for India, but is, of course, a strong Liberal, appeared
willing to come to an agreement with St. Petersburg as thorough and as strong as the one just concluded with Paris. The Premier did not dissent, but, like Lord G. Hamilton, pointed out the real obstacle in the way, which is not the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg, but the excessive freedom which the system of the Empire allows to its agents in Asiatic Russia. We believe this explanation to be correct, and welcome with pleasure the signs in the Russian Press that a modes vivendi with Great Britain would be well received in Russia. If it is to be arranged, however, it must be based upon a policy unlike that which some Russian agents defend. They evidently think that the hour has arrived for the partition of China, and claim for Russia the Northern provinces. That proposal would not be acceptable either to Japan, or Great Britain, or France, or the United States.
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