BRITAIN IN THE FAR EAST.

Evening Post, Volume LV, Issue 102, 2 May 1898, Page 4

BRITAIN IN THE FAR EAST.

The grave nature of the complications still existing in China was again brought into prominence on Friday by the debate raised in the House of Commons on the official correspondence regarding recent negotiations. The Parliamentary _ discussion presents some strange and not altogether pleasing features. Tbe Liberal Opposition, led by Sir William Harcourt, would seem to have been suffering from a real or assumed attack of Russophobia. Like Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, the Opposition front bench " saw bears," and raised the old Jingo cry that British diplomatists were outwitted all along the line by wily Muscovites. Had the veteran Liberal leader who is fast sinking to his well-earned rest still been at the helm of his Party, it is scarcely possible that his followers would have been found employing Disraelian catch-cries to discredit the Government. So far as the information which has reached this colony goes there is little justification for the charges of failure urged against Lord Salisbury and his nephew, but it may be possible that the papers laid before Parliament disclose more weakness than the cablegrams have accounted for. It is, however, always well to bear in mind that the typical Briton of the middle classes, though an excellent man of business with a fair share of humanity, is at heart a most determined Jingo, and, moreover, feels an ever-present need of grumbling at something or other. The Times, preeminent though it be amongst the world's newspapers for precision, quickness, and accuracy of information, expresses in the most patent way the thoughts, ideals, and sentiments of the great middle class. That class is always restive when it thinks that Great Britain has played second fiddle in any concert, or has allowed any other Power to gain an advantage without herself obtaining a more than adequate quid pro quo. Doubtless the recently-published China correspondence proves that Great Britain has not made a clean sweep of the diplomatic board, but that some benefits have accrued to other nations as well. This, of course, is unpalatable to the extreme Jingo, who, refusing to look at the affair from all sides, fails to recognise the fact that no one nation, however powerful, can get all it wants itself while preventing others from gaining anything. The Times always leans a little towards the ultra-British view of international affairs, and, while paying due deference to its opinions on the result of Lord Salisbury's policy, it is well to take the proverbial pinch of salt with its conclusions. Meagre as our information about the latest developments is, it is yet possible to form a fair estimate of what has taken place in China. In the first place, it is an undoubted fact that Russia has gained several points for which she has been working along time. But is this sufficient to justify the charge of defeat brought against the British Foreign Office ? Are Russian gains necessarily British losses ? To both these questions we would reply with an unqualified negative. Glance for a moment at the concessions granted to Russia and the advances made by that Power during the last two or three years. The great iron road across Siberia is rapidly reaching its completion, and if it had been confined entirely to Russian territory it would have had to make a long detour to reach Vladivostock, and its maritime outlet at that place would have been ice-bound and inaccessible to ships during the greater part of the winter. Was it unnatural that the St. Petersburg Government should have made every effort to carry the railway through Manchuria and to obfain the use of some other terminus not exposed to winter isolation? These two points have certainly been gained by Russian diplomacy at Pekin, and moreover in Port Arthur and Talieuwau the Tsar will have useful naval stations for protecting the commerce which must spring up in the Northern Pacific after the railway is finished. This Russian expansion was as inevitable as the growth of a piaut, and, unless Great Britain embitters the rivalry by dog-in-the-manger pettiness, it should not seriously affect British commercial interests. Port Arthur, it is true, dominates one side of the entrance to the Gulf of Pechili, and so has a powerful strategic hold upon the trade of Tientsin and the safety of Pekin. The British Government was alive to this phase of Russian development, and, as a counterpoise to the increased Russian influence upon the northern limits of the Gulf of Pecbili, obtained the concession of Weihaiwei, commanding its southern approaches. Thus, so far as the trade of Tientsin and the road to Pekin are concerned, the honours are about equally divided between Russia and Great Britain, and the balance of power is consequently undisturbed. Not only has the British Government gained Weihaiwei as a set-off to Port Arthur, but the Russian concessions in Manchuria are counterbalanced by the granting of certain facilities to trading vessels on Chinese rivers, the opening of some new treaty ports, which will considerably increase the foreign trade, over 70 per cent, of which is British, and the grant of railway facilities in Yunnan. There seem, also, to be fair grounds for accepting Mr. Balfour's contention that Great Britain has been quietly consolidating her influence without incurring theyisk of hostilities, which would have done no good to any of the parties concerned. Germany's action at Kiao-cbau will ! also serve as a check upon Russian ascendency in Northern China, and is unlikely to affect British interests adversely. For ou r own part, we cannot quite understand what reason the Liberals had for attacking Lord : Salisbury's polioy. The Chauvinist wing of the Tories, of course, desire a foreign policy brilliantly illumined by Palmerstonian and Disraelian fireworks, and their criticism is easily accounted for; but it is somewhat surprising to find a lieutenant of Mr. Gladstone— one, too, who had even been named as his successor— appealing to such morbid patriotism in his efforts to gain a Party advantage. Hitherto the British Liberal Party has been noteworthy for the patriotio manner in which it has abstained from making Party capital out of foreign politics. Mr. Gladstone seldom troubled the Government on such matters, except when, as during the Bulgarian atrocities, his human sympathies forced him to an active propaganda against the policy of Ministers.

The General Manager of Railways (Mr. Rouayne) will probably leave for Greymouth Weatporfc, and Hokitika this week.