Count Schouvaloff, for five years past Russian Ambassador to the
British Court, has been relieved of his duties by Imperial decree, and will be succeeded, probably after some considerable interval, by Prince Lobanoff, now Ambassador at Constanti- nople. In the meantime, business will be left to the manage- ment of a Chargé d'Affaires. Count Schouvaloff has received the cordon of St. Vladimir, the highest decoration in Russia; but little doubt is entertained that the change is a symptom of the Czar's irritation with England, and of his feeling that his representative has not altogether Succeeded; that he might, for 'example, have established an influence which would make such outbreaks as Lord Salisbury's impossible. The loss sustained by both Russia and England in the Count's departure is considerable, as he was the Emperor's personal friend, and at the same time convinced that the interests of the two corm- -tries would be better served by arrangements made before war, than by arrangements after the exhaustion of a sterile contest. Count Schouvaloff, moreover, never made the common blunder of inferior Continental statesmen, that England's only power was her command of money. He knew the country too tho- roughly to credit anything of the kind, or to believe that either party of her politicians were for peace at any price.
