NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MHE Berlin correspondent of the Times states that a prohibited
I Russian paper professes to have received information of an agreement, signed at St. Petersburg, between Austria and Russia, to arrange affairs for the present in the Balkans. The agreement, hereafter to be reduced to a treaty, contains twelve articles, in which it is stipulated that Bosnia and Herzegovina shall belong permanently to Austria ; that the Governments of Bervia and Montenegro shall be strengthened by Austria against their subjects; that the navigation of the Danube shall be regulated in the interest of the riparian States ; that Rou- mania be independent, but advised to suppress revolutionists that if the union of Bulgaria and eastern Roumelia take place, it must be effected without commotion ; that the Porte must grant autonomy to Albania ; that no Power but Russia and Austria be allowed to enter the Balkans ; that in the event of serious complications in Constantinople, the two Powers take joint precautions; that Egypt shall continue to be protected by the Great Powers ; and that Germany be asked to adhere to this protocol. If that agreement has been signed, it involves a revival of the Triple Alliance for the settlement of the Balkans, and although the evidence for this version is very slight, it may contain the substance of an existing arrangement.
