NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE French Government has a new internal trouble. M. Pelletan, a man of much intellectual vigour and a critic of maritime affairs, has recently been appointed Minister of Marine. He at once quarrelled with General Andre, Minister of War, so fiercely that a duel was with difficulty postponed ; he has issued orders in the direction of retrenchment which Admirals say betray technical ignorance of a grave kind ; and now he has delivered a speech in Corsica which made the Foreign Minister tear his hair. M. Delcasse was just trying to soothe certain Italian susceptibilities when, he read that M. Pelletan had assured the Corsicans that their island should be fortified; that it was one of the three gates of the Mediter- ranean; and that "its eastern coast aims straight at the heart of Italy." Instructions were at once given to the French Ambassador in Rome to explain away this sentence; but the Italian Government is likely to consider it an " instinctive " utterance, and therefore formidable ; and at all events no Cabinet can be content when a prominent member indulges m such menacing indiscretions.
