Diplomatic Duel Ends

The British reply to the final Soviet note is regarded as sealing Curzon's diplomatic victory over his opponent, M. Georges Tchicherin.

The principal Soviet weapon throughout the negotiations was the threat of anti-British propaganda in the Near and Middle West; Curzon's weapon was the threat to terminate the Trade Agreement, upon which the Soviet places great reliance.

The British answer refused a conference with the Soviet Government to discuss the truth of the propaganda charges and counter charges and reciprocity in regard to compensation for British and Russians killed. The British Government declared all charges were proved.

Soviet propaganda is disarmed by the clever device of promising abstention from anti-Soviet propaganda (charged in the Russian note). not only in Great Britain, but in all British colonies and possessions. The British Government further promises to prevent any hostile design against the Russian Government by Russian emigres.

The principal of reciprocity in compensation to citizens of Soviet Russia injured by the British, as well as to British subjects injured by the Soviets was accepted by both parties. The note is considered to indicate that there is no further danger of a rupture of the Anglo-Russian Trade Agreement.

This settlement of the grievance between Russia and Great Britain will slacken for a time the tension along the long Asia frontier, reaching from Mesopotamia to Thibet, Burmah and the Malay States. A bugaboo in the shape of a Russo-Japanese alliance fostered by acquiescent China, and drilled by distant Germany, may have enough reality to alarm the farsighted. In the meantime the British naval base at Singapore is being built; the Russo-Japanese danger can be faced when it arises.

It is doubtful that the Soviet promise to end anti-British propaganda means much, as the Communist Party, which drills and sends out the agitators to Turkey, Persia and the distant goal of British India, from the propaganda schools of Samarkand and Tashkent, is technically not the same as the Soviet Government. The British prestige in Asia is the first line of defense that any such combination must destroy, and that will take more than propaganda.