always be irresistible, even if we command the Gulf of Pecheli or take away Port Arthur. A victorious war would not shake Russia's position as regards China in the slightest, for, indeed, it cannot be shaken except by the removal of the Chinese Court, which would have the effect of a revolution in geography, the territorial centre of power being suddenly shifted. If Germany held Essex in force it would not matter much as regards her influence on London that she also held Hurst Castle ; and that is precisely the position which Russia has acquired in China, not by any recent move- ment, but by a steady march eastward through Siberia pursued for nearly two hundred years. All that can be done is a mere alleviation till the Son of Heaven changes his habitat, and that has been secured by occupying Fresh- water, in other words, Wei-hai-wei. If we like to make that harbour strong we shall neutralise Port Arthur, a policy which is attractive as a retort to Count Muravieff, but not of much other use. To fight Russia about Port Arthur would have been folly.
A careful reading of the Chinese papers has left one im- pression on our mind which was not there before, and which it is worth while to record. We have never doubted that Russian statesmen would prefer a conquest of China to a conquest of India, as their quarrel with China is of old standing, as China is the easier victim, and as victory would give them what they ardently desire, a large Asiatic revenue, enough to pay for administration from Port Arthur to the Ural without taxing their peasantry in Europe. We were sure of their policy, but thought that it was a policy of the future. We now think that they desire to carry out their plan much more quickly, while China remains in her cataleptic trance. They have the railway to finish, which will take five years, and Manchuria to eat up by covering it with light lines and armed railway stations, which may take eight years more ; but by 1910, if the Great War has not come off, we should expect an attempt to absorb all Northern China, including probably Corea. The following extract from a despatch of Sir Claude Macdonald seems to us a revealing one. M. Pavloff said to Sir Claude Macdonald on October 18th, 1897, " that there was no wish to get rid of Mr. Kinder because he was an Englishman, but because he was not a Russian ; for he must tell me frankly that the Russian Government intended that the provinces of China bordering on the Russian frontier must not come under the influence of any nation except Russia." Those sentences directly threaten Manchuria, Mongolia, and the whole of the grand territory of which the Hoangho forms the southern boundary, say ten Frances inhabited by ninety millions of industrious people. It would be a large haul, but the Asiatic Department at St. Petersburg is clearly thinking of it, and the officers of that Department do not think in furlongs but in geographical degrees. Their unit of measurement may be taken to be seventy miles. We do not ourselves see why we should regret the change, which is clearly for the advantage of the world; but still nothing is gained by shutting one's eyes to facts, and the eyes of the Russian Ministry are just now turned to the East, and very wide open indeed.
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