NEWS OF THE WEEK.
SUDDEN thought strikes me, let us swear an
eternal friendship." So says Matilda in The Rovers (Canning's mock-German play in the Anti-Jacobin), and the same sudden thought seems to have lately occurred to a large number of the Kings and potentates of Europe. In the spring M. Loubet went to St. Petersburg on that impulse. Next the King of Italy went there and swore eternal friendship. His move was quickly copied by the German Emperor, who rushed to Reval, and he and the Czar at once swore eternal friendship. Now the same thing is going on in Berlin between the Kaiser and King Victor, and no doubt before long we shall see a similar performance in Rome. Unfortunately, our constitutional system gives little scope for the new Royal game, and Kings and Emperors when they come here have to be content with a little shooting, and possibly a talk with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. You cannot swear eternal friendship with a working majority in the Holm of Commons, and we, poor democratic, self-governing people that we are, have no other guarantee for eternity in friendship.
