The St. Petersburg _Messager Officiel_ of March 20, published, with the Declaration, the statement that the Russian Government had received the announcement of the Anglo-Japanese Agreement “with the most perfect calm,” for Russia likewise insisted on the maintenance and integrity of China and Korea. “Russia,” it continued to say, “desires the preservation of the _status quo_ and general peace in the Far East, by the construction of the great Siberian Railroad, together with its branch line through Manchuria, toward a port always ice-free. Russia aids in the extension in these regions of the commerce and industry of the whole world. Would it be to her interest to put forward obstacles at the present time? The intention expressed by Great Britain and Japan to attain those same objects, which have invariably been pursued by the Russian Government, can meet with nothing but sympathy in Russia, in spite of the comments in certain political spheres and in some of the foreign newspapers, which endeavored to present in quite a different light the impassive attitude of the Imperial Government toward a diplomatic act which, in its eye, does not change in any way the general situation of the political horizon.”[407] It seems to be generally overlooked that, so far as the published documents are concerned, there occurs no statement that the Russo-French alliance extended from Europe to the Far East under precisely the same conditions as those of the Anglo-Japanese Agreement. In other words, although the general principles of the latter are indorsed, one finds nowhere that its terms of war and neutrality and its provisions regarding the duration of the validity of the instrument have also been reproduced by Russia and France in their mutual convention. Regarding the precise conditions of their alliance, therefore, the world is left much in the dark, save what it takes for granted. Nor are the principles of the integrity and the open door of China and Korea so fully and explicitly stated here as in the Agreement of the rival allies, while the reservation at the end of the Declaration does not make it clear that these principles may not be discarded, under certain circumstances, according to the interpretations of the parties themselves of the means to be taken to safeguard their interests.