The proclamation of the French Republic or Provisional Government and
its declaration against the aggression on Ger- many has decisively turned the current of English sympathy on the war, and the feeling becomes stronger and stronger, especially among the working-classes, that a siege and bombard- ment of Paris, undertaken solely to extort territorial cessions from France, when on almost every other point Germany may pretty well have her own way, would be a great crime. Two meetings were held last Saturday, in Hyde Park and in St. James's Hall, to con- gratulate the French on their Republic and plead for peace. In both meetings the sympathy for France betrayed itself very strongly, and, at the latter, in spite of all the efforts of the chairman (Mr. Beales) to prevent any expression of bias as between the belligerent parties. In Hyde Park, Mr. Odger took the chair, and read an address,—which he has, we believe, gone to Paris to deliver,—in which all the blame of the war is thrown (we fear unjustly) on the Empire, and the French are exhorted to " secure their terri- tory" by offering such terms as would be acceptable to the great people who had fought this war in self-defence. Professor Beesly, who was loudly cheered, vehemently opposed the demand for a cession of territory, as unjust to the ceded population and a certain seed of future war. In the St. James's Hall meeting, Professor Beesly went further, and proposed, and nearly carried, a resolu- tion that our Government should be invited to use all its efforts to prevent this "spoliation,"—a resolution interpreted by some of the Committee to mean that England should go to war for France, which Professor Beesly did not deny. He would have had the British Government go to war for Germany at the outset, and then we should have beeu in a position, he thought, to restrain Ger- many now. Perhaps ; but more likely the whole of Europe would be armed to the teeth, and taking sides, almost at haphazard, as self-interest and the prospect of aggrandizement might suggest.
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