NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THAT public nuisance, the Statute Holiday, falls this year on Saturday, the day after Christmas Day, which is also a holi- day. We are, therefore, compelled to go to press too early to record the result of the Tonquinese debate. Up to Wednesday evening, it was marked by little originality, the ideas on one side being that the conquest of Anam was economically worthless, and that it cost too much blood and treasure; and, on the other, that evacuation would destroy the prestige of France in Asia. Both statements are true; and neither weigh much except with those who make them. The opponents of the conquest care little about prestige in Asia; while its defenders, recognising their outlays, want to go on in order to get them back. The most striking argument advanced in favour of the Government was that of Bishop Freppel, who pleaded the cause of the great number of Catholic converts in Anam ; but it is probable that he only irritated his hearers. The Right howled at him for deserting their party on the question ; and if there is anybody whose " massacre " seems to a French Extremist unimportant, 'it is a Catholic convert. You might as well plead to a vivisector that pain hurts mice. -
