NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE week has been clouded by an event tragic in itself, and one which it is possible may be the cause of events still more tragic,—events which may conceivably be fraught with woe and misery for half the human race. As we have said elsewhere, however, we maintain the confident hope that the incident will not end in war, and that by the time these pages are in our readers' hands the Russians will be found to have yielded to our demands. In our leading article we have fully described these demands, and will only say here that they are, in our opinion, just and reasonable, and that the Government fully deserve the confidence of the nation for the firmness and moderation with which they have handled the situation. They have not shrunk from insisting on our just rights, whatever the consequences ; but at the same time they have been neither provocative nor unreasonable either in action or language. It remains to record the incident in detail. On Monday morning came news of the outrage in the North Sea,—news that sent a great wave of amazement and indignation throughout the country. The facts, as related by eye-witnesses and victims, are as follows. At 11.30 p.m. on Friday night the British trawlers off the Dogger Bank, some two hundred miles from Spurn Head, while engaged in fishing, sighted the Baltic Fleet on their lee steaming slowly to the south-west. The first squadron passed by on the lee aide of the trawlers without taking any notice. A torpedo-boat then apparently came close up to the fishing- boats in which the men were gutting fish in a bright light, rejoined the Russian fleet, and the four battleships of the second squadron, turning their searchlights full on the trawlers, opened fire as soon as they had got to windward of them.
