NOTES ON THE WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 44, 23 February 1904, Page 2

NOTES ON THE WAR.

BUSSIA'S EXPANSIVE POLICY.

ASPIRATIONS AS A SEA

POWER

Tf I am not much mistaken (writes the Moscow correspondent of the v standard '") the question for Russia in the Far Ea.st to-day is not one ai territory or expansion of commercial activitv ;it is another bid for fhe completion 01 an ambition as old as Peter tho Oivat. What Russia aims at, and what Russia, up to a few months ago,, thought she haa* all but secured, .is a position which will enable her to become as great a power a t sea as she is on land. ' Russia, is no longer merely the bear, for she is acquiring some of the capabilities of the whale. *

It is this "threatened metamorphosis of Russia into an amphi'bious. great .power which is really tfte question of the present ctmtury. || Russia can keep. Port Arthur, slfo will, in course of time, crack ji£orea between the two pur^y military etratepic railroads which enclose that country as a nut is enclosed by tho nut-crackers. If diplomacy, or war, drive her back froi« Sowthl

• - ernMaiioTiuraa^l6a\ilig Her only her railway direct across to Vladivpstok, but depfiydng her of the southern branch from Ktaarbin to Port Arthur, then her. ambitiori will toe checked* for a number of i" e^' Vlatlivostofc not being a favourable take-off for her plunge. ,!» those years the United States* -will ■■■ com- " ' plete the Panama Canal, and entirely revolutionise tiro "maritime .conditions of the Pacific. _ ' For good or ilKthe United States s has entered into 4 the comity of nations with its acquisition of the Philippines. To the Ujjte therefore, more even .than to EngSS; tetongs the task of thrustmg Zd Russia" from «te open shores of the Pacific. Russia, as a strong naval—' power> in Pacific waters-, wdulcL provide; tie foreign policy of the United States with a perpetual ■ source of anxiety, anaia-jous to the feeling- in Fngland, regarding ? the Northern; frontier of India. The United States has already laid tibo begkm*nigs of a formidable^ navy ; the Panama Canal will, in a few years, consolidate her strength 4>n the Pacific. Every new century has opened ■with some huge convulsion, and all the si-gns point to a repetition of t'he phenomenon. In the past age the tjuestion has been the "balance of power" on land. The question •of/the future, if Russia gets her . .way, in the Far East, w'ill«l>e one of the balance of power upon the high seas. And that is a problem, owingi to the motti'lity of sea-power, which would provide incalculably more food for apprehension than the most threatening combination ; of laid! power. s . Whatever may be' the facts of the case, Rusaiia cm*'tainly blanies England for all her failures to reach the sea. During the crisis of the Chinese "'trouble-'', the bombardjneiit cf BlsLgovpßtchenskii and the e\>ent9 ,which followed, a very high- . ly-placed ofßciai remarkeii to, a fr?end of mine that it was only because England was employed in I the Boer war that Russia ventured to advance so. far into China. Now the Russfan press is carefully instructing public; opinion that it is - only England which is " hounding on Japan and China " to undo all that Russia has accomplished for herself in the Far East. The usual threats of ipfressure on the Indian frontier a re again being paraded. Curiously enough, this language alTternatjes i^th v the no less? customary snggestaoas i for^ att Aiiglo-Russian underetandi%i the" ultimate end of ?j _, wMch is, to be the hegemony of the .civilised world. It as characteristic pi the Rus^n ;ideal^m g^ritidicany -to revert bacK^cfentury^br-So, to days when England and Russia did have a, common aim— against Napoleon. ' -