7 SEPTEMBER 1907, Page 1

In Russia the news of the signing of the Agreement

has been well received, and here there have been hardly any dis- cordant voices heard, though no doubt the pedants and doctrinaires amongst the extreme Radicals, who attempted to wreck the Agreement in the spring on the ground that we ought to make no Agreement with an arbitrary Government like that of Russia, remain impenitent. Happily, the Government refused to pay any attention to their protests, and the danger, which at one time seemed real, that the Agreement would be prevented by an unconscious alliance between the military and reactionary party in Russia and the Radical extremists here, passed away. We have the strongest desire that liberal institutions shall be established in Russia, and that Russia shall become a free and Constitutional State. But we are certain that if such a revolution is to be brought about it can be only from inside, and that any attempt on our part to interfere in the internal affairs of Riissia is doomed to defeat. To have refused to make an Agreement with Russia good in itself, and conducive to the peace of the world, because we did not approve of the domestic policy of the dz facto rulers of Russia, would, in truth, have been a gross interference with Russian affairs.