The first result of M. Pavloff's policy of disinterested friendship became manifest in 1896, when the Chinese Government concluded an agreement with the Russo-Chinese Bank, providing for the formation of a company to be styled the Eastern Chinese Railway Company, the ownership of which was to be vested solely in Russian and Chinese subjects and which was to construct and work a railway within the confines of China, from one of the points on the western borders of the province of Heh-Lung-Kiang to one of the points on the eastern borders of the province of Kirin; and to the connection of this railway with those branches which the Imperial Russian Government would construct to the Chinese frontier from Trans-Baikalia and the Southern Ussuri lines. The institution, which went by the plain, solid, commercial name of the Russo-Chinese Bank, was, of course, merely a sort of Far Eastern annex of the Finance Bureau of M. de Witte, and the line thus modestly announced was the nucleus of the great railway which has since played such a large part in consolidating the Russian dominion over Manchuria. At the outset it was pretended that the line was to be merely a short cut to Vladivostock, but the true ambitions at the bottom of the scheme became apparent when Russian engineers began to pour into the country followed by squadrons of Cossacks, nominally for the protection of the new railway, but really in pursuance of Russia's invariable policy of impressing the natives with a due sense of her enormous military strength.
The Mailed Fist
The construction of the line, however, had not proceeded very far when, in 1897, an event occurred which gave the Czar's Government the chance for which they had long been anxiously looking. The massacre of some German missionaries led to swift and stern reprisals on the part of the Kaiser. The port of Kiao-Chau, in the province of Shantung, was seized until reparation was made for the outrage committed upon the majesty of the German Empire, and to placate the offended "mailed fist," the feeble Government of China were compelled to hand over this important position to Germany as a permanent possession, although, by a characteristic euphemism of diplomacy, the transaction was conveniently styled a "lease." Russia's opportunity was now too good to be neglected. Emboldened by the example of Germany, she demanded—for that is what her so-called "request" amounted to in reality—permission from the Chinese Government to winter her fleet at Port Arthur. Perhaps it may be imputed to her for righteousness that, unscrupulous as she is, she has never found it necessary to employ the missionaries of Christ as instruments of aggression; at all events on this occasion she had no such excuse at hand. The helpless Chinese assented, of course, to her request; but now Great Britain, awake at last to the dangers which threatened her Treaty rights, endeavored to intervene. Strong representations were made by the English Minister to the Tsung-lai-yamen as to the necessity for turning the port of Ta-lien-wan—which lies immediately adjacent to Port Arthur—into a Treaty port; that is to say, throwing it open to the trade of the world on the same terms as obtain at Shanghai, Canton, Hankau, and other ports of China at which the policy of the Open Door prevails.
THE JAPANESE AT PORT ARTHUR.
Russian Leases
English statesmen, however, were no match for the wily Russians, who had the ear of the Chinese mandarins. The Government of the Czar successfully opposed the suggestion, and backed up its representations at Peking by significant display of force, for a considerable fleet of men-of-war arrived at Port Arthur and Ta-lien-wan in the spring of 1898 and practically took possession. Then, by a mingled process of terrorism and corruption, the Chinese Government were induced to grant the Czar a "lease" of the two harbors on the same terms as those on which Germany had been granted possession of Kiao-Chau, and, equally important, to permit the extension of the line of the Eastern Chinese Railway Company to Port Arthur. Thus came into being the Manchurian Railway, the construction of which was pushed on with feverish activity.
Benevolent Professions
The first step towards the complete acquisition and control of Manchuria had now been successfully accomplished, and English diplomacy sought in vain to wrest from Russia the advantage she had thus skilfully acquired. Of course Russia was prolific of "assurances" as she always has been in similar circumstances. The Government of the Czar solemnly declared, for the satisfaction of any confiding person who was willing to believe it, that it had "no intention of infringing the rights and privileges guaranteed by existing treaties between China and foreign countries," and that the last thing it contemplated was interference with Chinese sovereignty over the province of Manchuria. The sincerity of these benevolent professions was to be judged by the fact that, having once secured a grip of Port Arthur, Russia hastened to convert it into a fortified post of great strength and magnitude, and closed it absolutely against the commerce of the world; and that, while on the one hand she so far met the anxious representations of the British Government as to constitute Ta-lien-wan a free port in name, on the other hand she deprived the concession of all real meaning by an irritating system of passports and administrative restrictions upon trade.
Wei-hai-Wei