NEWS OF THE WEEK.
IN the theatre of war that which was inevitable, short of a miracle, has happened. The force despatched south by General Kuropatkin, owing to panic orders from St. Peters- burg, in the vain hope of relieving Port Arthur, has been encountered and decisively beaten by the Japanese near Wa-fang-tien, about seventy miles north of Port Arthur, and unless good luck favours its flight to safety, will be surrounded and annihilated. Already the Japanese have struck off a great piece of the tentacle so foolishly put forth by the Russians, and in all probability we shall hear before long that they have destroyed the whole. The detailed facts as re- ported on Friday show that on June 14th the Japanese en- countered the Russians under General Stackelberg, and after a two days' battle turned their right flank and drove them north in such precipitate flight that they lost three hundred prisoners, fourteen guns, and some colours. Five hundred killed and wounded were left on the field, a fact which shows that their total casualties must have been much higher. The Japanese losses were about a thousand killed and wounded. The Russians appear to have fought well, but they were out- numbered and so completely out-manceuvred that their only chance of avoiding envelopment was literally to " bolt " from the field. To-morrow's news will probably show whether even this hurried movement was able to extricate the Russian force from the position of peril in which it had placed itself. What is happening in the north-east of the theatre of war, where the main armies of Kuropatkin and Kuroki still face each other, is not clear, but there is no indication that. matters have improved from the Russian point of view. It should be noted that, as events develop, the Russian line runs more and more north and south. But this Means that Russia is fighting, not with her own territory behind her, but with her back to the Chinese frontier, which is strongly held by General Ma with the object of enforcing its neutrality. In this context it is, however, curious to note that the Japanese have out up a force of three hundred Chinese bandits who were acting with the Russians.
