The centre and right wings of General Kuroki began to advance towards Liaoyang on the 27th of June, moving by the main and northern routes. Between that date and the Ist July all the cardinal positions on the two roads worocaptured—Lienshankuan, North Féngshuiling and Motienling. The Russian strategy very bewildering. To ordinary "minds it seems, us pointed out by the "Japan Mail," that they should have guarded the defiles on the Mukden and Lisoyang roads with the utmost tenacity. But they allow themselves to be driven from them with scarcely more than a show of resistance, and then, stranger still, they make a desperate effort to recover the main position—Motienlingpass. Unless the summer rains interfere to check operations, the probability is, continues the Yokohama English paper, that we shall soon hear of a great battle along a very extended front, a front reaching from Liaoyang to Tashichiao. The Russians will be in an exceedingly favourable strategical position; they will be fighting with their front parallel to their line of communications.
The Baltic Fleet.
With reference to a recent London telegram, on the authority of the Paris correspondent of The "Times," that Russia has applied for permission for th [Baltic fleet to coal at French ports on its way to the Far East, and the declaration that this is possible without a breach of nentrality—it is assorted here that there is no foundation for the story. France has never been approached by Russia in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.