M OST of the news from the Far East this week
is of the nature of gossip, and much of it not untainted with a suspicion of bias. Russia has deadly foes among journalists, while, on the other hand, there are financiers on the Con- tinent who regard the idea of any Russian war with perfect horror. It will, they say, produce a ruinous financial panic among small investors. The only broad facts known are that the Japanese reply, if accepted, involves a retreat for Russia ; that the Czar remains peaceful,—though it is probable that his expressions at the reception on New Year's Day were not quite so peaceful as rumour represented ; that the new Japanese cruisers have reached the open water of the Indian Ocean; and that the Japanese statesmen and people are waiting with their teeth locked. All depends upon the final decision of Nicholas II., who is harassed by an over-pressure of contradictory advice. It is probable, also, that the Courts of Europe are pressing him, and that be knows of dangerous ideas in Constantinople and Sofia, and it may even be in -Vienna, of which the general public takes insufficient account. He probably dreads, too, an Anglo-Saxcn alliance to deprive him of the fruits of victory. Still, even that alliance could hardly deprive him of Manchuria ; and he is the Russian Czar, who must appear before his people irresistible.
