The Motueka Star PUBLISHED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS. “Te Ora Mota Iwi.” TUESDAY, SEPTEMBERS 6, 1904.

Motueka Star, Volume V, Issue 318, 6 September 1904, Page 3

The Motueka Star PUBLISHED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS. “Te Ora Mota Iwi.” TUESDAY, SEPTEMBERS 6, 1904.

The censor-ship of telegrams exercised by both Russians and Japanese make it impossible for us at this end of the world to have anything more than a vague idea of the progress of events in the East. There seems however little doubt that Port Arthur, if not already fallen, is on the point of succumbing to the determined attack of the besiegers. So long as Russia held a sea base in the East, it was possible for the Baltic fleet to make its appearance and dispute the command of the 1

sea. But with the fall of that fortress Russia’s hopes for the present must fall to the ground.

Whatever the final issue of the struggle may be, the present campaign has been an object lesson to the world. Nevfer before has there been a country which has at one bound leapt to an equality with nations whose civilisation has taken hundreds of years to build up. It is not too much to say that a new factor has suddenly made its appearance in the world’s history whose ultimate effect it would be idle to attempt to foretell, Japan will be a new whose aspirations and necessitie§<p£urope knows little. Some authorities tell us that Christianity is destined to link the East and West together by imperishable bonds ; others again, that Japanese philosophy will always run counter to Christianity, even should that religion be adopted for State purposes.

As a military power, at any rate, Japan will be pre-eminent in the North Pacific. The ablest of Indian journals, the “Times” says: “We seem to hear the tramp of armies and witness a European race retreating before guns made in Japan, rifles invented in Japan, and a Japanese explosive superior to any propellant discovered in Europe.” And even so sober a journal as the London “Spectator” declares : £ lt is difficult to believe that a Power which has asserted and proved its claim to rank among the great Powers of the world will bear for many years to see it' children rejected with contumely from Australasia and from the Pacific States of the Union.”