sentiment is so weak in these cold, unemotional people that they may be said to have practically the same religion.

Thus Manchuria has been welded by war from a mass of independent nomad clans of uncivilised barbarians into a united State whose inhabitants, partly under the influence of the binding pressure which these warlike operations have enforced, and partly under the influence of the more advanced peoples to the south, have acquired many of those cohesive traits of character which tend to permanently consolidate a State.

But is Manchuria yet strong enough to hold its own against the immense pressure now bearing upon it by the great civilised Power on the North? Parts of the country have already gone. Is more to follow? Is the whole one day to be swallowed up by Russia? By a master stroke the Russians cut off all the ports on the north, so that the sea bases in that quarter are now in their hands and not in the hands of the Chinese. And now they are gaining a footing at Port Arthur, in the south. The great Siberian railway, which will immensely strengthen the Russian position in the Far East, will soon be completed, and its extension into Manchuria appears to be in Russian hands. Russian drill instructors are, moreover, said to be engaged in training Chinese troops. If the present tendency continues, the lower part of Manchuria will follow the upper portion, till the whole becomes a Russian province, and the southern ports, like the northern, become naval harbours for Russian fleets. Are the Chinese capable of arresting this tendency?

Unaided I think it may be safely said they are not. The pressure is too great. The attractive force which draws the heavy northern mass downwards is too powerful, and the loadstone from which issues the attractive force lies in the extreme southern end of Manchuria-in Port Arthur-and therefore draws the mass across the entire length of the land. And combined and compact though the people are they have not yet attained that degree of military combination and discipline which is required to resist such a Power as Russia. They are not like the Boers, who at the first sign of danger rally, every single man of them, to the point of attack. They are sluggish and indifferent, and an invader would be well inside their country before they realised he was near. Again, their intense conservatism prevents their adopting with due efficiency those implements of modern warfare without which it would be impossible to stand against the Russians; and this same obstructive sentiment would similarly stand against their employing the system of tactics which the use of those implements necessitates. Want in the people of due military combination and of the needful adaptability to the conditions of the times makes it certain that they will by themselves be unable to arrest that tendency which is leading to the eventual absorption of Manchuria by Russia.

And that this absorption should come about it is not necessary to suppose that China should enter directly into conflict with Russia. It is much more likely that Russia will absorb bit by bit of Manchuria while China is in difficulties elsewhere. This has been her policy in the past, and she is not likely to adopt any other in the future. But the ultimate result will be the same. Without foreign aid China will be unable to arrest that progress of Russia which is now tending to the complete annexation of Manchuria.

But it is equally certain that, whether the Russian does or does not absorb Manchuria, the industrial development of the country must advance. The very pressure of a powerful rival has been favourable for commercial progress. As long ago as 1886 we found the Chinese rapidly constructing a telegraph line purely for strategical reasons. But this, once constructed, was immensely useful for business purposes also. And it is simply under the pressure of a possible enemy that railways will be constructed. With these advantages, in addition to the great natural advantage the country affords, a people of such physique, intelligence, and business capacity must rapidly advance, and must further develop the wonderful resources of the country.

And this is the point of utmost importance to England. Here is a market as yet scarcely touched, but which will in the future yearly increase in value. For in Manchuria there is not only immense natural wealth, but, what is of equal-perhaps more-importance, an advanced and civilised people who do not need, like barbarians, to be educated to feel their wants, but have considerable wants already. They have not advanced sufficiently rapidly to compete with a great European Power, but they must not therefore be thought to be altogether at a standstill. At Kirin they had established, without any European supervision whatever, an arsenal which turned out breechloading rifles and machine guns. Close on the southern border of Manchuria was a coal mine and a railway owned entirely by Chinamen. Many of the steamers which trade to Manchuria are owned by a Chinese firm. Throughout the country there are large trading and banking establishments, with branches at all the principal places. New towns with well-built brick or masonry houses, good shops, and wide, open streets are springing up. And the forest is being cleared away and new tracts opened out with an energy their northern neighbours have not yet displayed. And if the military government of Manchuria is likely to pass into the hands of the Russians, its industrial development is no less likely to lie with the Chinese. The Russian soldier may oust the Chinese soldier. But the Russian peasant will not be able to compete with the Chinese peasant. And even the Russian business man will have a hard struggle to keep ahead of his Chinese rival.

Here, then, is a promising market for the sale of our cotton goods, implements, machinery, and other requirements of an advanced and thriving community. This market is as yet scarcely touched, and we have to bear in mind that the population will not only increase both by immigration and by natural growth till at the end of another half-century there will probably be 40,000,000 inhabitants in Manchuria, but that this population, once the railways which strategical reasons have forced upon the country have been completed, will find their requirements doubling and redoubling in amount. What they want from us to-day is no standard of the vastly increased amount they will require from us to-morrow.

Into this market we have a treaty right to partially enter. We may trade from one port in the south, and our traders who wish to travel through the country may stay up to six months at any place. Furthermore, we have the treaty right to demand from the Chinese the same privileges as they may grant to any other nation. In spite of the proximity of Russia and Japan to Manchuria, we certainly obtained the lead in the trade with the country. A few years ago the only firms at Newchwang, the one treaty port, were English firms. The construction of the railway from the south towards Manchuria was under the direction of an Englishman, the customs department was manned by Englishmen, and, of no slight importance in business matters, the telegraph system was conducted in English.

This lead which we have won it is all-important that we should maintain and develop. We have to look far into the future to the time when the rich portions of the earth have been partitioned off among the Powers of Europe; and we have to contemplate the probability that those portions once absorbed will be irrevocably closed to us. Recognising this, and recognising the benefits which this country must obtain from having access to a market like Manchuria, it behoves us to rigidly maintain every inch of advantage we have won; to never omit to claim what privileges may be granted to other Powers; and to take every single opportunity which offers itself of advancing our interests a step farther.

If the Russians acquire any advantages at Port Arthur we should claim similar advantages. If the Russians are granted special rading facilities in the north, we must demand similar facilities in the south by the opening of Ta-lien-hoang Bay as a treaty port; and if the Russians are granted any exclusive privileges in regard to the construction of railways on the one side, we must claim like privileges in regard to railway construction on the other.

For we are engaged in a keen struggle with the great civilised Powers of the world, and have to press and maintain our rights or fall behind in the race. We may console ourselves with the reflection that this pressing of our rights to trade is causing no evil, but

is, on the contrary, conferring a benefit upon those upon whom we press them, and that no people have the right, which the Chinese are assuming, to arrogate to their exclusive use so rich a portion of the earth's surface as Manchuria, by the due exploitation of which both they and the rest of mankind would be benefited.

Rajputana Agency,
Mount Abu, India.

F. E. YOUNGHUSBAND.

SOME OF THE RESOURCES OF CANADA

LAST summer I received from the Toronto organising committee the invitation to come out to Canada with the British Association. It is well known, but it gives me great pleasure to acknowledge it once more, that the members of the British Association, whether British or foreign, received from the Canadians-and those of us who went to the States from the Americans-the most friendly welcome, and were treated with the utmost cordiality and hospitality. Many a standing friendship between scientific men of the Old and the New World has grown up during that visit. After the meeting of the British Association was over a most instructive trip was organised by the Canadian Pacific Railway across the continent to Vancouver, and I had the privilege of belonging to the party of geologists and geographers who went out, and stopped to visit the main points of interest, under the guidance of the best two authorities in the geology and geography of Canada. Dr. G. Dawson, the Director of the Geological Survey, who knows that part of the Rocky Mountains and the coast ranges as his own garden, and Professor Coleman, who is equally well acquainted with the mining regions of Central Canada, conducted our party, all possible arrangements having been made by local committees to enable us to see the most of the country and its resources during our stops on the route.

At Victoria the party broke up, and on the back journey I devoted my chief attention to agriculture and to settlers in the North-west Provinces. Here, again, I met with the greatest cordiality and the greatest desire on behalf of all the local administrationsand, in fact, of every one I came in contact with-to enable me to judge by myself of what the new lands opened for settlement are worth. 'Let us give them all possible facilities to know everything by themselves, but let us be careful not to prejudice them one way or another,' seems to have been the watchword all over Canada. If time had permitted me to do so, I had only to avail myself of the facilities which were offered to me for seeing every settlement and town in the North-west and Manitoba.

Of my visits to the experimental farms of Canada in company