Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1902 — REACHING TO PEKIN. [ARTICLE]

REACHING TO PEKIN.

The New Mongolian Branch of the Trans-Siberian Kailroad. The report that the Russians are secretly building a railway from a point on the trans-Manchoorian line close to the Russo-Chiuese frontier, to Kalgan on the Great Wall, about 125 miles from Pekin, has caused something like a flutter In England. The discovery is said to have been made by a traveler who was making his way through the country in disguise, and communicated the Intelligence to an English newspaper. While at Kailar, a town situated on the river of the same name, about sixty-five miles from its junction with the Argun, one of the principal tributaries of the Amur, he saw a construction train with laborers and railway material moving away to the south on a newly constructed and roughly laid track. He at once came to tiie conclusion that what he saw had to do with a new and hitherto unheard of line of railway, and appears to have obtained information confirming ills conclusions. .Should this news prove to be correct, the fact that the Russian government has seriously undertaken this work is of great political and military significance. It was known at the time of the outbreak In China, in 1899, that the Russians had exploring parties out examining the country between Iviakhta, on the frontier line just south of Lake Baikal, and Kalgan, along the regular tea caravan track. Later it was understood that the route traced out was not entirely satisfactory, and that a more easterly one was to be sought on the western side of the Ivhingau chain of mountains, that divides Mongolia from Manchooria. Evidently such a route has been found, and the political situation in the far East, together with tin* military exigencies arising out ot it, has led the Russian government to hasten the construction of the .railway which is to bring I’ekin in direct connection with the Siberian line through Kalgan: The building of this railway makes Kailar, where it starts from the main Mam hoorian line, a point of great strategic importance, and we shall probably learn in time that it has become one of Russia’s principal military centers in Eastern Asia. From it troops can lie sent at short notice south or southeast, or called for, and both it and the railway to Kalgan might be considered beyond danger of attack, they being covered all along the east side by' the Khingan mountains, the passes over which will probably be held by the Russians. The distance from Kailar to Kalgan is about 050 miles, at least 500 miles shorter than the originally projected route from the Siberian line east of Lake Baikal, through Iviakhta and Urga. There is not likely to be any friction between Russia and England out ol this action on the part of Russia, England having divested herself of any right to protest by the Anglo-Rusaian convention of 1899 respecting all that part of China north of the great wall. Any trouble connected with it, if any, would be with Japan. An effort will be made to have the rails laid the whole distance by the end of the coming autumn.—New York Sun.