CHINA: C. E. R. Seized

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expensive TransSiberian Railway to vent her increasing goods on the world.

Followed, shortly, to Nanking a Russian ultimatum demanding within three days release of all Soviet prisoners in Harbin, consent to an immediate conference to discuss the C. E. R. question.

Anxious as was Russia for the C. E. R., last week, was Japan, China's other neighbor on the left, for her South Manchuria Railway which cuts north from the great Japanese port of Dairen to Changchun, where it connects with the C. E. R. Ingeniously wangled from Russia after the Russo-Japanese War, the S. M. R. is today worth $220,000,000, keeps the Japanese Colony of Korea fed with Manchurian wheat and soya beans. Its 700 miles of track are guarded by 20,000 soldiers against just such an attack as last week befell the C. E. R.