“6. Mutual engagement to consider the territory of Korea to the north of the thirty-ninth parallel as a neutral zone, within the limits of which neither of the contracting parties shall introduce troops.
“7. Mutual engagement not to impede the connection of the Korean and Eastern Chinese Railways, when those railways shall have been extended to the Yalu.
“8. Abrogation of all previous agreements between Russia and Japan respecting Korea.”—N.-R., No. 34.
[645]. N.-R., No. 35.
[646]. Is it probable that Baron Rosen consulted Viceroy Alexieff by telegraph before he did Count Lamsdorff?
[647]. N.-R., No. 36.
[648]. Ibid., No. 38.
[649]. The Russian counter-note was as follows:—
“Having no objection to the amendments to Article 2 of the Russian counter-proposals as proposed by the Imperial Japanese Government, the Russian Government considers it necessary:—
“1. To maintain the original wording of Article 5, which had already been agreed to by the Imperial Japanese Government, that is to say, ‘mutual engagement not to use any part of the territory of Korea for strategical purposes, not to undertake on the coasts of Korea any military works capable of menacing the freedom of navigation in the Korean Straits.’ [The Japanese Government had, as was pointed out by Baron Komura in the dispatch No. 39, never agreed to the first half of Article 5.]