31 AUGUST 1844, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE fighting fuss is kept up, and is supplied with fresh fuel by the Prince DE Jonsvir.LE's bombardment of Mogador, Marshal Be- GEMID'S victory over the Morocco army, and the mutual taunts of French and English newspapers. The details of the attack on Mogador come slowly; because the English spectators had not so close and favourable a view as at Tangier, while the official ac- counts of the French are meagre and dilatory ; but enough is stated to show that the engagement was more important than that of Tangier: the Moors made a fiercer resistance, and the assail- ants, besides conquering that resistance, proceeded to take pos- session of the island that forms the port. The position of the island, which covers the town, may render its possession necessary to an effectual attack ; but there is at. least the appearance of a tighter grasp on the Morocco territory—one step forward towards that French occupation which has been declared a cams bell. A sometimes Ministerial journal, indeed, which declared that the French might bombard Tangier but they would not dare to occupy it, is reconciled to the seizure of the island of Mogador by the necessity of the case ; a line of sophisticating argument by which the French might be proved virtually to have forborne from occupying even Algiers: Nor has the inland frontier of Morocco been inviolate: Marshal BHGEAUD has advanced within it, has routed a great army, and has seized not only a quantity of' artillery, but the Imperial Prince's luggage. The French lost many men, but not nearly so many as the Moors; and the Mar- shal's etui was not even in danger; so that the victory is quite unequivocal. All the while, there is no proof that the Moorish Emperor had really avowed himself ready to satisfy the demands of France, or that his fanatical subjects would let him do so if he would. It is still a question to be solved, whether Morocco can cease to resist its overwhelming enemy ; and if so, whether France can ever retract while ABD-EL:KADER is at large and again, if matters thus pursue their natural course, whether Europe may not be dragged into war, however reluctantly.

This is the theme in which journalists exult. To them, hungry for " subjects" in the dull autumnal season, this topic is a wind- fall. Military ardour is a chronic affection of the French journals ; but the acute inflammation of some London papers almost sur- passes the Gallic fever. The journalizing "Liberals" speak of war as the one thing to be thought of. The mere talk about it is very convenient just now for editors ; it promotes activity in the journal-trade ; a real war would be good for newspapers. Stung with anger at the noise and pother, a Ministerial writer shrewdly guesses that it may be meant to promote some stockjobbiog ends. Likely enough ; but the "Liberals," as an Opposition, have a par- ticular purpose to serve. One paper, for instance, ridicules the notion of a contemporary already alluded to, that Mogador has not been occupied ; hints that it might be made a cans belli; insists that the time has come to protest against the occupation of Morocco as well as Algiers ; and, with the mocking word of " peace " paraded to save appearances, labours to show how facile war would be, and to taunt Ministers into taking that short road out of difficulties. If the Tory Cabinet were jeered into it, the Whigs would have a fine opportunity to cry out against that old Tory mistake, and to offer to set the world to rights. No wonder that the Whig journals provoke the war they affect to deprecate.