12th October.
Taar extremely thoughtful, impartial, and judicially-minded journal, the "Economisr," has an article in its issue of the 27th of August with the above title, the substance of which is well worth reproducing. {t has more than once been suggested that the highhanded action of Russia towards British commerce was really intended to provoke Great Britain to_hostilities, so that Russia might be able to "save her face" by explaining that she did not yield to her Asiatic antagonist, but was not in a position at prevent to fight Japan and Great Britain together. There were two events in the week in which the "Economisw" wrote serving to dissipate this idea, One was the imperial order to the Askold and Grosovoi to disarm at Shanghai, and so save the neutrality of China, which "may be accepted as an act of deference on His Tigesty's part to universally recognised principles of international law, even though an adequate motive} Po! for his action might possibly be discovered in the practical certainty that if the refitting had been further prosecuted, the Japanese would have taken the vindication of that law into their own hans, and put an end to the possibility of the reappearance of the vessels in question on the Russian side." The other was the remarkable sequence of events when the Smolensk repeated on the South African coast her molestation of British shipping after Russia had assured Great Britain that "without prejudice to the ultimate determina~ tion of the claim of Russia to send through the Dardanelles ostensibly peaceful ships intended to blossom into men-of-war, no more seizures of neutral shipping would be rade by the notorious pair of vessels, which had gained the high seas under those conditions." The " Economist" hints that it would be interesting to know what reply was made by our Foreign Office when it was told toat it was all a mistake, due to the Russian Government having had no means of communicating its revised instructions to the Volunteer Fleet steamers. As a contemporary has inted out, that Russia should be reduced to risking England to send her cruisers to tell Russian steamers not to interfere with British commerce is a striking commentary on Japan's destruction of Rassia's sea power. "The situation thus created," says the "Economist," "is certainly ccu'iar, but the Czar's action may. we think, fairly be taken as ind-cxting that there is no desire on his part to allow a casus belli with this cmntry to be. lightly developed—and still les any desire that one should spring up forthwith,"
While the two cases above referred to were clear and definite ones, in which the Czar. was bound to give way unless he wished to defy the judge-ut of the civilised world, there Teruain questions as to which Great Britain cannot possibly make concrssions. One of these is the alleged preferential treatment by Russian cruisers and prize courts of non-Briti-h shipping. Mr. Balfour denied that there was any conclusive evidence of discrimination against British vessels. He was told that the war risk at Lloyds on British steamers going to neutral ports in the East and thence to Japan was 20s, per cent, and on German ships not much more than a quarter of this rate, and still less on French ships; but he maintained, in effect, "that not only are British shipowners the victims of ascare, but tha', British underwriters, whose whole business in life it is to calculate risks, are seriously misjudging the fne's before them." He argued it out by rule of three. He pointed out "that the number of seizures of British ye—cl+ had borne no kind of proportion to the British reentage—said to amount to 90—of the total of ships trading to the Far Evst." The" Economist " points out that the number of Russian cruisers is so limited that if there were a general intention to damage, British trade, "it would certainly be carried out, not by the seizure of a preponderating number of British ships, but by a differential treatment of those that were seized." ' Here the facts, as we pointed out at the time we received a telegraphic summary of Mr, Balfour's explanation, are decidedly against the Premier; "and, as a matter of fact, it is known that in Germany a cheerful reliance is placed on the good will of the Russian navy." The following is the concluding paragraph of the " Economist's" article "In these circumstances, Mr. Balfour's views as to the wisdom of British underwriters, to say nothing lof British shipowners, are not likely to be accepted here with entire confidence. is is to be hoped that the tone of British diplomacy, though courteous, is such as to leave no doubt in the minds of Russian Ministers, and above all, of the Czar himself, that anything like preferential treatment of foreign neutral shipping at the expense of British, whether from the anti-British sentiment, or, as is now suggested, with the object of damaging the general trade of Japan, would bring about a dangerous state of feeling in this country, There is, perhaps, tos little disposition here to. recognise that belligerents have rights at sea, the exercise of which, even in the most temperate manner, cannot fail to cause inconvenience to the largest maritime trade in the world, and any re-act injuriously 01 our own interests if we were at war. Selfrestraind must therefore, be maintained among sand any excessive irritability must be held in check, But any suspicion of pref-rence cannot fail' to render such self-control difficult, and the early satisfaction of the rightful claims for compensation made on behalf of British shipowners would do more than anything else to relieve a condition of tension, which the Premier's speech has not altogether dispelled. The British Government would do well to make this clear at St. Petersburg."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.