THE PARTITION OF CHINA.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 68, 19 September 1901, Page 2

THE PARTITION OF CHINA.

England, Russia, Germany, France, Japan, and the United States have all undertaken the subjugation of the Chinese Empire. Yet all do not work in unison. Japan has long felt that Russia intended to pursue an aggressive policy, and the island kingdom fears that the present opportunity will be seized. A clash between Russia and Japan may be expected, and will afford the anomalous display of two nations contending for that which does not belong to either of them. Russia's intent has long been plain enough. The industrial grip she lias been securing on Manchuria was from deep design, and to loose it is beyond the policy of virile and awakened Japan. The British have for years maintained a commercial foothold in China that, within limits, amounts practically to possession. How much we shall be permitted to add, when the division of this Empire occurs, is a matter yet to be determined. Germany and France share the same excuse that their subjects have been persecuted, but hating each other with a never-waning intensity their alignment on partition will not be fraternal. Kacli power concerned will get all it can. In the scramble for spoil the initial motive will not be remembered, and what was inaugurated as discipline will close as a raid. Nevertheless, not much sympathy will be felt for China. If destruction awaits her, she it was who invited it. The world is too small now for any hermit nations, and humanity will gain by the crash. jModern civilisation cannot be stayed because the whistle of its locomotive disturbs ancestral spirits, or the sound of its blast in a mine breaks the repose of the Wind-Water dragon. China has sounded the tocsin and invaded Russia !