(6) In case of Asiatic complications, England would naturally expect reinforcements from Australia, and from the mother country by the Canadian Pacific Railway, but after they arrive at Vancouver, and are on transport, they will be at the mercy either of Japan or the occupier, whoever it may be, of Formosa. Even the Bismarckian policy re New Guinea would be broken down, i.e., all commercial and strategical communication between Hong Kong and Australia would be seriously incommoded by the occupation of Formosa.

(c) If China herself occupied Formosa thoroughly, and allied with Japan who to enable French cruisers to prey on our East Indiamen. Louis XIV. volunteered armed aid to Annam in order to cut off Calcutta from Canton. A French occupation of Tonkin is a serious matter. French cruisers supplied with coal from the mines of Tonkin would lie in the fairway of our China trade, Burmah and Calcutta would be effectually blockaded, and our outlying Oriental possessions grievously threatened (C. B. Norman's "Tonkin and France in the Far East").

I The inhabitants of the eastern region refuse to recognize the Chinese authority. China cannot control the people of Formosa at all. There is a proverb, Every three years an outbreak, every five a rebellion."

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occupies the Loo-Choo Islands, they would be impregnable in the sea above 20° of N. lat.

I

Again, if the occupier of the Loo Choo Islands also occupied Formosa on a military basis, she again would have nearly absolute control of the North Pacific. England would be supreme if she held both Hong Kong and Formosa; Germany if the holder would not only complete the Bismarckian policy in New Guinea, but would start a new Germanic policy in the North Pacific.

Thus we see that Japan, China, England, and Germany, might become important actors in the China Sea, while Russia and China would be actors behind the scenes in Manchooria and Mongolia.

The whole result of a historical study of the foreign policy of England and Russia tells us that Russia has increased her influence by

In 1873 a Japanese vessel was wrecked on the eastern coast of Formosa and the crew massacred by the savages. The Japanese Government sent an expedition which was perfectly successful. Eighteen of the tribes in Formosa were defeated and subjugated.

annexing and conquering in every 1 direction of the compass with Moscow as the centre of the Empire. Peter the Great started in the direction of the Baltic, i.e., north-west; Catherine II. towards the Crimea and Poland in a south and westerly direction; Alexander I. confined his attention to the Balkans and Caucasus, while Nicholas improved on the same directions, and marched into Central Asia, and since 1858 the Russian attention has been turned on the East, i.e., the Pacific.

England, on the other hand, has added to her fame by establishing the following naval and coaling stations along the great highways of trade:

Heligoland in the North Sea, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Perim, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Labuan; the Accession Islands, St. Helena,

I The Russian frontier has been advanced toward Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, and Paris

and the Cape of Good Hope, in Africa; the Bermuda Islands, Halifax, the West Indies, especially Jamaica, and the Falkland Islands in America, besides many important islands in the South and West Pacific.

By means of these, in the present days of steam, she has been able to maintain her place as the Queen of the Maritime World-a position superior to Russia, although the latter country is lord of one-seventh of the globe.

With such great rivals, we can surely predict that at some future time Russia will work her way into Manchooria and Mongolia to the Yellow Sea and attack the North Pacific. "Everything is obtained by pains," said Peter the Great, in 1722; "even India was not easily found after the long journey round the Cape of Good Hope." I Το this Soimonf, who afterwards devoted himself for seventeen years to the exploration of Siberia, and was its governor, said that "Russia had a much nearer road to India, and explained the water system of

E. Schuyler's "Peter the Great," vol. ii. p. 592.

Siberia, how easily and with how little land carriage goods could be sent from Russia to the Pacific and then by ships to India." Peter replied, "It is a long distance and of no use yet awhile." But in the present days of telegraphy and railroads it is not a great distance at all.

England will without doubt occupy Formosa in order to uphold her power in the same quarter. The result it would be almost impossible to foretell. But this fact remains a certainty that will one day come to pass, that England and Russia will at some future period fight for supremacy in the North Pacific. Japan lies between the future

combatants!