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It is obvious that public attention is concentrated not so

much upon the economic, questions which are the principal motive for the Genoa Conference as on the question whether the Russian Soviet Government shall or shall not be recognized. If it is to be recognized, in what form should it be recognized—as a de jure or only as a de facto Government ? The arguments against recognition, or at all events against recognition in the full sense, which were strongly though vainly urged upon the Cabinet- by Mr. Churchill; are that we shall be sacrificing yet another moral principle if we " shake hands" with callous and bloodstained murderers and that recognition would super- fluously and even wantonly give Lenin and his friends a glorious opportunity of trying to make hay of Europe.

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