directed against Japan. Russia and China would support each other with all their land and sea forces, and would make peace together. This treaty conveyed also the center and circumference of all Russian desires: the concession for building the Chinese Eastern Railway through the Heilungkiang and Kirin Provinces of Manchuria to connect Vladivostok with European Russia.

Prince Lobanoff was then the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, but his was not the only hand that shaped the Treaty of Alliance of May, 1896. M. de Witte was there, also. It was largely due to his master mind that the section on the building of the railway across North Manchuria out to Vladivostok was perfected.

As soon as he received the news that the Li Hungchang-Lobanoff Treaty was an accomplished fact M. Cassini at Peking worked aggressively and persistently for the immediate ratification of it. He found it no easy job. The Tungli Yamen-the so-called Foreign Office at Peking, which was nothing of the sort, but was a sort of a council of high-ranking elder statesmen-was not at all eager for its ratification. But of course M. Cassini was master of just that sort of game. He also was thoroughly at home in the intricate subways of political Peking in those days. He called to his aid all the underlings of Li Hungchang, and through them he succeeded in persuading the Dowager Empress to see the wisdom of siding with mighty Russia. The treaty was finally ratified September the 28th, 1896.

The formal consent of China to let Russia build the Chinese Eastern Railway across northern Manchuria was given in the agreement of September 8th, 1896, the full text of which is given in Appendix 2. The concession was given to the Russo-Chinese Bank, which was specially created by the Russian Government to finance the construction. This agreement is an important document: it laid the foundation of practically all the vital Russian

rights in North Manchuria, as an examination of its text clearly shows. It provided that the Bank should establish the Chinese Eastern Railway Company, into whose hand was to be entrusted the complete control and conduct of the main and the only artery of transportation in North Manchuria-in other words, the company that was destined to play the rôle of giver of life or death to economic North Manchuria.

Article VI of the Agreement reads:

"The lands actually necessary for construction, operation, and protection of the line will be turned over to the company freely, if these lands are the property of the State; if they belong to individuals, they will be turned over to the Company either upon a single payment or upon an annual rental to the proprietors, at current prices.

"The Company will have the absolute and exclusive right of administration of its lands."

The language is comprehensive: it gave Russia the right of jurisdiction over the railway zone.

What was dear to the heart of the Russian framer of the agreement crops out in Article VIII: "The Company is responsible that the Russian troops and war material, despatched in transit over the line, will be carried through directly from one Russian station to another, without for any pretext stopping on the way longer than is strictly necessary."

The Chinese Eastern Railway Company was born in royal purple. It was under the direct control of the Ministry of Finance of the Tsar. As pointed out by an American writer, "the working deficit of the line was carried in the Russian Government Budget, and a secret ukase prescribed that officials of the Railway should be subject to the same special jurisdiction as officials of the Government."

On the 28th of August, 1897, on the frontier where the Manchurian Province of Kirin and the Maritime Province of Russian Siberia come together, the first sod was cut for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway under an imposing ceremony before Russian and Chinese dignitaries. The work was started from Nikolsk on the Ussuri Railway on the east and from Kaidalovo on the trans-Baikal section of the Siberian railway on the northwest. This short-cut through Manchuria shaved down the distance between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok by more than 500 miles. It made the shortest international highway between Europe and the Far East.

This was the way Russia entered into Manchuria, not as a tourist or a long-distance political meddler, but as an abiding factor. There was something imposing about this first entry of Russia, something theatrical. But it was very far from a mere parade of pompous adjectives in state documents or a tinsel show of mere military menace. It got down to the economic life of the people of Manchuria first and then indirectly to that of all the other peoples of the East. Back of it all there was something which froze the very marrow of Japan.

LEASE OF LIAOTUNG PENINSULA

In November, 1897, a couple of German Catholic priests wandered out into Kiachwang in the Province of Shantung, where they had no business taking a pleasure trip. A Chinese mob murdered them. That gave the Kaiser a priceless chance of striking a heroic pose, and he delivered the "mailed fist" speech which has since enjoyed a good deal of free advertisement. A German fleet seized Kiaochou and forced the ninety-nine-year lease of it from China through the Convention signed March 6th, 1898.

All through this time Russia was silent. In the light of the fact that Russia already had the fifteen-year lease of the same Kiaochou Bay through the "Cassini Convention," this amiable silence of Russia ranks as the most eloquent silence in the diplomatic history of the Far East in recent times. Then-also silently-in December, 1897, the Far-Eastern Fleet of Russia stole into Port Arthur and Talienwan. When Russia did speak at last she sounded like a bomb-not only in the ears of China but also in those of a number of other powers, including Japan, more especially Japan. The bomb was in the shape of the Russo-Chinese convention of March 27th, 1898, for the lease of Liaotung Peninsula, the full text of which the reader will find in Appendix 8.

This convention turned over to Russia Port Arthur and Talienwan-the Dalny of the Russians and the present Dairen-for the specific purpose of creating a formidable naval base and fortified city at Port Arthur, throwing in what hinterland was thought "necessary to secure the proper defense of this area on the land side."

This handing over of Port Arthur at the throat of the Gulf of Chihli, on which stands Tientsin, the port to the capital City of Peking-a naval base which for years had been proclaimed the Gibraltar of the Far Eastinto the hand of Russia, was quite a dramatic event with the peoples of the East generally. It fell upon Japan as a sort of combination kick in the face and loud ha-ha. For this land which Russia took away from China was precisely the same territory Russia with the help of France and Germany had driven Japan out of not more than three years before. And on what ground? Why, on the ground that the Japanese or any other foreign power's occupation of the Liaotung Peninsula was destructive of the peace of the Far East. It was an object lesson of considerable size to Japan in the hypocrisy of European and so-called Christian powers.

The Russian Far-Eastern policy came to flower in this convention of March 27th, 1898. This and what the Russians did in translating its terms into facts following the signing of the convention, laid the foundation of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. It had only nine articles in it. It had not many more than 1,000 words in it. It was the most epochal of documents as far as the destiny of Manchuria was concerned. It affected the fate of Japan as no foreign treaty concluded between two foreign countries had ever done.

It turned over to Russia Port Arthur and Talienwan on lease for the term of twenty-five years with an opportunity of prolonging by mutual consent "for the purpose of ensuring that Russian naval forces shall possess an entirely secure base on the littoral of northern China.' -Articles I and III. "The entire military command of the land and naval forces and equally the supreme civil administration" of the leased territory were turned over entirely to the Russian authorities for the term of the lease.-Art. IV. Port Arthur and a section of Talienwan were to be closed ports.-Art. VI. It gave the concession to Russia to build a line of railway connecting Port Arthur and Talienwan with one of the stations on the main line of the Chinese Eastern Railway on precisely the same favorable terms as were granted to the Russo-Chinese Bank (an alias for the Russian Government) in 1896.-Art. VIII. "All the stipulations of the contract concluded by the Chinese Government with the Russo-Chinese Bank on August 27 (September 8), 1896, shall apply scrupulously to these supplementary branches."

These were the high lights of this astounding docuHere at last the century-old dream of Russia for an ice-free port came true-and in a manner almost too good to be true. If it meant a lot for Russia, it certainly meant a great deal more to Manchuria. For