• The intelligence from China is still obscured by a
multiplicity of conflicting statements, but the balance of evidence still is that China has either refused to sign the agreement about Manchuria, or has insisted on changes to which • Count Lamsdorff so Objects that he• has severely snubbed the Chinese Ambassador. The references to Mongolia and Turkestan are struck out, the exclusive right to concessions in Manchuria is omitted, officers who offend Russia are to be rerneved, not punished, and China retains the right of build- ing local railways. If this account is correct, Russia gives up claims equivalent to annexation, but retains power to protect her 'railway to the Pacific, and her control, of its port of entry. In either case she will not, we conceive, go to war until she has either completed her railway, or has made some fund arrangement. for . pacifying Japan by surrendering designs upon Korea. Official confirmation pf boar Stories is still wanting, but these are the probable facts.
