19 MARCH 1904, Page 1

General Kuropatkin, the distinguished soldier in whom the Russians trust

as we trusted in Lord Roberts, has started for the front in an armoured car, and expects to be in fall command at Kharbin by the beginning of April. He has made speeches to his admirers full of promises, but not quite so boastful as the rather absurd sentences circulated throughout Europe, which were really uttered, we

POSTAGE ABROAD ..... ..... ..140.

fancy, by an aide-de-camp. The drift of his own words is that he will not fight till he is ready—that is, about July— and will then advance with irresistible forces and drive the Japanese through -Manchuria and Korea into the sea. If intermediately the great arsenals on the coast should fall, they must fall, but they and some inland positions will be reso- lutely defended. He is sure that all will be over by the end of the year, and that he will dictate peace "at Tokio." The Russian Commander-in-Chief still regards victory as certain, but admits that to secure it will require an enormous accumu- lation of force. The wisdom of his calculations depends, of course, upon the unknown datum,—the comparative value in a pitched battle of the Russian and Japanese soldi3r.