for seventeen years, and who had performed the greatest services to all civilised nations by introducing the first railway into China. Lastly, she puts such pressure on the Chinese, that, though this same Chinese railway company were in the act of ordering the necessary railway plant and materials from an English firm, under Russian threats these orders were never given ; when the Company wanted to borrow money from an English bank, she actually went the length of threatening to annex a Chinese province as " compensation " !
If we may judge then from the recent experiences of our minister at Peking, from the experience of other British representatives in. different parts of Asia, and, I may add, from my own experiences, we may expect that the Russian agents on this spot will in the future, as in the past, deliberately set themselves, by open means or underhand, by hook or by crook to undermine British influence, to check the spread of British commerce, and to crush out British trade wherever that is possible. Personally and individually, Russians are the most charming people in the world. In spite of their reputation for prevarication they are frank and
IIIF Color HighRes
