RUSSIA AND JAPAN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 293, 4 September 1908, Page 7

RUSSIA AND JAPAN.

THE CAUSE OF THE WAR. KUROPATKIN'S MEMOIRS. THE TSAR'S INVESTMENTS. (m Tur.BOßArß—ritEss association—corYitiGnT.)* (Rec. Sept-ember 3, 10.30 p.m.) ; New York, September 3. "M'Clure's Magazine" publishes Kuropatkin's Memoirs. They show that through Bezohrazoff's influenco the Tsar invested'two million roubles in a Yalu timber concession. Tho-Grand Dukes and favoured nobles also heavily invested. Bezobrazoff had enormous influence with tho Tsaj and the Dowager Empress. Kuropatkin warned the Tsar against the timber concession, and stated that Bezobrazoff's 'policy might causo war. Ho suggested .the withdrawal from, Manchuria, and handing over Port Arthur and Kwantung to China. Eight weeks later war opened in the vicinity of tho Yalu.

EVENTS WHICH LED TO THE WAR. In an article reviewing the events which led up to the Russo-Japanese War, "Tho Times," in February, 1001, said:—". . . . Japanese public opinion had been deeply stirred by the evonts of 1900, and the high-handed operations of the Russian forces in Manchuria and tho appalling excesses perpetrated by them at Blagovestchensk and other places created a strong revulsion of popular feeling' in favour of China. There was . a general revival of _ apprehension and suspicion in Japan, intensified by concurrent indications that Russia did not mean to restrict her activity to Manchuria, but was carrying her encroachments across the Manohurian frontier into Korean territory. Russia's failure to obtain a lease of Ma-san-po, opposite to . the Japanese coast, early in 1900, had not discouraged her. She tried, though with equal unsuccess, to obtain a lease of Ching-kai-wan, a bay only 20 miles distant from Ma-san-po, ; and of equal value as a naval base. On the Manohurian frontier she was more successful.. She seoured mining rights of considerable importance in Northern Korea, and it is worthy of note. that 11. Bezobrazoff, the Minister of State who has enjoyed unusual influence of late jn the councils of the Tsar, possesses a largo interest in those properties. As far back as 1896 a Russian subject had obtained from Korea certain concessions for cutting lumber on tho Ya-lu and lumen Rivers. Work upon these.concessions not having begun within the appointed term, they were held to have lapsed. But the Russian Minister at Seoul "obtained their ronewal. last year in a much more stringont form, and the Russians not only .began to settle at Yongampo, near the mouth of the Ya-lu, but erected telegraph lines, started railway construction, and proceeded even to construct fortifications on Korean territory, until the energetic protests of Japan, coupled with an intimation that a leaso of Yongampo to Russia would bo regarded as a violation of existing treaties, compelled the Russians to moderate, though not by any means to suspend, their activity. Just as Russian, diplomacy opposed at Peking the opening of Manohurian towns to foreign trade and settlement, so at Seoul it opposed- the opening of Wi-ju, tho most important Korean town in the vicinity of-the Manohurian frontier. At every point Japan found her. influence with tho Korean Government thwarted by the obstructive energies of the: Russian Minister."