NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TTP to Friday evening no official account of the terms of peace had reached London, and no account at all worth ten minutes' .examination. With one exception, the latest telegrams are of the 23rd, both from Bordeaux and Versailles, and their general -drift is that terms 8.9 to territory have been agreed to, that there is a dispute about the indemnity, but that M. Thiers would take -the German ultimatum to Bordeaux on Friday. Indeed, a very gate telegram announces that he has done so. The balance of evidence seems to show that the negotiators have arrived at ran understanding, though a telegram from Amiens, received by the Telegraph, states that the German troops have been warned from Versailles to hold themselves in instant readiness, but of the 4etaili we have no evidenee whatever. One rumour points to ,some offer made by Count Bismarck to take a plebiscite in Alsace -and Lorraine five years hence, the provinces being occupied meanwhile by the Germans as guarantee for an indemnity of £150,000,000, but there is no proof that it has any founda- tion. If negotiations are broken off, it must be on some point on which the neutral Powers entertain a strong opinion, but this also ,is only a reasonable supposition.
