RUSSIAN EXPENDITURE IN MANCHURIA. 311 



events in the Far East. It is as yet impossible to say 

 what may take place at the termination of a war the 

 result of which no one can foresee ; but it is well to 

 observe, when considering the present lack of tangible 

 return for expenditure involved, the measures which 

 Eussia had taken to secure her position in the future 

 — a position which, but for the unwelcome rupture in 

 diplomatic relations, she would most undoubtedly have 

 achieved. 



In the first place, then, those who ridiculed the 

 policy of sinking vast capital sums in territory which 

 was only leased, even if the lease did extend for ninety- 

 nine years, paid but a poor compliment to the astuteness 

 of Russian diplomatists. Those responsible knew per- 

 fectly well what they were doing, for they knew that 

 they had a master clause in the treaty leasing them the 

 land for the railway, which constituted them in reality 

 the owners of the soil. And that clause, according to 

 the French explorer M. Chaffaujon, reads as follows : 

 " If at the expiration of ninety-nine years China desires 

 to enter into possession of the line, she must refund to 

 the Company all the expenses of construction and main- 

 tenance of the line from the first." The account, we 

 may safely presume, will be one which the Chancellor 

 of the Chinese Exchequer in 1995 will hardly find it 

 convenient to settle. So when Russia spends money 

 on her Manchurian railway it is as a landowner and 

 not as a tenant, and if she spends lavishly on her 

 property she has excellent reasons for doing so. 



Secure in her railway property, the next thing was 

 to secure the trade. I have referred to the strenuous 

 efforts of the Russian authorities to attract the com- 

 merce of Manchuria to Dalni, and I have also pointed 

 out how they have failed. There was a very excellent 

 reason why they should fail, and that reason was 



