The German Emperor—in regard to whose health the newspapers publish
the most contradictory reports— on March ' 26th received the King of Italy on board the Hohenzollern' at Naples, and at the subsequent lunch speeches were made which are regarded on the Continent as of considerable importance. Their tone was something more than friendly. The King declared that he and his people saw in the Emperor " a faithful and sure friend." The bonds which united them and their common ally, Austria, had been " the strongest safeguards of European peace," and such they ought to remain. The two peoples, " brought together in the • past by similarity of national political vicisSitudes," were "now bound together by their common aspiration towards a future of peaceful progresi." The Emperor replied that " the idea of the Triple Alliance was indelibly engraved in the spirit of our subjects." That Alliance, "concluded by our illustrious predecessors and the revered head of the house of Hapsburg," had become " a blessing for Europe." "Looking out on the fine Italian fleet, looking out on the beautiful Bay of Naples,' from which so much poetry, and so great a wealth of historic record, is exhaled," the Emperor drank " to the King and Queen, the valiant Army and Fleet, and the sympathetic people of Italy." The 'cordiality of the Emperor greatly moves the Italians, who are well aware that the Triple Alliance while it lasts directly
protects them, and who bear quietly, though they do not , . exactly hke. the heavy expenditure necessary to make their own Alliance attractive to great military Powers.
