was being improved and extensively developed with a continual immigration from other provinces in China, before the railway construction began.”[81] Much has been said regarding the oft-reiterated wish of Russia to keep Dalny as a free port, but it is well known that it has recently been placed under a protective tariff.[82] We are not in possession of the details of this tariff, but its general significance can hardly be mistaken when we see how the Russians have been reducing freight rates to the utmost, subsidizing their own steamers, and pooling together their great banking and railway facilities, all for the purpose, on the one hand, of developing Russian industries in Manchuria, and on the other, of monopolizing the bulk of its trade. Not only in trade, but in colonization also, the Russians have been building up new cities and developing old ones under their exclusive policy with an unheard-of rapidity. Dalny is a good example of the former class. Still more conspicuous is the city of Harbin, the so-called Moscow of Asia, the geographical and commercial centre and headquarters of the railway work in Manchuria, which is said to have consisted of a single Chinese house in 1898,[83] but now contains 50,000 people.[84] Well might Count Cassini, as he did, refer, not only to the colonization, but to the general civilizing influence of the Russians in Manchuria in the following language:[85] “Through the pacific channels of diplomacy my government acquired privileges which, accepted in good faith, have been exercised in a spirit of true modern progressiveness, until now the flower of enlightened civilization blooms throughout a land that a few years ago was a wild, and in many parts a desolate, seemingly unproductive waste. Before the signing of the treaty which I had the honor to negotiate in behalf of my Sovereign, giving to Russia railroad and other concessions in Manchuria, no white man could have ventured into that province without danger to his life.... Upon the basis of the rights to commercial exploitation thus peaceably obtained, Russia built a railway into and through Manchuria. She built bridges, roads, and canals. She has built cities whose rapid construction and wonderful strides in population and industry have no parallel, certainly in Europe and Asia, perhaps even in America. Harbin and Dalny are monuments to Russian progressiveness and civilization. These great undertakings, wonderful even in a day of marvelous human accomplishment, have cost Russia more than 300,000,000 dollars.” Without stopping either to dispute the historical accuracy of Count Cassini’s statement or to deny the wonderful work the Russians have accomplished in Manchurian cities, it seems pertinent to call our attention to the exclusive side of the Russian enterprise in this vast territory. Harbin is one of the so-called “depots,” over eighty in number, which are found along the whole length of the Manchurian Railway, each one of which extends over