The weather was beginning to get very cold, and each mile added to our discomfort, and the only accommodation for officers on two of the three trains were cattle trucks.  After my official visit I made request for two carriages.  The station commandant pretended to consult the Russian and Japanese officials, and then informed me that there was not one available.  I told him it was untrue.  He agreed that if I could point out any carriages unoccupied I could have them.  He went with his register to the carriages I indicated, and he admitted they were idle and empty and I would be allowed to take them.  I put a guard on the carriages and thought the incident settled, but nothing is settled for long in the Far East.  I made request for these carriages to be shunted on to my trains, and after a two hours’ wait went to the station about the shunting and was calmly informed that they knew nothing about the carriages.  The commandant, with whom I arranged the matter, had gone home (an old dodge!), and would not be on duty till to-morrow, and that nothing else could be done.

It was reported to me that the reason the carriages could not be secured was that the railway officials of a certain Power had given instructions that no “class” carriages were to be provided for British officers, as it was necessary that the population along the route should understand that we were not considered representatives of a first-class Power.  Englishmen who have not travelled much in the Far East will scarcely understand the working of the Oriental mind in these matters.  An officer of any Power who travels in a cattle truck will not only lose the respect of the Oriental for his own person, but will lower the standard of the country he represents, irrespective of its position in the comity of nations.  The representative of the Isle of Man, if he travelled in the best style, would stand before the representative of His Majesty the King if his means of transit were that of a coolie.  It is doubtless very stupid, but it is true.  Your means of locomotion fixes your place in the estimation of the East, because it is visible to them, while your credentials are not.

I there and then made up my mind to act, and if necessary go “the whole hog.”  I informed the authorities that nothing should be shunted in that station until those two carriages were joined to my trains, and proceeded to occupy the whole station.  Up to this point I had neither seen nor heard anything of the Japanese in relation to this matter, but they now came on the scene, and I soon discovered that it was they who had engineered the whole opposition to the British officers getting suitable accommodation, and had spirited away the old commandant who had registered the carriages to me.  At first they did not know the correct line to adopt, but made a request that the guard should be taken off the station.  My answer was, “Yes, instantly, if it is understood that these carriages are to be shunted to my trains.”