Siberian traders, who have been suffering from Chinese competition there. Thus the Novoye Vremya declared in May 1912 that "Russia, in spite of her history of a thousand years, is still on the road to her geographical and political boundaries." And again: "The desert of Gobi is a better frontier for Russia than the present one." Coming down to practical considerations, the same paper, in discussing the effect of the Chinese revolution on the commercial treaty of 1881, intimated that it was of more importance to settle the trade relations along the Russo-Chinese frontier on a basis satisfactory to Russia than it was to insist on the freedom of trade and the open door in Outer China.
This significant remark illustrates the attitude of a certain body of Russian opinion on the question of the open door in Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan. Let us see what this would mean, if it were carried out. The imposition of customs dues preferential to Russian commerce in the provinces of Outer China would enable that commerce to regain artificially the ground which, by the inferiority of its industrial development, compared with that of the Chinese, it has lost in the last ten years. Moreover, this will be not without its effect on British trade. In 1910 the writer came upon many trading stations on the North-West Mongolian plateaus where British cotton goods were being sold by Chinese merchants. These goods had been brought by sea from England to the treaty ports, and from there had been taken over the Gobi desert to the Russo-Chinese frontier. Here they were underselling the Russian cotton goods from Moscow, which had not travelled half the distance. The margin of difference
