NEWS OF THE WEEK
MCARNOT has paid a State visit to Savoy, to be present
• at the commemoration of the junction of the mountain province with France, and received a warm welcome, the clergy being conspicuous for their loyalty. In the evening of Sunday, he was entertained by the Council General, which is elective, and made a hearty, though over-sentimental, speech. He called the annexation a reunion, in allusion to the annexation of '98, which he described, and perhaps believed, to have been spon- taneous ; and was anxious to show that under the plebiscite the Savoyards entered France "with heads erect." He made a great point of the fidelity of the Savoy recruits during the war of 1870, praised the inhabitants for placing patriotism above party, and declared that the truest patriotism was to " unify the living forces of the country, to make labour more fruitful, and to provide for the workman more prosperity for to-day and more security for the future." The speech seems to have been received with enthusiasm ; and, altogether, we may take it that Savoy, a small class of dissidents apart, is content with her lot. If not, she would have to bear it, for the one thing which all French politicians absolutely reject is Home-rule. They recommend it to their enemies in the hope it may weaken them, but for themselves they call it the reign of the Commune, and put it down with shot and steel.
