A representative of Reuter's Agency has had an interview with Lieutenant-Colonel Waters, Military Attache to the British Embassy at St. Petersburg, who has just returned to England, after a journey across Siberia, lasting nearly six months. Colonel Waters, who was assured by Russians that this remarkable journey had never been previously performed in the dead of winter, travelled from. St. Petersburg, through Omsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk, Chita, to Kiakhta, on the Russo-Chinese frontier. He then proceeded to Stryetensk, Vladivostock, lagovyeschensk, the capital of the Amur Province, Khabarovsk, the capital of the whole of Eastern Siberia, and Khar, the terminus of the railway from Vladivostock. Leaving Vladivostock, he went by steamer to Japan and thence to Canada, and came back vid the Canadian Pacific Railway, New York, and Liverpool, that being the shortest way back to St. Petersburg.
Colonel Waters said:—' There are three things I wish to emphasise—(1) the extreme cordiality shown to me, travelling as a British Government official, by all the Russian Governors-General, Governors, and subordinate officers during my long journey. From one end of the Russian Empire to the other I was treated more like a Royal duke than a humble individual, and I made many friends whom I hope to see again; (2) the magnificent character of the great railway crossing Siberi humane treatment extended to all exiles, whether political or criminal Asked regarding the commercial value of the Trans-Siberian Railway, Colonel Waters remarked:—'Its commercial value is immense. The line will open up both agricultural and mineral resources which for practical purposes are almost inexhausti-Die. Siberia can produce about every kind of cereal, all sorts of live stock, and it possesses in abundant quantities the more important minerals—precious and others. Owing to the enormous distuxces and the cost of transport the Russians have hitherto had no opportunity to place their Siberian produce on the great European markets. But for years past the authorities have been gradually, and, therefore, permanently, developing the country. The construction of a railway through Manchuria will open i up a country exceedingly rich in gold and very valuable from an agricultural point of view. Also it avoids the necessity of an immense détowr round the Amur River, East of Stryetensk, where the great Siberian post road ends. The Amur is the only route towards the Pacific for over a thousand miles, and for more than six months every year it: @&nnot be used for
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