THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1904. RUSSIA AND JAPAN

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 1, 7 January 1904, Page 17

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1904. RUSSIA AND JAPAN

N ' Eben ILolden,' ' war an' speakin' ' are de- \* blared to be ' the two great talents of the Yankee.' ' Give him a chance t' talk it over *J1 0\ with his enemy an' he'll hck 'im without a \%~*zm flght- An ' when hls enemy 1S a * notner Yaiv kee— why, the both get licked ' Russia ami f&tfilL Japan seem well matched in diplomacy as v^fyv in war. As we write these lines, they are 1 talking it over '—speaking peace and levying wax. The resources of diplomacy are not yet q<uite exhausted. But they have reached a point where further parley seems to promise but little hope of peace. Both disputants confer angrily with their hands upon the sword-hilt, and the century that promised the trmmph of international arttitralion is full of the dread promise of a great international war. * The Tsar is personally a man of peace. Through him the International Tribunal of the Hague had its being. The eyes of those that -hope for peace are turned

upon him. Interest as well as sentiment place him on the side of those whose voice is not for war. A reign of peace is needed for the carrying out of those farreaohing reforms that seem to T* a necessary condition for the good order of his vast realm and for the maintelnance of his family with a reasonable measure of security upon the Muscovite throne. The Moscow correspondent of the London ' Standard ' recently wrote that ' the sober-minded Russians to a man, so far as can be ascertained, would like to see concessions made in the Far 'East, even to the half of all that Russia haid gained there, if only peace can be maintained, in order that the reforms which the present Emperor has at heart may make .progress under favorable conditions. On ilte other hand, th,e» large numbers of those more or less tainted with revolutionary sentiments woiuld welcome any war that ended in a beaming for their ow)n country, reckoning that their gain would be the certainty of reforms coming immediately ujpom the cessation of hostilities. The ,of the Tsar is one of greater trial and strain, with an unidoujbited mixture of positive danger, than has ever fallen to the lot of even a Russian ruler. 1 Even the Autocrat of the North is in a great measure, in the hands of the Jingoes. Like the comic opera p'leeqemen, ' to risk their precious lives they're chary.' When the victory is over they carry t£ie flag. Their 'hpt brains and noisy declamation .create a war-feeling that claps a muzzle on calm reason and may hiurry Russia, as it lately did America and Great Britain, into another of those many preventable wars that have left their big red stains upon the page of history. For over a century Russia's advance in the East has been like the tramp of time or the march of fateIndia and Persia .are. her two great directives on the south ; ice-free ports and fresh markets in the Far* East. The Ural River was her southern boundary in Asia in 1689, with a nominal sovereignty over the wild tribes that lay as far east as Omsk. The years 17.25 and 1796 saw her boundary line shifted southwards to the Sea of Aral and beyond the sandy shores of Lake Balkash. Since 1856 she has made a further series of advances which have left nothing between her and India's boundary fence but the dilapidated back-yard State of Afghanistan. She holds the forehead of the Eastern Hemisphere, has occupied and fortified Manchuria, secured a port in the Liaotung peninsula. She bas seized, as it were, the outer line of Japan's defences and, throiugh her attitude tin Korea, stands in a menaci nig position facing the threshold of the land of the Mikado. Japa^i hjap just cause for ajlajrm at Russiafs movements in the Distant East. It remains to be seen whether that progressive ajnd dashing people can i ,tyy diplomacy or by war permanently check the advance of the nation that never turned black, or worst the fierce Westerns who changed the defeat of the Crimea , into a/n effective victory by their cool defiance of the Treaty of Paris., ♦ Our fervent 'hope is that pacific counsels may prevail. The losses of war are not to be counted merely in the lives of soldiers, the tears of widows and orphans, land the money expended in man-slaiying. The world laughed over the item fox ' moral damaiges ' which appeared in President Kruger's little bill for the criminajllyi foolish raid of ' Doctor Jim.' But the sturdy old Boer's wits were not as leadelh-heeled as many people affected to believe. Dislocation of commerce, destruction of property, and loss of life are majtters which fairly occupy a place upon a list of war indemnities. Our juries are from time to time called upon to set a mioney value on the injured feelings of a jilted maiden. The ' damages ' may "be more or they may be less than an equivalent for slighted affection. In every case they are a solace, gireiat or shiall. But tfoe Wars of the Roses, the Thirty Years' War, the Franco-German struggle, the Williamite campaigns in Ireland all sftow that there are ewdu'ring moral evils resulting from the arbitrament of lead and steel which can never be cov-

ered by mere money payments, and for which no indemnity, no territorial aggrandisement can ever tfe regarded as adequate compensation.