A DIPLOMAT'S DRESS
SIR,—The reminiscences of usually well-informed " Janus " in "A Spectator's Notebook" contain in the allusion to the Genoa Conference of September 30th a slight error which makes this topical reminder of the first occasion when Soviet Russia was represented on an international conference surprising to a continental guest of this country who has followed international and Russian political history for more than twenty years. The suggestion that M. Chicherin was, "perhaps for the first time in his life, in impeccable evening dress" for that memorable occasion discloses about the same lack of knowledge of the composition of the Bolshevik Party before 1917 as the largely unwarranted designation of the late Imperial German Reich Chancellor Von Buelow of all Russian emigres as "Beggars and Conspirators."
M. Chicherin, in fact, had been, before he joined the Russian Socialist Movement, and remained, until his emigration from Russia to Austria, in 1912, a professional member of the Russian Imperial Diplomatic Corps, who was probably more of on "old hand" at the diplomatic game than many of his opposite numbers from the Western Democracies at the
Genoa Conference.-Yours faithfully, H. JAKUBOWICZ. 3-6 Northwood Hall,.Hornsey Lane, N.6.
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