RUSSIA. AND CHINA.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3570, 5 June 1880, Page 3

RUSSIA. AND CHINA.

(eubopean mail.)

The probability of a War between .Russia and China grows stronger every day. The actual dispute is only about an isolated Tartar province, the cession or retrocession of which is in question ; but the ultimate problem involved is far more serious. For, at length, the two Empires have met. At Maimachan, on the more distant Siberian border, a yellow paling, with a sentry on either side, alone divides them. There exists no longer, in fact, a debatable ground, and a dispute over territory has been converted into a dispute qyer Customs. An enormous trade is carried on between the two countries, especially in silks and tea, for the latter of which the Russian appetito is insatiable. They are neighbours, and should be friends; yet they are perpetually at variance. If the threatened conflict breaks out, it will be among the most remarkable phenomena of the century. Russia, of course, would not employ her best-organised—or Western—battalions in such a service, but would rather send her Kirghiz and Cossack legions to confront the Mongolian hordes, so that, in point of blood and bottom, the two hosts would be fairly matched. Yet with what conceivable result? There could be no conquest in the proper sense of the term on either sMe, as England has found out before now£ Still, there might be infinite fighting and slaughter, upon a-barbarous scale, and all for the sake of determining who shall hold dominion in the revolted district of Kuldja. It is strange that two such races as the Russians and the Chinese, 'whose boundaries are coterminous, and whose interests are so mutual, •hould propose to let loose the dogs of war for the sake of a patch of territory which would not appreciably add to the importance of either empire.