Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1904 — NATIONS MAY BE INVOLVED. [ARTICLE]

NATIONS MAY BE INVOLVED.

Grave Danjjer that Other Powers May Clash in the Far Bast. Already there is grave danger that other nations besides Russia and Japan may be drawn into the maelstrom of war. All the great powers ofTlre world have warships in the eastern seas and serious frictiou'has developed in several instances. A strong protest has been lotlged By Edwin H. Conger, the American minister, in the case of the steamer Pleiades. This vessel was seized and forcibly detained till she slipped away in a storm. Several British vessels are being similarly treated.

In the harbor of Chemulpo the situ.v tiou growing out of the sinking of the Russian warships Variag and Koreitz by the Japanese is rapidly becoming acute. The survivors of the Russian vessels took refuge on the British cruiser Talbot, the French cruiser Pascal and the Italian cruiser Elba. Tlje Japanese have twice made demands on the commanders of these vessels for the surrender of the Russians as prisoners of war. These demands have been refused, the commander of the Talbot as senior navakofficer each time replying that he was awaiting instructions from his government. None of the Russians took refuge on flie"American gunboat Vicksburg, whose commander stoutly maintains that the Japanese are right in their contention that these survivors should be given up as prisoners of war. The Russians, he says, took advantage of the clemency of the Japanese, who allow’ed them to return to the harbor when they might have sunk them in the open sea. Had it not been for this clemency on the part of Admiral Uriu every man on board the Variag and Koreitz might have been killed. The fact that they are now harbored by the ships of neutral nations, he says, should not prevent the Japanese'from claiming them as prisoners in order that they may not again take up arms during the war unless exchanged.