NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE New Year will open with the world still beset by doubt and anxiety. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the prospects are decidedly better than they were a year ago. Of course, we shall not feel that our feet are resting upon solid ground till the Irish settlement has been ratified and the Washington Conference has either emerged from the present difficulty about submarines and secondary ships of war or has decided upon a new Conference. At all events, there is one great fact for our comfort. The good understanding between Britain and America, the leaping together of instinct and will devoted to a high purpose, was never so evident as it is now. Day by day, if the newspapers do not mislead us, the tide of feeling rises higher in America in favour of settling international disputes without recourse to war and without making those vast preparations for annihilation which mean ruin even before annihilation can be achieved.
