The Standard correspondent at St. Petersburg, in a telegram published
on Tuesday, gives some curious information as to the pressure of the Chinese upon neighbouring States. Their rapid colonisation of the Amur and of South Ussuria is beginning to cause anxiety to the Russian Government. While the Russians have entirely failed to plant their own people on the lands of these provinces, the irre- pressible Chinaman is pouring over the frontier and making himself a new home. There is talk of imposing a poll- tax on the immigrants, or of finding some other means of checking their advance ; but it is difficult to see how this is to be accomplished. It is all very well to keep the Chinese from landing at San Francisco or Sydney, but quite another matter to prevent them oozing across the unsurveyed and unwatchable boundary-line of Russia's south-eastern possessions. Assuredly we ought to be thankful that we have so perfect a buffer-State as Tibet between China and India, and that even in Burmah there is a belt of hill-tribes to the north which hides the attractions of our new province. Once give the Chinese the chance to swarm into India, and we should have the difficulty of government multiplied a hundred- fold. It was the knowledge of this fact that made Lord Dalhousie determine never to meddle with Upper Burmah.
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