Fust as the season of peace and goodwill was approaching war clouds have lowered upon as from the Far East. You who are near to the spot will possibly have better means of forming a sound judgment as to the probabilities of war than we have in England. Here, however, the general, belief is that threatening as the: circumstances appear, there is still every' reason to hope that war will be averted. Those who understand, so far. as is possible, the matters in dispute between Russia and Japan are at one with those who don't pretend to know anything about it in siding strongly with Japan, The feeling of the better informed is well summed up in a leading article which appears in the "Times" this morning. "Both the (British) Government and the Press," that journal says, "have constantly urged upon the advisers of the Mikado ant on the Japanese people the wisdom of coolness and moderation in the dispute in which they are unhappily involvol, though no fault-of theirs. We are sure, as Sir Claude MacDonald said not long ago at a banquet at Tokio, that Japan will never draw the sword without reason. We are equally sure that she will never sheath it without honour.
The general belief is that Russia, when it comes to the point, will give way entirely rather than go to war; and this belief is strengthened by our confidence in the genuineness of the Czar's devotion to peace. The parsiox is often uttered that the Autocrat of all the Russias has less real personal power than the most limited of monarchs. That may be true in ordinary circumstances; but he has a reserve of absolute power, of which he would probably avail himself in defiance of the bureaucrats when the choice between peace and war could no anger be deferred.-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.