ASIA AND EUROPE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 33, 30 May 1914, Page 7

ASIA AND EUROPE.

(By T. Boyle.') i It is with feelings of diffidence that ! ! T approach the attempt of making a ; few observations on a question that would need a volume to introduce and several volumes to make it rational to the average reader. However, in the time at my disposal I purpose to take a look at a map of Asia, offer a few remarks, and them by conjecture state what I think of the present situation. Before me is one of the latest maps of the continent and 1 notice that the whole north, comprising an area equal to about one-am-a-halt times the total area of Europe, is owned by the Russian nation, and 1 find that this vast tract is carrying a large population, and is supplied with a modern system : of railways and is fortified and proi tected in accordance with the grow- ! ing needs of the rapid advancements I being made. In the west. Russia has | extended her territory right into the heart of the Continent, has pushed hei railways forward to her frontiers, and has! established her lines of defence with the same care she bestows on her European confines. Persia, though

nominally free, must pass ere long into the hands of Russia, lluis we may gather some imperfect ideas ol the nature of. the hold the Czar lias obtained over the north and west of Asia.

India (which might he carved into seventeen" Great Britains), Ceylon, Burma, Baluchistan, and a considerable portion of the Malay Peninsula have been conquered by the British

and are protected by an army oi 300,000 men. The defences established in India are equal to all emergency and have, for the last hundred and fifty years, met and overthrown all the cunninglv planned revolts ol the wily Hindoo. Right round the south and east coasts, from Suez to M ci-hai-wei. Britain holds every strategic position worth considering. Afghanistan h passing by irresistible circumstances into the hands of Britain, and though it is of little use beyond serving as a ‘buffer state between Russia and In dia, yet it has, ere long, to cease being nominally free.

The’ French possessions which lie on the east coast south of China, comprise an. area one-and-a-halt times that of Prance, while the I nited States has possession of the Philippines. China, though still independent, has been forced to \held up considerable territory to Britain. Prance, Germany, and Russia, and these Powers have marked out'their spheres of inluiencte and thus act as supervisors in all matters of concern to the outside world. Omitting- the inclusion of Persia, Siam and Afghanistan, !I notice* Unit sixty-five -per cent..' ,ox the Continent and more than half sits population! is 'ruled and protected by the 'Governments of Europe iiuhthev, the! TturopiMii boundaries are sip wily arid steadily closing in on,the remaining thirty-five per cent, of the remaining territory. China is making heroic clfnrts'tn regenerate herself, but at the present the weight of evidence is "against her triumphing over the almost insuperable obstructions that line the way of modern civilisation. While she is'passing through the pleSOnt revolution she is also passing uiiddr the financial power of Europe, and thus giving the hated foreigner a con idol which' will he used to set limit 4 to her ambitions should those ambitions he at variance with the supremacy - of ’ the white nations. These gcatetered incoherent remarks may serve as an indication of the irresistible advance of the Caucasian whose Christian precepts lift him superior to the followers of Bitddlia, Alahommed.. and Zoroaster, and whose' intellectual and moral standards show, that nature intends him to rule and '■ not to he ruled by Asiatics. At no time in the history of Europe has ■ there been a date on which Asia was more hopelessly in the iron grip of the j white nations, and at no time has Asia j been more conscious of -her helplessness to stay the onward march of destiny, and nothing but a succession j of miracles could alter the course that | is slowly fashioning the brown and yellow races to the will oi the Chris- 1 lian nations of the west. Wo hear: hysterical predictions of Asia, with! her armed millions, sweeping west, of Armagoddons, Asiatic and European contending in the placid waters of the Pacific for the mastery ol the world, but these dreams, these speculations,, are the fruits of imagination’s wildest fancies. Look at the invincible fleets of Europe, her great armies equipped with all modern machines of war, the | enormous wealth she possesses, and look at Asia and realise that i even if she were free from the grip ol , the European a century must pass before she could fit herself to face the: combined powers of Europe, and then in vonr reflective moments ask your- . ..if if been use one little country— Japan—lias a few ships of war, there is any foundation For the fear that him day, not so far distant, Asia and Europe will fight for the supremacy of the world ?