12 
PEESIDE^yT’s ADBEESS— SECTION E. 
square miles, but with a population of 213,000, the revenue of 
£55,000 in 1877 had risen already to £500,000 sterling in 1890, 
leaving a credit balance of £100,000. The State of Selangor, with 
only 3,000 square miles, but a population of 110,000, showed a 
revenue of £450,000 in 1890, leaving a surplus of £140,000. these 
splendid results are principally due to tin mines worked by Chinese ; 
but among other products gambir is also much obtained. 
We stand at the eve of great politic changes in Eastern Asia, 
The seclusiveness of China, Avhich prevailed since grey antiquity, 
became broken in oiir very days, and must give way to significant 
reforms, affecting favourably the commerce and industries also in our 
Australian dominions. J.apan, in an enlightened spirit, was in the van 
of these East Asiatic transformations, the results becoming strikingly 
manifest in events of the latest days ; and the irresistible waves of 
human progress will sweep away more and more the antiquated 
prejudices, narrow-minded obstructions, and fanatic intolerance. It 
is as yet quite impossible to foresee how far and how soon these 
unavoidable transmutations will in all the recesses of Eastern 
Asia be triumphant ; but the initiation is sure to be early, 
and the effect quick. It wdll be speeded by Russia’s present 
gigantic efforts of rendering its vast territories in Northern 
Asia accessible through railway communication. These efforts are 
to some extent the sequence of a great geographic achievement — 
the renowned voyage of the “Vega.” China, with its incalculably 
rich natural resources, especially also in coal, will be forced to 
follow these systems of expansiveness for transport through the 
world, linking the universal interests of mankind together for peace, 
prosperity, and worldly blessing. Even Japan, with all its pro- 
gressive tendencies, will make still greater strides to attain an 
equilibrium with the status of the great nations. No longer will the 
movable mat dwellings, with their small carbon fires, remain of wide 
adoption. No longer will mechanic handicraft even there continue 
the main motor in its industrious life ! Imagine merely the require- 
ments of China for facilitating its internal traffic by means of ordinary 
wheeled conveyances of modern type. What an outlet opens thus 
alone for Australian factories from our many harbours ! Our detail 
knowledge of geography will also profit from the pending alterations 
of national usages based on inveterate traditions in the far East of 
Asia. 
The young Czar Nicholas II., with the most philanthropic views, 
inaugurates his reign doubtless in carrying out the thoughts or 
intentions of his imperial father, by entering on or continuing the 
construction of the above alluded to railway from the Ural to the 
northern boundary of Corea, a distance of about 5,000 miles, possibly 
involving an expenditure of £20,000,000 sterling. This contemplated 
steam communication by land will be three times as extensive as the 
one since some time in progress from Adelaide to Port Darwin, and 
may initiate new trade relations with our colonies, and, by its fitting in 
with the recently started Eussiau steam navigation line from Vladi- 
vostock to W^estern North America, will bring about in those latitudes 
a direct encircling of the world. The line across Siberia will of course 
traverse many districts sufficiently populous, and therefore largely 
productive through working power, but will have to cope with an 
