Tu latest news from St, Petersburg, that the Russian Government is disposed to treat on more friendly terme with the Chinese Ambassador, may be received as satisfactory or the reverse when we come to hear the new terms proposed. We have never been.of those who looked with approval on the details of the Treaty of Livadia, The stipulation that China was to pay Russia twice over, both in territory and coin, for the temporary occupation by the latter of the territory of Kuldja was one of those transactions which oven in international law might be considered as "immoral." Unfortunately this was not the ground on which the Chinese Government sought to repudiate the agreement; it preferred the more untenable one of its inability to yield territory once belong. ing to it, notwithstanding the fact that that territory had never been in any senso amalgamated with the Empire, and that for nearly twenty years Chinese rule had been withdrawn. So in face of the fact that it had during the negotiations at St, Petersburg been kept informed of the principal points of the proposed arrangement, it fell back when the time came for ratification, not on the incorrectness of the details, but on the broad principle which had already been conceded of the non possumus. If the consent of Rassia to re-outer on negotiations be founded on a desire to yield on a point where the stipulations of the previous treaty were capable of the injurious interpretation we have montioned, there still remains a hope that the case may be brought to a reason. able issue. Russia, however, has discovered of late years such an inordinate craving for territory, simply for its own sake, as if the greatness of a nation wore to be measured solely by its territorial extent, and in consequence of the indulgence of this craving has been so straightened in the matter of finances that it is almost too much to hope that of its own motion the Government at St. Petersburg will consent to begin ab initia, Tt is difficult to divine, therefore, what new forms the demands of St. Petersburg may assume. Of course, Russia may act on the principle of the pottifogging attorney who, having driven an unfortunate debtor into a corner, proceeds to accumulate costs on his original claim. In the present temper of Europe, as an armed camp, the various sections of which know not how soon they may be engaged in hostile encounter, there will not be too great desire to invoke the public feeling of nationalities as to how far one of the number may be justified in heaping up claims upon claims. Still there may even now be a point where international morality will be scandalised, and the claims of Russia be regarded as beyond right or reason. We do not hint that such an expression of opinion is likely to find expression in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.