PORT ARTHUR A GREAT FORTRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 246, 14 October 1908, Page 3

PORT ARTHUR A GREAT FORTRESS.

' m JAPANESE OUTSTRIP _____L_ER BUS-SIA-ST AC___EV__-.__S_.T. In view of tbe article recently on Japan, it may be interesting to translate from the "Voice of Moscow" portions of article of a Russian correspondent in the great Japanese fortress of Port Arthur, who seems to be particularly observant. He says that Port Arthur and Dalny have changed very much since the war. Under Russian rule. Fori Arthur was an inter- . national town, full of life, and after the Japanese came into possession of it it promised to be eren livelier than ever. The roads were repaired, the quays renewed, the . water supply improved, Japanese and Chinese merchants began to establish themselves in the town, and business houses began to be built. Rut suddenly something happened. All i.at once Port Arthur became a city of i the dead. Business men quietly abandoned their shops; builders left their unI completed buildings, and from that time lup to. the present no private individual has begun any new buildings in Port Arthur. The great supplies of provisions I and other goods we 1. sent back to Japan or into other parts of Manchuria. But . none eseept the Japanese knew what w___ I the word that had gone/ forth. The relations of the Japanese authorities toward the Chinese are very severe. I All Russians and Chinese are registered, and are looked after very carefully. Notices have -been issued to the effect that I any Chinese found within any of the prohibited areas around the forte will be dealt with very severely. Chinese seen iin New Town after 8 p.m. are arrested and fined. The whole fortress is being recon- . structed on a new and unknown plan. The fortifications arc being extended beyond their old limits, and the labourers l-as-d overseers arc.selected with the greatest care. The old redoubts are not destroyed, but all useful material in them has been moved to other sites. In the construction of the fortifications great attention has been paid to the selection of the best positions whence a plunging fire can _w concentrated on the passages through the hills in front, and, in order to attain this end, constant practice firing is carried on. The landward side is protected by long-range guns mounted in excellent forts. At one point alone there are 120 guns. On the seaward side rows of guns are visible—many of these guns wete taken from the Russians. Trial-fir-ing is carried on more and more frequently at night with the help of reflectors, and, to assist the gunners, a whole scries of signal stations <has been erected on the hills. At the bottom of both harbours, and out along the sea coast up to a distance of two miles from the fortress, some sort of work is being carried on; perhaps j mines are being laid. All the way to Mukden strategic posiI -ions are being selected and prepared, and strategic roads are being run t .rough I the mountains. As for Dalny, it is strongly fortified on I the landward side, the entire environs of the village of Loukku having been converted into fortress "positions,*" and guns have beeii mounted there. On the sca- | ward side Dalny is more weakly fortified, but on the whole at is very much more | strongly defended than when the. RuaI skins were in possession of it. The enormous barracks in Port Arthur and Dalny I are full of troops, and great stores of ! grain, fotfder, b<sans, etc., have been collected. There has lately appe.tred in I Dalny a peculiar four-wheeled cast-iron I platform for carrying field guns of the : largest calibre.