The Government appears to have taken a new departure in
the Eastern Question. Lord Derby is inclined to press the claims of the Greeks to extension of territory, and has formally requested that a Greek representative may be admitted to the Conference. This request was announced to both Houses of Parliament on Monday, in reply to questions, and was received with cheers by both parties. It was known that Germany and Austria would assent to the proposal, and at first believed that Russia would
also accede to it, but according to a telegram of Friday, for- warded from Athens by Reuter, the official journal there has announced that Russia refuses to admit Greece. It is probable that this means she refuses, unless Roumania is admitted also, being reluctant to add another hostile vote to those already existing. The refusal will not, of course, prevent England from pressing the Greek claim, and it is not certain that Russia will ultimately resist it. She may be acting with a single eye to the safety of her Treaty. To refuse to help in emancipating "ortho- dox Christians" from Mahommedan rule is, for the Russian Government, nearly an impossible position. They would be unintelligible to their own subjects.
