Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1901 — FROM FOREIGN LANDS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FROM FOREIGN LANDS.

The Boers have succeeded in creating a panic at Cape Town, where more than 6,000 men have enlisted -within the last week to repel an attack from the Transvaal invaders. Big guns have also been landed from the battieship Monarch .and every preparation is being made to defend the city. While it is not likely that the Boer invasion of Cape Colony will result in any material success, it is considered in military circles a piece of adroit strategy worthy of the ablest general. It is said to have been planned byBotha, the commander-in-chief of the Boer forces, and to be designed to draw a large part of Lord Kitchener’s effective force away from the Transvaal. Succeeding in this, it is argued that Botha contemplates striking a serious blow at Pretoria. . There is nothing in the dispatches from British sources to indicate a general uprising of the Dutch people of Cape Colony. It is admitted that a few recruits have joined the Boer invaders. The realfacts, however, may have been suppressed, for there is no doubting the genuineness of the alarm not only at Cape Town but in London. It is again announced that President Kruger will visit the United States. It has been generally believed that the Boer president would cross the Atlantic, especially after the failure of his mission in Europe was patent. Negotiations at Pekin are again at a standstill. The allied forces, at the request of Emperor Kwang-Su, have granted a truce and military operations are nominally at a standstill. The Emperor has instructed Prince Ching and Earl Li-Hung-Chang to sign the preliminary terms of peace, and the joint note referred to last week is being put into the form of an agreement for signatures. Interest in the diplomatic phase of the Chinese question was stirred during the week by the announcement of a treaty between China and Russia, by the terms of which the vast province of Manchuria becomes virtually a protectorate under the Czar. The treaty is, on the surface, in direct violation of the tacit agreement that has maintained the concert of the powers at Pekin. With this tacit agreement broken, there seems to be no reason why Germany should not assume a protectorate over the entire Shan-Tung province, or France over some of the southern provinces. Russia’s practical seizure of Manchuria virtually adds 374,(XX) square miles to the Czar’s dorftinion, shuts off Corea from China, and means the domination of Mongolia. It virtually carries the Russian Empire in Asia southward to the Great Wall and menaces the integrity of Pekin itself. From Havana comes the statement that the constitutional convention has virtually decided upon the plan for the future relations between the island and the United States. It is said to include an acceptance of the Monroe doctrine, the regulation of Cuban foreign affairs in accordance with the wishes of the United States, the transfer to the United States of any harbor on the north coast and any two harbors on the south coast that maybe desired for naval bases, and a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance. If such a plan is adopted it indicates that the Cubans who favor a United States protectorate over the future republic are in the majority. But the convention has not yet arrived at a final decision and the constitution it forms will have to be ratified by the people before it can become effective. The vigorous war waged by the French government upon fche religious orders of France has finally resulted in an appeal to .the Vatican. A delegation of influential French Catholics has gone to Rome to urge upon Pope Leo the necessity of interference. Germany is one of the first of the industrial powers of the old world to take up the discussion of American competition in the iron and steel trade and seek a practical means to end it. It is prepared to pay an export bounty of $3.75 per ton on iron goods, and is favored by the coal, pig iron and rolling mill syndicates. John H. Heaton, member of Parliament for Canterbury, has begun a series of articles in advocacy of a British-Amer: wan alliance.