Railroad Rivalry in Asia and the Russian Question
By Editor
A WRITER in the Century for March says that “America, Germany, Belgium, Japan, China, Italy, France, Turkey, England, and Russia are to-day building or projecting railroads in Asia;” and that “suddenly, and for the first time, every one of the nine countries first enumerated discovers that at the beginning of 1900 its railway lines at some point touch or encroach upon those of the tenth [Russia]—America at Hankow, Germany at Tientsin, Belgium at Ching-Ting, Japan in Corea, China at various points, Italy at Tai-yuan, France at Wu-chang, Turkey and Germany in Armenia, while England, touching Russian lines at Peking, Niu-chuang, and other points in central China, also is threatened at Herat and Kabul in Afghanistan, and is fearing for her northern boundary of India in the Pamira.” He closes with the observation that “England, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the United States may awaken to the situation soon enough to checkmate Russia by completing their routes. . . . But if these countries continue too long to be apathetic, the great bear will have all Asia in the merciless grasp of his steel-shod claws, and no man can foretell the outcome.” The article is accompanied with an excellent map, and presents a most interesting study in the perennial and mighty greater Eastern question. IF you are getting as much good as we are from the articles on “The Gospel of the Kingdom,” then you are convinced that these alone, and already, are worth much more than a whole year’s subscription to the REVIEW AND HERALD. See, therefore, what a paying investment it will be to make your subscription such that you will be sure to get all of them, and at the same time get the abundance of other good matter that is regularly in the paper. And how easy it is to get it all when you can keep up your subscription, if not for a whole year at once, two months or even one month at a time!