NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE nation enters upon the New Year with good omens and in much better spirits than were observable a few weeks ago. We have remarked before now that the rise and fall of national confidence bears very little relation to events. The rising and falling is rather like that recorded on the temperature-chart of an intermittent fever. There is no visible cause why the temperature should suffer regular alternations, but so it is ; and so it is with the British nation during a war. This curious fact has its consoling aspect, because it means that any appearance of hesitation or mis- giving is much more accidental than real. We know that the nation is in a natural and legitimate sense war-weary—nothing else could be expected after three and a half years of unexampled effort —but the symptoms of physical weariness indicate not the remotest intention of calling off the fight. The splendid fact about the armies in the field is that, though there is probably not a man who does not want peace, there is hardly one who would not far rather continue the struggle than make peace on the terms which Germany at present proposes.
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