RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 274, 18 November 1899, Page 4

RUSSIA.

A GUNBOAT FOR THE GULF,

SHADOWED BY A BRITISH WAR. SHIP.

LONDON, November 17,

A Russian gunboat is reported to have sailed for the Persian Gulf. The British warship Renown is shadowing the gunboat.

[The competition between Great Britain and Russia in Persia has for some time past been acute, and Russia has taken alarm at Britain's progress. An English writer says:—"We "must drive it somehow or another into the wits of our peopie and the consciences of ...our legislators that 'The Persian Gulf is an English lake,' and. come what may; the principle must be defended. An empire may depend upon its adoption; but it is very certain that unless somebody in authority speaks those words; plainly, even though slightly veiled ' under' the polite utterances of diplomacy, we are deliberately inviting, that"stealthy advance from the North which will 'find an excuse ere long for the plea of a 'natural outlet' on the gulf. Russia is uv^ed alive and awake, stretching vi. Jer limbs to obtain her grasp upon this land. From the North comes stealthily-advancing roads and railways, and in their wake added influence, and the minstrelsy of advancing regiments, and the boun. ty-fed Russian traders.]