The Feilding Star, Oaoua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette Published Daily. THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1896. RUSSIA IN KOREA.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 235, 9 April 1896, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oaoua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette Published Daily. THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1896. RUSSIA IN KOREA.

The Russians are determined to have suitable seaports available in the Pacific in the event of a war with Great Britain. Vladivostock, their only port in the Sea of Japan, is ice- 1 bound during several months in the year, therefore has its disadvantages in that respect, but the Yellow Sea, which washes the western shore of the Korea, is in a more temperate zone, where warships may enter ai;d depart from good natural harbors with com pa rative safety during the greater part of the year. It will be remembered that in October last year a number of Korean soldiers, having been threatened with puuishuient and disbandraent, forced an entrance into the palace. They were joined by several Japanese agitators and the Queen was murdered. The King afterwards chose another Queen, and assumed the title of Emperor. The J apanese Government, after their war with China, left a few troops in the Korea to protect their Legation, for they were not desirous of maintaining an army there owing to the cost, and especially as their polioy was one ot' non-interference. We now learn from recent cablegrams that although Korean soldiers in the first instance were the instigators of the outbreak which ended in the murder of ihe unhappy Queen, and the Japa nese agitators assisted them, the whole blame is now laid on the latter as a nation and they have been "displaced." As an apparently natural sequence the King and his Court have thrown them t leirs ;lves ir;to the strong arms of Russia for protection. As also the whole, of the Southern portion of the peninsula is in a state of rebellion it will be safe for us to infer that Kursian troops will be sent to restore order and to maintain peace and tranquilify at the point of the bayonet. Whether Japan will be a consenting party remains to be se^n, but it is very doubtful whether so wailike a people, flushed with their recent sue cesses over the Chinese, will give way without a struggle : hat both England and the United States of America will stand idly by arid witness the anticipated annexation is very doubt- '

ful. The former Power has too much ' at stake in the Pacific Ocean, both in respect o! her commerce and her colonies, to allow of the persistent en- ! croachment of a jealous rival without '; making an effort to check it, while the friendly treaties which are known to exist between Japan and the United States make it safe to assume that the latter would use strong moral pressure j to avert a precedure which could have only calamitous results for the Japanese. This last move on the part of . Russia may be " the beginning of the end," and precipitate that European conflict which England and her statesmen have been striving so strenuously