HOW WILL THE WAR END?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12608, 24 June 1904, Page 5

HOW WILL THE WAR END?

..... ■ .; ' ■■■■ VI"': ;'v That is the question which is now efigag ing the . attention of European statesmen Will the presencei of 250,000 victorious Japanese at Harbin compel Russia to make peace and abandon the contest? , There if nothing whatever to show that it sill, and there is every reason to think that it will not. Harbin, insignificant in itself, is the Moscow of : East. Asia, and all the lessons oi Moscow apply. The greatest possible success at Harbin, even entailing th* annihilation of the Russian army, would settle nothing; it would simply mean that so many hundred miles further west a larger army would be collected, and that a fresh advance would bo made the next year, or the year after, when Russia was ready. Thi>re could be no hope, within any reasonable time, oi establishing China in Manchuria in any posture to withstand the shock of afevr Russian battalions; therefore the alternative before Japan would be the maintenance, for years, of a great army in Manchuria, or ft retirement with infinite loss of prestige and nothing of . permanent value; gained by the incursion. Japan can never hope to attain to that position of military superiorly ; over Russia that England attained in the 14th century over France. So great was our superiorly that when the Duke of Lancaster set out to march through Franco from north to south in 1373 the most trusty councillors of Charles V.—namely, de Clissoli, the Duke of Anjou, even the doughty : Constable du Guesclin himself—advised that the enemy should not be fought, since ".the English have been so fortunate that they think they cannot be defeated; and in battle they are the most confident people in the world, fot the more blood they see, whether their own or the enemy's, the more eager they are foi the fray." Yet what re mains? - ; Not one shred -of French territory in our possession for the simple reason that, given rival race* of equal Value and solidarity, with reason ably-proportioned populations, tha perma nent domination of a continent-by an felant is against reason, again nature, and againa sense. ' If Port Arthur,' Core*,' and vladi vostok fall '•> into Japanese hands, tho do minion of Russia in East Asia is ended. Iti raison ' d'etre vanishes, since the i outlet ; wpor the sea is lost. Established at these :• three points, r the; Japanese can; make themselves so strong that, so long'as they ret;|iri com mand of the sea and hold their army it leash, they can consider their position im pregnable. Fort Arthur in Japanese handi is unassailable by land; Corea can be de fended for the greater, part by a chain 0: defensive works across the 1 100 miles of fth< narrowest part of the peninsula on the prin ciple of Torres Vedras • even if Vladivostok cannot be held indefinitely against She migb' of Russia, it can be stalemated and renderec Useless by the occupation of the islands com manding the entrance to the port. ; Here then, is the vital chord severed,; and hew must Russia fight, 5000 miles [from} her ; tru< base, and with every moral and material dig advantage, or not fight at all. It is 1812 re versed, and it ;is Russia that is cursed wit! all the/ disadvantages of > Napoleon's fata ambition. ; The Japanese arijjy . remain intact, the nation unspent, and, ;aka whft course Russia may/: she remains exposed :t< an offensive return, along all the vide front age of ■ the sea, by the concentrated weigh of her enemy's arms. • . , .