Sakhalin

Due north of the Japanese island of Yezo lies in the Sea of Okhotsk the long island known to the Russians as Sakhalin and to the Japanese as Karafuto.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, signed at Portsmouth, N. H., in 1905, Russia ceded a southern portion of the island to Japan. That was part of the price paid by Russia for losing the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). Now Sakhalin, or Karafuto, is rich in alluvial gold and coal deposits. Its surface is covered by vast forests of larch and fir trees. Large tracts of land arc fit for pasturage and agriculture, and there is oil, as Oil Shah Harry F. Sinclair could testify. The climatic conditions are on the whole excellent, and are comparable to those obtaining in inland British Columbia. Moreover, the island has but a mere 100,000 inhabitants whose principal occupation is fishing for herrings. The country can absorb for many years all the emigrants from Japan.

This is a sketch of the reasons which inspire the Japanese Foreign Office to obtain from Russia the northern half of the island known as Sakhalin and Karafuto. And in return for such apparent magnanimity, Japan is willing to cancel Russia's political debt* to her and joyfully accord her de jure recognition.

* Political debt is contracted by one Government borrowing money from another for purely political purposes, and is in contradistinction to credits obtained (usually by firms and individuals) for economic purposes.