a branch of the trans-Asian railway from north to south,
that is to say from Harbin through Mukden to Talien and Port Arthur.
Russia's maritime aspirations had now assumed a radically altered
phase. Hitherto her programme had been to push southward from
Vladivostok along the coast of Korea, but she had now suddenly leaped
Korea and found access to the Pacific by the Liaotung peninsula.
Nothing was wanting to establish her as practical mistress of
Manchuria except a plausible excuse for garrisoning the place. Such
an excuse was furnished by the Boxer rising, in 1900. The conclusion
of that complication found her in practical occupation of the whole
region. But here her diplomacy fell somewhat from its usually high
standard. Imagining that the Chinese could be persuaded, or
intimidated, to any concession, she proposed a convention virtually
recognizing her title to Manchuria.

JAPAN'S ATTITUDE

Japan watched all these things with profound anxiety. If there
were any reality in the dangers which Russia, Germany, and France
had declared to be incidental to Japanese occupation of a part
of Manchuria, the same dangers must be doubly incidental to
Russian occupation of the whole of Manchuria. There were other
considerations, also. The reasons already adduced show that the
independence of Korea was an object of supreme solicitude to Japan.
It was to establish that independence that she fought with China,
in 1894, and the same motive led her after the war to annex the
Manchurian littoral adjacent to Korea's northern frontier. If Russia
came into possession of all Manchuria, her subsequent absorption of
Korea would be almost inevitable. Manchuria is larger than France and
the United Kingdom put together. The addition of such an immense area
to Russia's East Asiatic dominions, together with its littoral on the
Gulf of Pehchili and the Yellow Sea, would necessitate a
corresponding expansion of her naval force in the Far East. With the
exception of Port Arthur and Talien, however, the Manchurian coast
does not offer any convenient naval base. It is only in the harbours
of southern Korea that such bases can be found. In short, without
Korea, Russia's East Asian extension would have been economically
incomplete and strategically defective.

If it be asked why, apart from history and national sentiment, Japan
should object to Russia in Korea, the answer is, first, because there
would thus be planted almost within cannon-shot of her