NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THERE should be war soon, for all the great authorities are proclaiming that peace is inevitable. Lord Salisbury, at the Guildhall last month, was full of his confidence in peace ; the three Emperors and King Humbert have all intimated a similar belief; M. Tirard said, in his address to the new Chamber, that the policy of France was peace; and now the Times' correspondent in Paris demonstrates in a telegram of nearly two columns that war is impossible. The rapid mobilisa- tion of the French, German, and Russian Armies would, he says, cost £20,000,000, and the maintenance of their armies in the field 240,000,000 a month. In seven months 2300,000,000 would be lost by these three Powers alone, excluding the expenses of others who would be certain to chime in. France, moreover, has caught from the Exhibition an idea of the value of peace ; the Czar is so friendly to Germany that he "entertained the idea," though he rejected it, of marrying the Cesarewitch to a Hohenzollern Princess ; and the Emperor of Germany has himself cautioned the King of Italy to be very moderate. The Princes, in fact, and states- men are keenly sensible of the cost of modern war, and the degree to which it would arrest all modern industry. All that is quite true ; and it is also true that whenever a fire breaks out in London there will be a loss of property. Still, there will be fires, and that in spite of the entire willingness of the Lord Mayor, the Chairman of the County Council, and Captain Shaw that fires should be prevented. The armies are ready, and any incident anywhere, which in the judgment of any one of them made action a point of honour, might produce war in a week.
