The Times of Tuesday publishes a telegram from Tientsin nearly
a column long intended to rake up the question of the land belonging to the railway which the Russians are alleged to have taken. It is affirmed that the Russian "concession" is so big that they will practically dominate the port, and the British Government is adjured to "call upon" Russia to abandon, or at all events to define, her claims. The British Government must, of course, protect British rights if violently infringed, but is there not a little injustice in eternally repre- senting these mercantile squabbles as " questions " calling for national action P It is impossible for the Foreign Office to arrange a genuine and permanent modus vivendi with Russia if our people are perpetually told that whatever Russia does, it is with the intention of violently robbing them and stealing away their trade. One thinks of the "large blue flies." It is a most unfortunate thing for the world that telegrams by the law of their being are violent. Details are suppressed for the sake of brevity, qualifications are ignored, the other side is overlooked, and each bulletin has the effect of an ultimatum instead of a despatch. Anyway, the squabble over the siding is now over, and to rake in the ashes of that controversy is most unwise.
