The North. China Daily News publishes the text of the
Treaty between China and Russia which Count Cassini carried with him to St. Petersburg, and which now only awaits the signatures of the two Emperors. The authenticity of this Treaty is not admitted by the Russian Embassy here, but Embassies are not bound to admit treaties until ratified, and we think any one who reads it (in the Times of Tuesday, p. 8) will believe it to be authentic. No forger would have tried so elaborately to protect the pride of China while securing every Russian object. Nothing is ceded openly, but Russia is permitted to run her Siberian railway to Kirin—that is, two-thirds of the way through Manchouria—and is expressly authorised to keep. all the troops she pleases to protect her stations. From Kirin to Newchang, and thence to Port Arthur, China may build the extensions; but if she does not Russia may, doubtless with the same right of protecting stations. For Russia is to fortify Port Arthur for China, and though in time of peace she is not to govern that harbour, still in time of war she may "concentrate her forces " there, in order to defend her position. No gloss is required to interpret phrases like these, which in point of fact, though not of form, completely invest Russia with the military control of Manchouria and the Liau-tung Peninsula. We have commented on the Treaty at length elsewhere, but may remark here that the arrangement seems to us to threaten Japan far more than Great Britain, which can resist when her commercial rights are menaced just as well as now.
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