a time it appeared as if the Russian "rape" of Manchuria

was complete.

BUILDING THE SOUTH MANCHURIA RAILWAY

On the 28th of March, 1898-that is to say, on the very next day after the signing of the above convention, Russians took possession of Port Arthur. That was a month and ten days before even the boundaries of Port Arthur, Talienwan, and the leased hinterland were defined. For the agreement on the details of the boundaries was signed on March 7th.

As soon as spring opened the Liao River that year the Russian engineers started work-not at Port Arthur or Talienwan in the leased territory but near the port of Newchwang, which the British had opened through the Treaty of Tientsin of June, 1858. The Russians selected a spot some three miles up the river from the town of Yingkou (which the British took as Newchwang of the Tientsin Treaty) and made it the terminus of a branch line connecting it with the main line from Harbin to Dairen at Tashihchao. This fourteen-mile branch was completed in 1899, and over it the huge quantity of rails, sleepers and other materials for the construction of the main line was rushed. There was a good reason for starting on this branch line instead of on the main line at Port Arthur or starting the work from Dalny, as the Russians christened the Town of Talien. For the country about Port Arthur and north of it is hilly and broken up. It called for a number of cuts in rocky mountainsides and for many bridges. All of which meant many months of work before the southern end of this line could be completed to such an extent that the building materials for the line farther north could be rushed over it. The building of the branch line from Yingkou east to Tashihchao solved all this. From Tashihchao the

work was pushed southward to Port Arthur and northward to Mukden at the same time, with the construction materials shipped over the branch line. By October, 1899, locomotives and construction trains were running between the port of Yingkou and Dalny.

FOUNDING THE CITY OF HARBIN

While the building of the southern end of the SouthManchurian line was being pushed north and south from Tashihchao, in the spring of the same year, the Russian engineers went up the Sungari River. They went a bit beyond the point where the Hulan River empties into the Sungari and selected a spot on the southern bank of the Sungari. At the time when the Russian engineers 1 fixed upon this point as the junction of the Chinese East

ern main line with its South-Manchurian branch line to Port Arthur, there was just one solitary house standing on it a Chinese distillery, according to Sir Alexander Hosie, whose book on Manchuria is filled with much of intimate knowledge of the land. Such was the modest beginning of the greatest city of North Manchuria, which to-day is known all over the world as the City of Harbin. From that point the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway was rushed in three directions at once-toward Vladivostok on the east, toward Manchuli on the northwest to join the trunk line of the Trans-Siberian there, and in the direction of Port Arthur and Dalny in the south.

The railway lines were built "regardless." Feverish haste was the dominating note which characterized the mad rush of construction. Expenditure bothered the Russian not at all. He had the Russo-Chinese Bank back of him; and the Russo-Chinese Bank was the financial lamb's skin in which the Russian Ministry of Finance was masquerading. All along the new railway line a

vast stream of gold poured into North Manchuria from Europe. Most of this golden flood which financed the gigantic imperialistic adventure came from the strong boxes of the thrifty French people. Into the wilderness of North Manchuria rushed coolies from Shantung and from the Metropolitan Province of Chihli by hundreds of thousands. A few Chinese grumbled over Russian arrogance and brutal highway robbery, but they were those who were not under the golden shower of Russian rubles. The Chinese coolies and merchants crowding into the newly opened field did not complain at all. And all went merrily with the Russians.

BOXER TROUBLE OF 1900

Then came the year 1900 bringing the Boxer trouble. One Japanese writer makes the assertion that there were 1,300 versts of Russian railway completed in Manchuria at the time of the Boxer rising and that out of that total mileage only 400 versts escaped damage from the Chinese attacks. Just what is his authority for the statement is not apparent. There is no question, however, that considerable damage was done to the Russian lines in Manchuria. The new Russian railway establishments at Harbin suffered severe and serious loss from fire. To the careless eye the disorders of Boxer days appear to have given quite a setback to the Russian railway construction program.

It was nothing of the sort in reality. It was the one supreme excuse for which the Militant Masters of Russia hungered and prayed. It gave them, suddenly and as from the hand of Fate, the long longed-for opportunity for occupying the vital strategic points in Manchuria with their army. The Chinese army, in its madness, on July 15th, 1900, crossed the Amur and invaded the Russian territory at Blagoveschensk. After that

there was no need for the Russians to be timorous. Naturally they lost precious little time. By August 4th their armed forces occupied Yingkou at the mouth of the Liao in South Manchuria. By the end of the month they were solidly settled in various important points in Manchuria. They felt so comfortable about it that they took the trouble of notifying the other powers by August 25th, explaining to them that the occupation of various Manchurian points was merely a temporary measure to insure peace and order over Manchuria. Moreover, they were perfectly willing, indeed they intended, to call out their armed forces as soon as China could protect life and property adequately. Perhaps they were thoroughly sincere in this. There were few Russians in those days who thought China could ever come back.

This incidentally explains the attitude of Russia at Peking when the allied powers gathered there to dictate their terms to China, at the close of the Boxer trouble. It was an admirable mixture of insolence and conciliation. Facing Li Hungchang, who stood the brunt of the negotiation in behalf of China, Russia played the charming rôle of an old friend taking an old broken man under her protecting wing, actually proposing that the allied forces get out of Peking and hold the parley at Tientsin out of consideration for Chinese sentiment.

Russia took every opportunity to show that she was trying to make her demands as small as possible, not only to make the burden light for her Chinese friends but also thereby to set an example for the rest of the powers. At the same time she concentrated her efforts to conclude a separate convention with China placing Manchuria under her exclusive and benevolent protection. In this she failed, but she succeeded in concentrating her army, which she had taken away from Peking and the other parts of the Province of Chihli, at various vital points in Manchuria.

BRITISH HANDS TIED

As if the Boxer uprising were not a timely and perfect enough gift for the completion of the Russian program in the Far East, Fate presented her with another plum. It was the Boer War in South Africa. That practically tied the hands of the one power that might have proved exceedingly troublesome in translating Manchuria into a purely Russian dream come true. Great Britain did, of course, what she could. She went to Germany. It resulted in the agreement of October 16th, 1900, which is given in Appendix 14. Japan was ready to greet that with enthusiasm. The United States, France, and Austria approved it. Even Russia, in her memorandum of October 28th, did not raise any objection to it. But the whole thing resulted in a Russian smile, more or less sardonic. For it was not long after that von Bülow, then Imperial Chancellor, came out and said that Manchuria was not a part of China-and so placed it outside of the Anglo-German agreement of October 16th, 1900.

While this little farce was being presented for the polite entertainment of the chancellories of Europe Admiral Alexieff who was enjoying the pompous title of the Viceroy of the Far East at Port Arthur-talked a good deal to General Tseng, then Military Governor of Mukden. The Russian Admiral talked so well-and doubtless oiled the palm much better-that the Tartar General handed over to the Russian Admiral an agreement which had six articles of rather startling value in it. Article III practically meant that the Tartar General agreed to get rid of all the bother of maintaining an armed force for the Province of Mukden and to that end to disarm and disband his soldiers, because some of them had risen in the days of the Boxer trouble and smashed up the Russian railway. More than that, the Tartar General agreed to turn over to Russia all the arms and