has given the prescribed notification of its
intention to abrogate the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation
concluded with this country August 31, 1887. As that treaty contains
many important provisions necessary to the maintenance of commerce
and good relations, which could with difficulty be replaced by the
negotiation of renewed provisions within the brief twelve months
intervening before the treaty terminates, I have invited suggestions by
Peru as to the particular provisions it is desired to annul, in the hope
of reaching an arrangement whereby the remaining articles may be
provisionally saved.

His Majesty the Czar having announced his purpose to raise the
Imperial Russian mission at this capital to the rank of an embassy,
I responded, under the authority conferred by the act of March 3,
1893, by commissioning and accrediting the actual representative
at St. Petersburg in the capacity of ambassador extraordinary and
plenipotentiary. The Russian ambassador to this country has since
presented his credentials.

The proposal of the Czar for a general reduction of the vast military
establishments that weigh so heavily upon many peoples in time of peace
was communicated to this Government with an earnest invitation to be
represented in the conference which it is contemplated to assemble with
a view to discussing the means of accomplishing so desirable a result.
His Majesty was at once informed of the cordial sympathy of this
Government with the principle involved in his exalted proposal and of
the readiness of the United States to take part in the conference.
The active military force of the United States, as measured by our
population, territorial area, and taxable wealth, is, and under any
conceivable prospective conditions must continue to be, in time of peace
so conspicuously less than that of the armed powers to whom the Czar's
appeal is especially addressed that the question can have for us no
practical importance save as marking an auspicious step toward the
betterment of the condition of the modern peoples and the cultivation
of peace and good will among them; but in this view it behooves us as
a nation to lend countenance and aid to the beneficent project.

The claims of owners of American sealing vessels for seizure by Russian
cruisers in Bering Sea are being pressed to a settlement. The equities
of the cases justify the expectation that a measure of reparation will
eventually be accorded in harmo