RUSSIAN PREPARATION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 7873, 7 January 1904, Page 2

RUSSIAN PREPARATION.

Received 7,9.7 a.m. - '

NEW YORK, Janwy 6. The St. Petersburg - oot respondent of the New York Herald aaya that twenty i million roubles (£2,000,000) wb» spent monthly for a long time on the fortification of strategetio railways for the army and navy in the Far East. When Russia' Beizsd Pori ; Arihtir, the Treasury possessed eighty million roubles, which wai available in «he evens, oi was wiih Jitpau. . . . \

(Th© geographical aspects of'ttbo Fer Eastern question art this shortly described. The Yalu, the boundary between Manchuria and Korea, flows into the sea near Wiju, which ia on the Korean side of the river. R'uflsia baa already encroached on the Korean side of tßre Yalu. Seoul js the capital of of Korea, its port b«ing Chemulpo, 25 miles -distant. Russia, it is said, haa demanded the right) to estatoKtib navalJ| bases at the treaty ports of Mtasampjifl aiwl Mokpo, in the • south of Ko^^| This would mean the- creation <j^^| Gibraltar, which would enable Ruir^^| to command the straits between KoreX and Japan, To this, demand Japan^ will not consent. On the other hand, if J«pan is in possession o£ Southern Korea., fcho Russian communications between Port Arthur and Vl«divos*ock would bej liable to interruption by Japan. Th e position is, therefore, one that seems to admit of no compromise.) ■ \ .. - '„....