NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE French Government has taken the unusual but certainly not ill-advised course of addressing to the English Government a despatch of condolence on the loss of Mr. Cobden,—a "repre- sentative in our eyes," says M. Drouyn de Lhuys, " of those sen- timents and those. cosmopolitan principles before which national frontiers and rivalries disappear." Cobden, he adds, " was, if I may be permitted to say so, an international man. Re loved and understood France," adds the Minister, somewhat strongly, "better than any other person [Englishman, we presume], and regarded as one of the greatest interests of the country and humanity the maintenance of peaceful relations between the two nations which, according to an expression recently used by a member of the English Cabinet [Mr. Milner Gibson ?], march at the head of the world." This just recognition of Mr. Cobden's services, and especially this emphasis in applauding the views of his party, is of course not merely an expression of graceful and grateful sentiment. It is also a diplomatic move, intended to strengthen the alliance between the school in foreign policy which Mr. Cobden led, and the Imperial party in France.
