must be confessed that anxious as we were for peace in our own: interests, our satisfaction at its conclusion is not without qualification, One reason for this is the extraordinary arrogance of the Russians; one would imagine from the tone of their press and their diplomats that they had won a great victory instead of suffering @ disastrous and humid listing defeat.° That Mr. Witte should have boasted of his success is perhaps not remarkable. He has undoubtedly done exceedingly well in reducing a8 much as possible by his diplomacy the loss in which his country involved herself by a war in which her successive overwhelming defeats were unbroken by a single victory; but that Count Lamsdorff should have telegraphed to submit to the will of your Tmperial to the Czar, " the Japanese are prepared
Majesty," and that M. Witte himself should declare in his report to his sovereign that "Russia will remain in the Far East the great Power which she has hitherto been and will be for ever" is 8 little too absurd. However, tall talk of this kind, however exasperating, cannot have any permanent effect. A much more solid ground for qualifying our satisfaction with the peace is that to which Mark Twain has given expression. It will render much more difficult the task of the party of reform in' Russia and enable the Czar to direct all of his military force against the constitutional revolution. The only hope is that the revolutionary spirit will spread through the army itsd Lord Curzon and Lord Kitchener, The powerful sensation created by the jignation of Lord Curzon has been intensified by the publication of the correspondence which has ensued between the Viceroy and Lord Kitchener. It has done little if anything to elucidate the rights and wrongs of the dispute. Lord Kitchener has entered into elaborate details to prove Lord Curzon's summary of his pro-Tndian army administration reform is posals for carrying out the scheme of
grossly inaccurate. Lord Curzon returns: to the charge and cites figures to prove that this summary was absolutely a and that Lord Kitcheners' posals are designed to reduce the Military Supply Member and his department to impotence and to vest all real power and authority in himself. Lord Curzon has, of course, had the last word, and soams to have made out a good case; but without an investigation it is impossible to arrive at a clear decision as to which is right which is wrong. What is generally that the correspondence had eliove, growing that a lution of the difficulty eached until Lord Kitchener's resignation has followed that of Lord Curzon. Lord Kitchener's great services to the Empire are not forgotten, and no-one desires that ho should receive anything in the nature of a snub; but it is felt that if he remains, the result must be regarded as a triumph of the military over the civil authority in India.
The Eclipse, Wo are having o spell of unpleasant weather—cold, windy, and overcast, with frequent thunderstorms, and the eclipse which in these regions was nearer to totality than any'we have had for thirty years, was in most places failure. In London we had never a glimpse of it; and there were very few places in England from which it could be watched from start to finish. However, a partial eclipse at its best does not approach the sublime effect of total eclipse; indeed, Thave no doubt that even where th was a cloudless sky there wore hundreds of people going about their work in ti fields in pertest ignorance that anything unusual was occurring. What is more unfortunate is that many of the scientific expeditions to the track of total eclipse fared no better, the oxponso of many hundreds of pounds and unsparing trouble in the transport and erection of scientific instruments being rendered useless by clouds. However, others were more fortunate, and doubtless astronomy will have some gains to count. We in England will have to wait in patience for eighteen years before we have a chanco of seeing a total eclipse without leaving our island, and then w all have to travel to the scottish border. If we miss that, there will not be another till 1999 when the moon's shadow will just pass over the too of Cornwall,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.