y a rival. Already
English ships of war were reported to be prowling about in the vicinity
of the Liaotung Peninsula. She hastened to demand, therefore, as a
set-off for the loss of Kiaochau, a lease of Port Arthur and Talienwan,
and a railway concession to unite these ports with the Trans-Siberian
Railway. The Chinese Government was too weak to think of refusing the
demands, and the process of gradually absorbing Manchuria began, in
accordance with a plan already roughly sketched out in St. Petersburg.

In the light of a few authentic documents and many subsequent events,
the outline of this plan can be traced with tolerable accuracy. In the
region through which the projected railways were to run there was a
large marauding population, and consequently the labourers and the
works would have to be protected; and as Chinese troops can never be
thoroughly relied on, the protecting force must be Russian. Under
this rather transparent disguise a small army of occupation could be
gradually introduced, and in establishing a modus vivendi between it and
the Chinese civil and military authorities a predominant influence in
the local administration could be established. At the same time, by
energetic diplomatic action at Peking, which would be brought within
striking-distance by the railways, all rival foreign influences might be
excluded from the occupied provinces, and the rest might be left to the
action of "spontaneous infiltration." Thus, while professing to uphold
the principle of the territorial integrity of the Celestial Empire, the
Cabinet of St. Petersburg might practically annex the whole of Manchuria
and transform Port Arthur into a great naval port and arsenal, a far
more effectual "Dominator of the East" than Vladivostok, which was
intended, as its name implies, to fulfil that function. From Manchuria
the political influence and the spontaneous infiltration would naturally
extend to Korea, and on the deeply indented coast of the Hermit Kingdom
new ports and arsenals, far more spacious and strategically more
important than Port Arthur, might be constructed.

The grandiose scheme was carefully laid, and for a time it was favoured
by circumstances. In 1900 the Boxer troubles justified Russia in sending
a large force into Manchuria, and enabled her subsequently to play the
part of China's protector against the inordinate demands of the Western
Powers for compensation and guarantees. For a moment it seemed as if
the sl