AFFAIRS IN CHINA.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 248, 28 October 1901, Page 3

AFFAIRS IN CHINA.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Conyrigh Shanghai, Oct. 25. The Emperor, replying to the protest: of southern Viceroys, asks them wha means they would suggest to oppose Russia, and what prospect there is of British and Japanese effective support. He en joins them to display statesmanlike cautior in the interests of the dynasty. Berlin, Oct. 26. Germany's attitude towards the Manchurian Convention is one of absolute neutrality. Paris, Oct. 26. France is issuing a lean of eleven million sterling on the security of the Chinese indemnity. KCSSIFICATIuN OF CHINA. THE MANCHU ANJ> HIS NEW MASTER. (J>:ily Chronicle Correspondent.) Nowhere in Eastern Asia have events moved more rapidly duringthe last decade than in Manchuria: and no where. I may assert as the result of personal observation, have greater and more significant- changes silently taken place in the same interval, j It is only ten years ago that the Mus- I covile trader Michaleov, making a first attempt to open up the commerce of the Sungari river, was murdered there by ! the natives. To-dav, Russian gunboats j patrol this magnificent waterway, the Russ | is master of the country, and the former j dependence of the Middle Kingdom is, in j all but name, an appendage of the Tsar’s | Empire. The Muscovite hand lias fallen I upon the land lightly as the snow, but his grip has nurd cried like the freezing ice :

find as hi* IjoM upon the province has brought into closer personal relations with bis in master. It. is, of course, scarcely probaole that lie sliouid refjard the invader from the North with any particular favor, it would hardly he natural in any circumstances. Hut i should not be prepared to sa_v that he dislikes his coming ruler, the white capped chinovnijik who is rapidly displacing the button-topped Mandarin and the Mongolian Urlock. The native view of the substitution of Muscovite for Mandarin was ratlier amusingly, and not uninstructively, put by an old Mancha trader with whom 1 contrived to have a little talk while sailing down the •Sungari. He was the owner of one of those big, sijuare-built arid roomy junks that ply between the Amur and Girin, ari l spoke a little Kussian. 1 cannot reproduce his mixed and broken form of speech, but just give the gist of his words. “ The Kuss,” he said, “is an easy man. Hook at the difference. When I used to encounter the Chinese Governor I j was obliged to go down on my knees—so ; bend forward with mv hands—bo ; and knock my head on the ground -so.” The old fellow accompanied his remarks by mimicking to th«* life the compulsory kotow reverence which is made to every high official. ** Now,” he resumed. “ when I pass the Kussian Commandant I simply touch my cap and say * fttrastwutye ! Good Harosho.’ ” Tlie extent to which the Kussian has j already made himself master of Manchuria is, 1 imagine, scarcely realised here ii: Kngland. Ten years ago when I took a trip up tin* Amur from Khaharovka to she continence of the Sungari, the Hragon | ]v' ’ on of China floated from the posts of ihe Maticlui l.annenncn ; the Golde, I known as tlie ** I'isli-skin Tartars,” lived | in the hamlets scattered along the left hank of the river, and not a single Cossack | stanitxa was to he found on Manchurian | territory. When I made the same journey ! a few months, every vestige and symbol j of Chinese authority had disappeared. : The Kussian Kagle-stamlard was the only j one displayed, the Tartar villagers had j Keen routed out of their homes, the fron- j tier stations of the Immicrman were doso- | late, and the Cossack outposts lmd been j extended from the Amur up tho Sungari as far as Girin in the very heart of the country, a distance of over seven hundred j miles. In the entire region between the I Ussuri bonier and Nmguta the Russians i have not left a single Chinese official or! representative. I*l very one has been re- ! placed by a. Muscovite functionary, whose '■ pas-* is good for the whole of Manchuria. I

A I issian t;i\ -collector receive-; the hull due from trailers crossing the Korean b r. and issues the permits rc>|tiired by the owners of the heavy, lumbering native carts that carry llour and grain and provisions from Niuguta to the district beyond the former boundary line. At Girin, the capital and administrative seat of the central province, a Russian officer is in command of the inland naval docks, a Uussian constructor is in charge of the Chinese ship building yards, and a llussian gunboat commands the shallow river passages north and south. Over 10,000 troops ol ail arms were cantoned in the vicinity twelve months ago. Russian civil administration has already extended to the control of the principal centres and entrepots of commerce. 1 visited tho great yearly fair or market hold in duly at Ilan-llaia—the Chinese Sun-Sin, or San-Stu-Ching—some 'J.'lll miles from the Amur, where the neighboring tribesmen, ns well as the nomads and hunters of the mountain regions, come to tho number of ■'o,ooo and 100,000 to barter their products for Manchurian goods and supplies. I found the management entirely in Muscovite hands. Russian bazaars had been erected, in charge of Russian market superintendents : market tolls were paid to Russian overseers : and Russian money was the medium of exchange. In the treats whito-eotton-jneked Russian infantrymen with tixed bayonets were keeping order, and Cossack orderlies, cantering alone, cracked their nogaikas to clear tire mob wheto the streets wore packed. The only tiling l saw left of tho former C hinese regime was the knee-deep sand in the streets, and the accumulated tilth-heaps in all the open spaces about. Neither of these, however, incommodes tho Russ, who is i|uite accustomed to tho same condition of things in ail Siberian towns from tho Amur to the \ olga.

The Muscovite dominance in Manchuria i is, no longer limited to adminis- | trad ve management of a large part of the j country and ‘ military supremacy. It is extending itself to commercial control and | industrial pre-eminence. Rapidly and j s.u'c v the Russians arc getting into their i nanus overv undertaking that gives pro;mse of future pretit and remunerative | de\ opuieut hereafter. I visited the " In- j Choi ""or ” Stiver Circle." as it is local,y ■ termed, a region where the precious , nicta! has from time immemorial been j found, and also tho gold country near ; \Yci-::ai-im. between San-Sin and Nm- j gut ;. In former times, the Chinese Go- j vermnent would allow no one to j prospect here, fearing a rush always j a source of trouble to Rekin Government. 1 found eighteen Russian | mining companies at work in the two dts- , triets. ail employing native labor, and paying tlte Manenus about tour times r what they receive as a rule for their day s work. The whole of the Tay-hu Iron-I mountain country has passed into the ; possession of Russian syndicate, winch . K .jlriadv putting mi an ironworks in the . vicinitx' of Girin. At tlulan. where the e-ifth 'is strongly encrusted with crude | ' R; la *ge reVming establishments are j - -cadv superseding the little " boiling- j houses" in wn'eh the natives have hither- j to prepared the-tlkiii in * very primitive' and expensive way. Russian engineers ■ are draining large tracts ot tne fertile I bind in the low-lviu? valleys ot the Hulaii subject to'inundation, and the land is j being leased at exceptionally high prices | for the growth of tobacco and gram. | Formerly- the Manchu Princes opposed this: now thev are only eager to make what they can'out of the formerly worthless territory. Even the navigation of the waterways is passing into Russian hands, not so rapidlv as they would like, but still surely. 'The Manchu junk owner knows the ropestoo well for the Muscovite to oust him at once. But in the long run. steam will tell against sail, and already 1 passed on the lower Sungari some dozen oi Russian ships, puffing and snorting as thev towed along behind them a string of the barelied-top cargo boats familiar to all travellers on Siberian rivers. Ail this tends to reconcile the Manchu to the present dominance and future rule of the Muscovite. , Whether agriculturist or trader, the native is an out-and-out business man. with a keen eye to his own advantage' and profit, and all the trader's reverence for those who pay ready money ; and this the Russian does. The advent

I of the Muscovite has created a demand for I labor such as was never before known in the country. Wages have risen enori nionsly, and the prices of commodities , huve gone up largely. Hence the rule of the Russ means profit alike for the trading and working class.