6 NOVEMBER 1909, Page 17

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE King of Spain this week granted an interview to a representative of a Paris newspaper, Le Journal. The King began by protesting against the way in which foreign opinion had treated events at Barcelona. He did not quarrel with the crowd :— " But what I cannot understand is that among those who protested [i.e., against Ferrer's execution] there should have been found the names of intellectuals, as you call them. How can a man of science, who would not venture to announce a discovery he had made until he had verified his experiments a hundred times over, who would rightly continue to doubt until he had weighed milli- grammes and counted cells, and whose respect for science forbids him to state a truth until it appears evident, proven, and irre- futable—how, I ask, can such a man protest without inquiry against a judgment rendered according to laws which he does not know and und& a guarantee which, after all, has some value, for it is that of the honour of Spanish officers P"