THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1907. THE PROBLEM OF MANCHURIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8332, 15 January 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1907. THE PROBLEM OF MANCHURIA.

The recommendations of the Chinese Commissioners sent to Manchuria, that concessions granted in that country should be re-acquired by China, is significant. Mr F. A. McKenzie, who has been dealing in the London Daily Mail , with the subject, "The Arousing of the Chinese Giant," thinks that Japan is working steadily to dominate Manchuria. He found in Pekin that scarcely was the ink dry on the Treaty of Portsmouth before a silent secret diplomatic battle began over the fate , of Manchuria. He takes the case of Harbin, a town geographically in China yet really Russian. It is a fine though crude city, on European lines, built by Russian energy and Russian money. One sees fewer Chinese in its main streets than in Honolulu. Recently railway communication was reopened between Dalny and Harbin, and Japanese subjects were allowed northwards. Within a few weeks between 500 and 1,000 Japanese were settled in Harbin, making a living where a white man would starve. The Russians were to have their troops away before the end of 1906, except the railway guards, and the question was presenting itself when Mr McKenzie was there, who was to control this great white settlement. The Chinese do not want another Shanghai in .their dominions, an imperium in imperio controlled by foreign consuls. These Chinese officials are no longer afraid of Russia, but they are afraid of Japan. Every official with whom

Mr McKenzie conversed was convinced that Japan meant to secure predominance in Manchuria. Thousands of Japanese are settling along the main routes; the railways in the centre and south are Japanese; the Japanese are the only soldiers who can keep the brigands in check, and this will afford Japan an excuse for increasing her hold on the land. "Unless we stir ourselves," more than one official said to Mr McKenzie, "Manchuria will pass from us. Mongolia will follow Manchuria, and then what can save our Empire?" Japan delayed as long- as she could in handing; over the Manchurian telegraphs to China. When Mr McKenzie was in Japan last June the Chinese Commissioners sent over to arrange the tranfer had been in Tokio a month. They had been splendidly entertained by the Japanese, but they had been unable to do a scrap of business. But there is at least one Manchurian centre where the Japanese are being combatted by diplomacy and active reform. This is Mukden. The brightest and most enlightened officials have been sent there from Pekin, the Government realising that it must do something if it is to keep Manchuria for itself. In place of a host of old-fashioned officials, with their traditions of circumlocution, a few smart secretaries do the work of administration, under the direction of the Viceroy. The one message dinned into the ears of the rich merchants of Mukden is, "Wake up for the sake of China!" And reform is needed. The sentries lining the road between the station and the town are armed # with rifle and bayonet, and from a distance look workmanlike and up-to-date. But an inspector of police told Mr McKenzie that the weapons were so old and worn that it took the men five minutes to fire one shot. The Chinese reformers have opposed to them an extremely able antagonist. Mr Hagiwara, the {[Japanese ConsulGeneral, was in Korea before the war, where he helped to play the game against the Russian Minister with consummate skill. He had much to do with "Japan's advances in Korea during the next two years, and in November of 1905, when the surrender of Korean independence was extorted from the Emperor and his Ministers, he showed the iron hand plainly. The Chinese recognise the significance of his leaving the Chief Secretaryship of a Legation to accept a Consul-Generalship. "Hayashi and Hagiwara took her independence away from Korea," they say. "To-day Hayashi is Minister in Pekin, and Hagiwara is head of the Japanese in Manchuria. Have they been-sent to do the same work here?"