The Daily News SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1905. RUSSIA AND JAPAN—AND AFTER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7760, 11 March 1905, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1905. RUSSIA AND JAPAN—AND AFTER

There is presumably little room lei for doubt that Russia has agai been worsted in a series of militar operations extending over severu weeks, and culminating in a gigai' tic Japuneseadvnnce. The lines col strueted with such enormous labou along the Shaho have been carrie or forsaken, and probably, thuug the cables do not .state as imicf ■Mukden itself in now in tlie hands < the Japanese. The splendid militar ability of the Japanese general.' the magnificent organisation whic has never yet failed them, and |b< yond all the indomitable spirit an line intelligence of their soklierj have won success after succei against an army which is reputed I at least as good as any other i Europe. The conditions under whit the Russians have had to condtu operations have undoubtedly bee against them in some respects. At long 1 distance from their base, mi in the midst of a population hostii in spirit, and ever ready lo pro\ hostile in action, it, has been in possible for the Russians to-condm the smallest movement in secre Japanese agents, in the guise of (_'h nese coolies, have been everywhei and perfectly safe from detect ior [while, on the other hand, Kussia espionage has been easily defeatsand detected. liut Russia's chief difficulty . has lain not in the partial failure of her Intelligence Department—though that has {>een extremely serious in its effects—but in (he fact that she has had to deal with men of quite another calibre than any which have been met by European troops within the whole course of modern warfare. It has been axiomatic with military tacticians that any such losses as those incurred by the Japanese in their tremendous attacks on Port Arthur, or on tli# | .Russian lines between .Mukden and the coast, are demoralising. The German strategist, I'rit/. Hoen'ig, in his "Tactics of the Future," says "I do not shrink from admitting that fur mouths alter Jtars-la-Tour the lire there remained on my nerves. Troops that have to go through ■anything of that kind are demoralised for a considerable time —rank land file and officers." Again, Russia's own brilliant soldier Skobeleff, who reputedly rose to the height of exhilaration in the midst of carnage, said after an attack on I'levna : "We have taken the works of the adversary . . . but the fearful fire demoralised officers and men. . . . Demoralisation affects even the best." Yet, on neither of the battlefields alluded to was the fighting as severe, or as long sustained, or as destructive of life, as in much of the warfare in -Manchuria. The machine gun and the modern rifle were only in an elementary form in those days, und quick-firing cannon were unknown. Black powder, too, was in general use, and four-fifths of the fighting was carried on n a cloud of smoke. The fighting Qualities of the Japanese will cause a revisal of all the dicta of past military writers regarding the breaking point of an army's morale. Th« Japanese always, or nearly always attacking, have shown the elan of the best French troops, the doggedness of the British, and the reckless courage of the Soudanese Dervishes. Theorists in modern warfare have often predicted a day when warfare would be brought to an end by tlw intelligence of men leading them lo refuse to face certain death, l'lie magnificent courage of the Japanese gives the lie lo this. For il is largely to the intelligence of her :ank and file that Japan owes her victories. Inspired by no religious . notive, and with nothing in the 1 lope of a reward hereafter to con- , ole them, the soldiery of Japan ' lave fought to the death for the , iake of their country and their own ;ood name. Practical and unidealisic, and lacking all interest in ethial controversy or psychological speulation, the Japanese is inspired fith a patriotism so sincere, and a personal pride in his own courage so suited, that no -disaster overwhelms -him. It is lor these reaons, and above all because he has een a man of details, and has negated nothing, that to-day he is eating great clumsy inchoate Rusia all along the line, lie has'made

•jauj lUI »ai lUI jvuia, mm im ;ft nothing to chanqe or luck. Afti le culture of Mukden, and an a< ance upon Harbin, it is probabl Kit Hussia, jn view oi' the lack t Hrioiism at home, and the disintt ation of her whole interna! me#l :iism, will patch up a peace <. ;ome sort. Tliut it -will bealasiiiv ►eaco is improbable. Jtussui is to jreat, and two powerful, and uv u)l oi all that is really essential t< hi* making of a world-ruling powi-i o ft Mai in beaten. Her organisatioi tut* dimply proved wanting, and he ;ystem of government obsolete. Ji roing to war.with Japan she under stimated her rival, ami, in tin tiucrican phrase, "bit oft* more that he could chew." There is lalk evei tow in Kussia of an alliance will Japan, but in view of the Japanes« haracier this is an improbabk micome of tlie war. If it were noi or the direful condition of thing* it home, Jtussia would si ill be fai n»m finally beaten, but as matter? .tand it looks likyly thai at last the Vsiatic has again, as ancient iines, defoavi-si the European, it if? his aspect of the ease that is thjj nost momentous i'or other Kuropean \>wers. Japan may have, "yet, as las been said, more to fear from the British and American capitalist .han from Jtussia —that remains to L>e seen. Unt there can be no reasonable question that England [•'ranee and America have now much ;ause to fear that the renaissance iti Japan, hi*r springing fully armed upon the world as a militant powen. ijodes no good for the advance of Kin ropean interest's, in Asia. Jivdeed, as' Jerman and other continental writers huve all along maintained, the British policy which, out of fear and jealousy of Kuss'ia, has in every way fostered the military and naval development ol /Japan, may prove th.' jegimring of a European debacle in Asia. Japan, with her Astatic oiitlook, and her alien civilisation,, may prove a very Frankenstein, for ihu creation of which every Kuropean in Asia and every white man in these colonies will iind cause for unavailing sorrow. .lust as ilk; Britons of old, who invited the Saxons to free i hem froii the Northern invaders found themselves chastised with Teutonic scorpions instead of the Keltic whips, so EngMaml who feared a Kusfciitu attack uU Imliu from the ttvrthj,

I may find that her ally will prove | her worst enemy. Anil we in these s colonies, with our anti-Asiatic laws, | our vast unoccupied territories, and . our paltry few millions of while population, may liml our own hopes of :nation making blown away before ' a blast from Asia, and nothing lei't ® to lis, or to our children, but to live * in the 'glories of the past, when nil 11 lour possibilities were yet fair before , us, and when we dispised the Japa- | nese and the Chinaman as represent- ," | tives of old stranded civilisation - a I which had had their day and were v merely a negligible quaiitilj to l.en [held away from uiir s-lukts by some ' Parliamentary chatter ami the print- ' ing of official papers. That is what h tho final overwhelming defeat of iHussiu may mean for us—a a back seat in the work], and good- < bye to visions of n White New Zea- ,t l'.nd and a While Australia. i J NOTE AN'IJ COMMENT. ! Sir Hiram .Maxim, writing in the J London M.-igaxino, I ANCIENT gives a vivid ac- ; AND JIODEUN' count of ihc marvel- < SPEED. lous increase in the , speed of travel dur- i ing the last hundred years. .Man i was, without doubt, originally an i arboreal animal ; when he had Ije- ' come large and strong enough to liefend himself against land animals,; lie descended ii'oui his tree. and liv-: ed 011 the ground, where lie became | acquainted (with the horse. ■ countless agos of development, tho ; horse was captured and famed, and i slow running man was enabled to i ride one of the swiftest animals in j the woild. This was inan's lirst step towards atflnining greater spael than . he himself was capable of. His next was to fix two long and rigid ; poles t.o the horse in tlv> same way as the shafts of a carriage are at- j tached to-day- These poles'went far back, and when a heavy weight was i - placed on them, they bent down something like sledge-runners*. The buiden supported in this way was greater than could be endured by the animal on his back. Alter this came tho lirst attempt at wheels : A strong piece of wood was secured transversely to tho poles referred to,' with the ends extending far enough on either side to admit, of a wheel be- 1 . ing attached. Those early wheels were nothibg more or less than a cheese-sliaped slice ofli the end of a ' large round hardwood log, and these wheels are s'till in use in many parts , of the world. 'The original carriages of our ancestors- were only, slight ; modifications of this original form. - . . Carriages of this type are still very common even in European { countries ; many of them may be found in everyday use in Spain and ■ | Portugal. The great step towards' that rapidity of transit which is 1 such a feature of to-day was made 1 by Cleorge Stephenson : ll'is lirst engine had a wrought.iron boiler Bft. long and 2ft. Join, in diameter, with a single flue 20in in diameter. . . J This engine drew thirty tons on a I rising gradient of 10ft. or 12ft. to 1 : the inHe at the rate of four miles 'I an hour. This engine proved in many respects defective, and the cost |of its operation was found to lie . • about as great as that of employing i _ horse-power. The remarks of a writ- > " er in the (Juarterly Jieview of that> I period are amusing : Wlmt can be ' more palpably absurd and ridiculous 1 " than the prospect held out ol' loco- ! * motives travelling twice as fast as 1 stage-coaches ? We would as soon t expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be lired off on one i i, : Congreve's ricochet-rockets as to 1 j a trust themselves to the mercy c: j such a machine goiing at such' a I rate. Sixty miles an hour is still I _ considered a high speed, though in t | America ninety miles have been attained with a light train and power--1 lul engine. Steam road-carriages e were invented as early as 1802, and , ran subsequently between Chelten- , ham and U'loueester at fourteen miles , an hour. i

Tne astonishing rapidity with which the negroes are incrensA BLACK" ing in America was reAMEIUCA. renlly the subject of an important article bv Leoige \\. J*orbe.s. in the Arena : When, in 1803, President Lincoln declared his Emancipation Proclamation in forcf, it hurst the bands from four million legal human beings, without education, without homes, and without even a country. Their very marriage ties had lirst 10 be legalised by special enactment 1 Today those lour million human' things number more than ten million five American citizens, with more than fifty-live per cent, of their number grounded in the rudiments of education, owing and operating three(juasters of a million farms and homes, which are valued at as many million dollars, and with callings covering the whole of the three-hun-dred and two occupations engaged in by Americans. There are nearlv' sixteen million private homes in" America, and of this number fourteen millions are owned or hired by the white people, while the remainder are in the "hands of the negroes. These fig-ures, compared with a previous census, show that while the white people have lost 1.8 per cent, of homes owned, and increased 1.5 per cent, in homes hired, the negro has increased 3.1 per cent, in homes owned, and has decreased by exactly that amount in homes' hired.