dare to put himself in face of
those who champion a national cause, as is the re-absorption of Chinese
Turkestan. The return of Tso Tsung Tang with his veterans would be the
least danger that the adoption of an unpatriotic policy would entail. If
this home danger, then, does not arise, the Kuldja question will be
settled between Tso and the Russian authorities in Khokand and Kuldja.
The result of that discussion cannot be doubtful. The advocates on
either side are soldiers, each equally confident in their own abilities
and power, and each flushed by a long tide of success. They will come to
the discussion of the question with heated blood and excited nerves;
reason will not be the presiding goddess at the council board. There
will be accusations and recriminations bandied from one side to the
other. If such be the case, the Kuldja question will not be long in
discussion, and before the close of the present year perhaps, but more
probably early next spring, there will be war between Russia and China
along the Tian Shan range. Even if Tso is content to permit his
arguments to be clothed in diplomatic language, there will be no
solution of the difficulty, so long as Russia remains where she is; and
consequently the difference will be as great between Russia and China as
if there were open hostilities between the countries. And this, after
all, is the main point, for the destruction of all friendly sentiment
between Russia and China means the addition of another element to "the
great game in Central Asia," and that element, as an adverse one to
Russia, is a beneficial circumstance for this country. The difference
over the Kuldja question magnifies the previously existing discordant
points between the countries, and irretrievably wrecks whatever prospect
there once was of Russia and China pursuing an identical policy towards
Baroghil and Cashmere. We have now to consider the past relations
between England and China, in order that we may be in a position to
appreciate the full significance of China's reappearance in Central
Asia, and also what is to be the probable outcome of the gradual
approximation of the three Great Powers, and the slow extinction of the
once innumerable petty states of Asia.

What, then, have been the mutual relations between England and China in
the past? There is no necessity to enter into the question of the
footing we are on along the sea-coast, for that is really beside the
question; nor need we rec