Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/326

 318] FOKEIGN HISTORY. [1899.

Arthur in which foreign merchants were granted the same rights and privileges as Russian commercial firms. Manchuria had practically become a Russian province ; all the important cities were garrisoned by Russian troops, and strong Cossack forts were established along the great wall on all strategic points. The whole country, in fact, was organised by Russia on military lines, and special attention was given to the making of good roads and bridges. On April 28, identical notes were exchanged between Russia and Great Britain with regard to their respective railway interests in China, mutually engaging " not to seek on their own account, or on behalf of their subjects or of others, any railway concessions, and not to obstruct directly or in- directly, applications for railways concessions " supported by either Power, the districts reserved for each Power being to the north of the great wall as regards Russia, and the basin of the Yang-tsze as regards Great Britain. It was at the same time agreed that the Niu Chwang Line, for which a loan had been contracted by the Chinese Government with the Shanghai and Hong-Kong Bank, might be constructed under the superin- tendence of an English engineer, but that the line should not be subject to foreign control or be mortgaged or alienated to a non-Chinese company, and that the region m which the line was to be constructed might be traversed by a Russian line starting from the main Manchurian line. Notwithstanding this agree- ment Russia demanded from China a concession for a Russian railway to Pekin as a continuation of the Russian railway system in Manchuria. The demand was refused, but it remained in abeyance to the end of the year. In Korea, although Russia had withdrawn her officials and bound herself by a convention with Japan (see Annual Register, 1898, p. 279) to abstain from interference with the internal affairs of Korea, she acquired the lease of some ice-free sea-ports in that country and took other steps to secure her influence there which roused the suspicions of Japan and produced a marked coolness in her relations with Russia.

With France Russia remained on the most friendly terms, though there still was no practical result of the alliance between the two countries. M. Delcass^'s visit to St. Petersburg in August was returned by Count Muravieff in October, but no important resolution seems to have been arrived at during either of these visits. One object of Count Muravieffs visit to Paris and Madrid was stated to be the formation of a continental coalition against England in view of her difficulties in South Africa, and this plan was certainly suggested by several Russian papers which were conspicuous by the malevolence of their comments on the war. The Czar, however, showed no inclina- tion to take up the cause of the Boers, and it would indeed have been a flagrant inconsistency to support the enemies of freedom in the Transvaal while suppressing the freedom of Finland, which a London paper with a curious topsy-turvydom described