5 JANUARY 1889, Page 9

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

KING MILAN of Servia has beaten back his revolution.

His second appeal to his people resulted in the return of a Great Skuptschina, or Constituent Assembly, in which he had only four friends, while the opponents who desired his resignation had five hundred. The Assembly was, in fact, practically unanimous in demanding,—first, that the regular Skuptschina, or Parliament, should control foreign policy ; and secondly, that Servians should enjoy exemption from preventive arrest, should have irremovable Judges, and should, in fact, possess personal liberty as complete as in England. As the King, it was known, would never give up his control of foreign affairs, it was fancied that he must abdicate in favour of his son ; but he is a man hard to beat. Relying, as we believe, on the impossibility of insur- rection, which would have led at once to an Austrian occupa- tion, King Milan first conceded complete personal liberty and abandoned his treaty-making power, and then, receiving on Tuesday a Committee of the majority, pronounced his ultimatum. The Constitution, he said, as amended, was the most liberal on the Continent, and it must be voted at once, and as it stood. If not, he would neither grant a new one nor observe the old, but would govern for himself as an abso- lute Prince. "I shall appoint what Cabinet I please, and be my own Prime Minister." The Committee, utterly daunted, retired, and by 41 to 4 advised the Skuptschina to submit.