NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE immense naval spectacle prepared by the German Emperor at Kiel has passed off without any external hitch. No accident has occurred to any one of the vast fleet of more than a hundred fighting steamers sent up by fourteen separate nations, no Admiral has quarrelled with any other, no indiscreet speech has been made, and the German Emperor himself has left an impression that he strongly desired peace. In a speech at the banquet given him by the Senate of Ham- burg on Wednesday, he declared the Baltic Canal a work of peace, for " seas connect and do not separate," a remark which is only half true. At least, we English rather rely on the Channel to keep us apart from France. Then raising his voice till the whole of his great audience listened with eager expectation, he declared that the mighty ironclad fleet which lay in Kiel Harbour was "typical of peace and of the co-opera- tion of all the nations of Europe in the mission of civilisation intrusted to them." We should not, ourselves, choose a shell with its fuse alight, as the most striking emblem of peace ; bat doubtless the Emperor had in his mind the old motto, "Si vis pacem, para helium." The single break in the naval harmony was the obvious, and of course arranged, sullenness of the French Admiral, who at first refused to accept any invitation, though he yielded on the second day ; and would not even let his sailors go on shore, to admire the wonderful scene presented by the illuminations. "Talk as you like," he practically said, "we are irreconcilable."
