rence. It would seem that they are in plain contravention of the order directing all disputes as to rightful occupancy to be determined by the courts.

The Independent Filipino Catholic Church has come. to stay. Just how strong a hold it will be able to keep over the multitudes which have flocked to its standard of revolt against the pope can not be foretold. But it may be reckoned with as a permanent factor in the religious future of the Philippines.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE PHILIPPINES AND THE FAR EAST.

REDUCED to its lowest terms, the Eastern Question is the question whether or not Russia shall dominate Asia. Other elements enter the problem. Other Powers have interests, and Japan's very existence is at stake; but it is the iron determination of Russia to control all of Asia which makes the Eastern Question.

Russia wants the Far East for at least three reasons. She wants it because there she can get access to salt water. No nation can be truly great without open ports on the blue highway of the nations. History shows that every nation which has built up its commerce until that commerce furnished solid foundations upon which national life could be established has had sea-room. When the nations which have left the largest contributions to the laws and literatures and institutions of all after time were in the height of their power, it was to the Mediterranean that they were indebted for that power. It was the sea which carried their corn and their silks and their armies. Rome and Greece, Egypt and Phenicia were sea-powers. Their continental hinterland would have had little meaning, no matter how fertile, had it not been possible to send its products swiftly to markets where it could be bartered for other products for which the trade of the country called. When the maritime activities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had discovered another continent richer

than any yet exploited, at the farther edge of the Atlantic, the center of the world-life and world-trade shifted to this larger highway, with its watery roads leading to all ports of the Americas and Europe. Without the Mediterranean, there could have been no Egypt, and Rome would have been a puny nation. Without the open paths of the wide Atlantic, England's greatness would have never

come.

But Russia can not reach the Atlantic at open ports. Her land is nearly all hinterland. Nowhere does she face salt water. All her efforts to reach it toward the south have been defeated by the jealousy of England. Defeated at the south, she has turned to the East, determined to find on the Pacific what she has been denied on the Mediterranean. How deeply rooted is this conviction that open ports on the sea are necessary to her existence and development can be seen in the vast expenditure of not less than $500,000,000 for that most daring railway project. of all that have ever been attempted, the Trans-Siberian. If further proof of her settled policy is needed, it may be found in her audacity in wresting from Japan the fruits of the latter's victory over China at the close of the China-Japan War, and holding Port Arthur and Manchuria. Russia now has reached the sea. At Port Arthur, at Vladivostock, and now at Dalny, the Russian city of the future in the Far East, she has attained her end. Those who imagine that she intends to retire from Manchuria must be wholly ignorant of the policy which has held her steadily to the stupendous task of creating the railway.

The second reason why Russia lusts for the domination of Asia lies in her desire to find outlets for her immense trade. Asia is filled with millions of earth's population. At least seven hundred million people are within

the territories which Russia has determined to control with a more or less direct hand. These people are buyers of the things which Russia can grow and manufacture. At present England and Germany have the larger share of this immense market. Neither England nor Germany has a tithe of the natural resources which Russia posIn her continuous continental territory of more than eight million square miles she has mines of all kinds of ores, with enough of each to supply a world. In her millions of .cres of forest she has lumber to build for the nations. In her far-reaching acres of rich soil she has resources only equaled by the United States, and nearly all undeveloped. For all these she craves markets. With the sea for a highway, and the Far East for her customers, she can carry and sell, and buy and carry home those rich spoils of field and mine out of which. national wealth and greatness is to be had. All the prizes for which Rome played her game of power are petty compared with the colossal schemes which the diplomats of the White Father have matured. He plans to control one continent that he may ultimately control another nearer home.

The third reason why Russia has settled it that all Asia must come under her sway is, that by this means it will be possible for her to fall heir to the riches of China. China will ultimately fall and be seized by some other Power or Powers. Russia proposes to be that Power. For this, in part, the railway and the construction of coterminous land frontiers of thousands of miles. For this, in part, the seizure of Manchuria, and the present readiness to fight Japan, if necessary, to hold both Manchuria and get a better grip on Korea. As the vulture wheels in the upper air above the doomed and staggering horse about to die in the open, so

T

by the bedside of a decadent China, waiting but ready to strike when the gasping patient gives final indications of national dissolution. Russian money supported the Boxer movement. Li Hung Chang was in the pay of Russia to his last breath. More than one high official of China to-day is being enriched from the coffers of the Bear, and in return gives information and helps on treaties and concessions and franchises otherwise unobtainable. An elaborate system of espionage leaves no move in the great game unknown to the astute diplomats of the Czar. It is a waiting game, but it is a mighty game. When the old Chinese junk goes to pieces on rocks that lie not far ahead, there will be one wrecking crew ready with all the A nation tackle to secure both cargo and passengers. of four hundred million people, with all the unthinkable wealth of forest and field and mine, is to be gained in some such way as England has gained India. Advantages of trade, national prestige, uncounted wealth,these, and the control of other nations and peoples to whom China is the key, are the immense stakes for which Russia plays her game.

Can she accomplish these vast purposes? Has she the financial soundness, the military strength, and the national resources with which designs so titanic may be realized? On this point there is widespread misapprehension, which it has been a part of Russian policy to create and maintain. The impression prevails that Russia is a reckless spendthrift, and has borrowed in all directions and with desperate eagerness. It is commonly believed that Russia is on the verge of bankruptcy, with imperiled credit and exhausted resources. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The national debt of Russia is less than that of France or England. It stands now at $3,331,000,000. The annual interest is $132,500,000. Yet