by first forming municipal and provincial governments and leaving the establishment of a central government at Manila for the last step. He has sent a commission as a substitute for military government, and as a preliminary step to the establishment of a territorial form of government when it may be possible to give the natives the right of suffrage.

The changing conditions in Asia, the mother of races, are observed with interest by the entire world. From the East to the Far East, fact is overcoming fancy, and new life takes the place of the fading, vanishing pictures of the past. Modern, relentless progressiveness is gaining a foothold in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the land of Moab, in the Garden of Eden, and in the homes of Confucius and Buddha. The walls of Jerusalem echo the pant and screech of the locomotive, which now connects the Holy City with Jaffa on the Mediterranean; and probably it will not be long before a trolley line will connect the site of Solomon's capital with a line of steamboats on the Dead sea, which has so long remained a forsaken solitude in the midst of a desert. At the other end of Asia, Japan, since opening her arms to the progressive West, is thriving with manufacturing and other developing industries, and has recently stood forth as the little giant of the Orient. In 1894, disputing with China the protectorate of Corea, she sent her well-drilled and well-equipped troops to sustain her claims, soon occupied all Corea, Port Arthur, part of Manchuria and Wei-hai-Wei, and by the treaty of Shimonosaki (in April, 1895), induced China to cede Formosa, the Pescadores, and the peninsula of Liao-tung, to open new ports, to permit the erection of Japanese manufacturing establishments in the empire, and to agree to pay a war indemnity of seven hundred and fifty millions. She surprised the world by the rapidity of her success, but she was

soon persuaded, by the concerted "friendly" protest of Russia, France and Germany, to modify the treaty and relinquish Liao-tung and Wei-hai-Wei.

China, awakening from the lethargy of ages, observes that the face of the world has changed, and is preparing for regeneration from a long rule of ultra conservatism. She will soon be threaded with railways, and brought into closer touch with Western civilization. She has granted to Great Britain the privilege of building railroads in the valley of the Yang-tse, and has made concessions to other nations for roads in other parts of the empire. In 1896, she granted to the Eastern Chinese Railroad Company the right to build a line through Chinese Manchuria (to connect as a branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway), to develop coal and other mines in the adjoining territory, and to engage in other industrial and commercial enterprises. In 1898, she granted to Russia the privilege of building a railway from Vladivostock to Port Arthur. More recently she agreed to permit the construction of a line from Mukden in Manchuria to Peking, and three lines from Peking to the provinces of Shansi, Ho-nan and Hupeh. Still other lines are in contemplation to connect southern China with Peking, with French Indo-China, and with Burma of British India.

The "Eastern Question" has spread from Constantinople and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean to Persia, Afghanistan, and the Far East. It has expanded or resolved itself into many problems, of which the Chinese has recently become the most prominent. Of the nominally independent countries of Asia, i. e., Turkey, Arabia, Oman, Persia, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Siam, China, Corea and Japan -only Japan is thoroughly independent in fact. European powers have zones of influence in all of the others. Turkey, in need of a better government, has been the object of the

1A. R. Calquhoun: China in Transformation. Curzon: Problems of the Far East. Lord Charles Beresford: The Break-up of China.

deliberations of an international congress. Central Arabia is inhabited by tribes who owe allegiance to no single ruler. Oman is practically an English protectorate. Persia is dominated by Russia in the north and by England in the south. Afghanistan, under the uncertain rule of an Afghan chief, receives a subsidy from British India, and permits a Russian flotilla on her branches of the Oxus. Some say that occupation or protection by some stronger power is apparently the only relief for the chaotic conditions which exist from the Bosporus to the Hindu Kush. China, though not in the same political condition as Turkey and Persia, sometimes appears to be preparing herself for a coroner's inquest or vivisection. Her internal condition, together with her relation to opposing powers with conflicting interests, presents a serious case to the political doctors, who find it difficult to agree upon a remedy to effect a permanent cure.

The Anglo-Saxon and the Slav have met on the Plains of Pamir, the roof of the world, at the western gate of China. Only a strip of Afghan territory, twelve miles wide, lies between them, and it is under British influence. Afghanistan is only a temporary "buffer" between them, though it may be of little value to either except as a basis for military operations. With half-completed military roads, they keep their armies like bridled steeds, ready to prance toward each other in war-harness. The Anglo-Saxon nation, incessantly toiling, cultivating swamps and clearing jungles, driving back famine and pestilence, and opening the tropics to the world, has extended her dominion upward from the south of India, secured a supreme influence in Southern Asia from the Red Sea coast and the Persian Gulf on the west to Siam and toward Singapore on the east. She has peacefully expanded over Beluchistan, and extended her control northward from Calcutta to the Himalayas and eastward to Siam. Still further east she possesses Borneo and South Sea groups of islands. In China, she is already established at Hong Kong, has a shadowy sphere of predominating influence in

the Yang-tse valley, and is planning to secure a concession. for a railway from Burma to Yunnan.

The Slav, by a long record of toil and privation and selfdirected effort, has colonized central Asia and continued eastward with half-accidental, half-unconscious progress across the continent. Vast Russia, virile, apparently invincible, and increasingly predominant, spanning Europe and Asia, embracing one-half the combined area of the two continents (and nearly two and one-half times as large as the United States), is steadily expanding to the south and east along a wavering frontier of 10,000 miles. She is strengthening her hand in the Bosporus, Syria and Palestine and in Persia, which offers a practicable trade outlet to the Indian ocean, and an advantage in case of conflict with England. If England and France would permit, she would absorb Turkey, whose capital she has threatened for 800 years. She has become predominant in the north of Persia, whose territory she has been acquiring for 100 years. She has consolidated her position in Turkestan, elbowed China out of Pamir on the west. The more England has hindered her in the south, the better has she established herself in the east, especially since the Crimean war. In her search for a "scientific boundary," she has always advocated "rectification of the frontier" as a remedy for grievances, and is now in possession of the greater part of the land which China has been losing since 1858. Indenting Chinese territory from Pamir to Manchuria, she has been making rapid strides to occupy the position once held by Genghiz Khan.'

Russia is now at the beginning of a new era in her history. Since 1893, she has been consolidating the work of the early venturesome explorers across the wilds of Siberia by the construction of a trans-Siberian railway with numerous stations and branches. By means of this road she is securing a more rapid colonization of Siberia-whose fertile,

2 Alexia Krausse: Russia in Asia (1558-1899).

productive lands no longer remain locked in silence and solitude and is expecting to work a revolution in the commerce and travel of the world. She is bringing the Far East to the doors of Europe, and preparing to become an oceanic power. After a struggle of 200 years to reach the open sea, and a port free from ice at all seasons of the year, she now floats her flag over Port Arthur, southeast of Peking, and is attaining the freedom of the seas.

Russia now threatens to secure an advantage in the trade of China by a process of gradual absorption. She has rapidly become a manufacturing nation, and, like Great Britain and the United States and other powers, is seeking new markets. She claims a sphere of influence north and east of Peking, and has an eye toward the great central valley where British influence is still predominant. Knowing that it will be difficult for her, under equal terms, to compete with British, American, German and French trade, she may undertake to secure exclusive privileges for her traders and for the exercise of her influence, and perhaps obtain complete control of portions of China under an exclusive colonial system. In case she should become involved in a conflict with Great Britain, who has so long been her competitor and antagonist in the direction of Asia, she would probably have the assistance of France, who, driven from India by the British, and profiting by fortunate circumstances, has established a new French empire in the Indo-Chinese peninsula (including Cambodia, Anam, Cochin China and Tonkin), and has a sphere of commercial activity in the south of China. Russia and France, should they form an alliance for the partition of China, would probably be resisted by the common action of Great Britain and Japan, and also by Germany in case such action should seem to be subordinate to her European and general interests.

The United States, though beginning to play a great part in the Pacific, and having trade interests in the Orient which may increase rapidly, desires to remain free to act independently, or in cooperation, as circumstances may indicate