munitions of war which were at the arsenals as yet unoccupied by the Russian army. Article IV agreed to strip the few fortified positions in Manchuria which had not been occupied by the Russians of all their defensive works. The Tartar General was permitted to retain the police power of the Province, but whenever and wherever there was anything really serious, he was to appeal to the Russian Power through the Russian Consulate at Mukden for military assistance. As soon as Japan and other powers got wind of this secret treaty they naturally did not remain still. It failed to get the needed ratification at Peking. The above résumé was made from a version of the secret treaty given in a Japanese work. It must be added that it is quite different from the treaty reported to have been concluded between Admiral Alexieff and the Tartar General "signed at Port Arthur on January 30th, 1901." But both versions tell the same story of the tireless Russian effort to get what she wanted in Manchuria through the same old historic Russian subway route. Then there was the second Russo-Chinese secret Treaty sometimes known as the Lamsdorff-Yangyu Convention, signed between Count Lamsdorff, the Russian Foreign Minister, and Yangyu, the Chinese envoy to the Court of the Tsar, which put Manchuria under the Russian military thumb and gave Russia, as good measure doubtless, the mining and rail concessions in Manchuria, Mongolia, and other outlying dependencies.

There was one power watching all these Russian activities with undisguised gravity. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of January 30th, 1902, was the way she showed just how serious she thought the Russian activities in Manchuria were. It had an almost instantaneous effect on Russia. The result was the Russo-Chinese Convention of April 8th, 1902, the whole text of which is given in Appendix 17, the second half of whose Article II reads:

RUSSIAN PROMISE TO EVACUATE MANCHURIA

"Evacuation of Manchuria by Russia.-The Russian Government, in view of these obligations accepted by the Government of His Majesty the Emperor of China, agrees on its side, . . . to withdraw gradually all its forces from within the limits of Manchuria in the following manner:

"(a) Within six months from the signature of the Agreement, to clear the southwestern portion of the Province of Mukden up to the River Liao ho of Russian troops, and to hand the railways over to China.

"(b) Within further six months to clear the remainder of the Province of Mukden and the Province of Kirin of Imperial troops.

"(c) Within the six months following to remove the Imperial Russian troops from the Province of Hei-lungchiang."

Japan was innocent enough to put a deal of faith in these promises. She had had a pretty stiff lesson at the close of the Chinese war, when the triple Alliance of Russia, France, and Germany robbed her of the fruit of her victory, as we have seen. Nevertheless, she found it more comfortable to put her trust in the sacredness of international treaty promises than to question the honor of a great state. Patiently, her heart missing a beat now and then, Japan waited for the day of Russian evacuation. The day came without the delay of a second. And Russia-why, she fulfilled her promise for the first stage of evacuation after a fashion: she fulfilled it in letter but not in spirit. What she did was to take her army out of the section of country southwest of the Liao which she had promised to evacuate. But her army, though it marched out of this particular section, did not leave Manchuria. On the contrary, Russia concentrated

it at various strategic points in Manchuria. Another six months went. And when the day set for her second evacuation came, the Russians did not budge an inch. She had not the remotest idea of moving. Instead of moving her army out of the two Provinces of Mukden and Kirin, as she had promised, she presented demands. That perhaps was the peculiar Russian way of making good her treaty promises. But Japan could not understand that. The seven articles of the Russian demands called, among other things, for the closing of Manchuria against the economic activities of any other people than her own. She presented her demands as the condition of further evacuation.

The picture which filled the vision of Japan was this: Once Russia became the master of Manchuria, she would obtain a great base for future operations. Manchuria is rich in natural resources. Russia at the time was admittedly the mightiest military power on earth. Russia at home in Manchuria, the fate of Chosen was about as safe and wholesome as a piece of tenderloin steak in the mouth of a Siberian wolf. With Russian Chosen across the Tsushima channel the national life of Japan was simply a candle-flame in the path of a typhoon. As the conviction that the Russian army was not leaving Manchuria at all; that Russia was simply toying with Japan, gradually sunk into her understanding, Japan saw red.

But her rage had the appreciation of profound danger. It did not blind her to the enormous outlay of money and men Russia had made in her Manchurian adventure. Like a man under the shadow of an overwhelming crisis, Japan hoped against hope. She said to herself:

Suppose we recognize the special position of Russia in Manchuria, and in return get her to recognize the special position of Japan in Chosen? If Russia would only agree to the establishment of a neutral zone between Man

churia and Chosen, perhaps we could yet work out our destiny in peace. That precisely was the offer Japan made to Russia. But unfortunately, Japan was a mere joke in the eyes of Admiral Alexieff and other Russian architects of her Far-Eastern Empire who were upon the ground and whose counsel had greater weight at the Court of the Tsar than any other. The thing drifted\ on steadily toward the abyss until the night of February 8th, 1904, when our friend Admiral Alexieff and the Far Eastern fleet of Russia, riding at anchor in the roadstead of Port Arthur, woke up with a start.

PASSING OF RUSSIA FROM SOUTH MANCHURIA

At Portsmouth in the summer of 1905 the fuss came to an end. History sometimes turns into a satirist. It brought M. de Witte, author of the Chinese Eastern Railway system and father of the dream of the greater Russia in the Far East, to the graveyard of his own dream-child. Port Arthur and Dalny passed definitely out of the Russian rainbow, and with them 4371⁄2 miles of South Manchuria railway up to Changchun, with all the mining and other privileges and concessions.

So died the grandiose fantasy of the Far-Eastern Empire of the Tsar. But not the real work of Russians, there in Manchuria.

Quite the contrary. It is more alive to-day than ever before. That city which the Russians planted hard by a solitary Chinese distillery in the heart of the valley of the Sungari and which stands as the peroration of Russian efforts in North Manchuria, is more than twice as big to-day as it was on the day when the Portsmouth Treaty was signed. When I visited it last year, the City of Harbin claimed a population of 400,000. The Harbin police statistics of November, 1922, gave it more than 380,000.

It is far and away the most important city in North Manchuria: it is its chief distributing point. All the industrial activities of the vast Amur Province of Manchuria center there. It is the only city in the whole of Asia which has nearly as many white population as natives in it.

CITY OF HARBIN

Harbin was founded May 28th, 1898, officially. It is less than 27 years young. It is the one outstanding monument to the constructive activities of Russians in Manchuria. The old Harbin was a mere village, practically nothing at all, when the Russians began to build from it in the general direction of the Sungari River. According to the police figures of Harbin for November, 1922, there were 155,402 Russians in the city; and its total Chinese population numbered 183,696. There were less than 4,000 Japanese. There were more than 36,000 of other races. In 1918 there were 60,200 Russians there against 94,000 Chinese. Therefore in four years the Russians increased two and a half times, while the Chinese were doubling their number. This, I believe, is a record unparalleled in the history of European population in an Asian city. This was not altogether due to commercial or economic reasons: it was largely due to the coming of the Bolshevik Régime into European Russia, toward the close of the Great War. When the old Tsarist Régime went under the Red flood, thousands of Russians fled from Europe. To the refugees the oncedreaded ice-locked prison for murderers and traitors did not look so bad. The young flourishing town in Northern Manchuria, which was being sung as the New Moscow of the Far East, took on the rosy tints of a haven of refuge. They therefore made a rush for it, especially while the influence of the White Russians was dominant.