Madrid itself is still untaken, and the position of its
defenders grows stronger. The British Charg*4 d'affaires has left the city on the reasonable ground that his proper place is where the Spanish Government at present is, namely, at Valencia. (Why the British Ambassador should not be there remains unexplained.) The fighting through Christmas has been inconclusive, with some slight advantage to the Government forces, and the chief feature of interest has been the stoppage of a German steamer by a Government warship off Bilbao. The developments which followed arc still obscured by a partial censorship. The German cruiser 'Konigsberg' imme- diately steamed to Bilbao, and the arrested vessel was released, but whether this was the result of gunboat diplomacy or of reasonable negotiation is by no means clear. Neither has it been established whether the vessel did in fact carry contraband—whatever contraband may be defined as being in this war. So far as can be seen at the moment of writing, what might have been a dangerous episode has been disposed of without undue alarms.
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