The Conference has been waiting for a week to receive
the Bolshevik reply to the Allies' memorandum, which France and Belgium refused to eign. The Bolshevik delegates were per- suaded by the Italians to reconsider the wording of their answer, and therefore did not make it public on Wednesday, as they had intended. According to the Daily Chronicle the reply will be " acceptable as a basis of discussion." The Times, however, states that the Bolsheviks will insist on their right to subsidize Communist plots in foreign countries, and that they will only recognize their responsibility for Russian State debts contracted before the War if the Allied Governments grant them an immediate loan. It seems incredible, and yet is apparently true, that Chicherin has had the audacity to ask for a loan of £200,000,000 in gold from the Allied Governments. Mr. Lloyd George is bent on making terms with the Bolsheviks. at almost any cost, regardless of our Allies, but we cannot think that he will invite the House of Commons to lend £200,000,000 to Lenin and Trotsky.
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