7 MARCH 1891, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE Canadian elections have ended in a victory for the Conservative Government, which obtains a majority of twenty-five. This is a great reduction on its former majority of .fifty-one, but in a Parliament like that of Ottawa, it is amply sufficient for safety. We rather regret the result, which will encourage the Americans in their belief that Canada can be coerced by hostile tariffs, while it forbids the trial of a great, and as we think perfectly safe, experiment. The Canadian Government will be weaker, too ; and just now, when some arrangement or other must be made with the United States, at particularly needs to be strong. The only subject for con- gratulation is, that the idea of annexation does not .attract anything like a majority of the voters, who for the most part remain faithful on both sides to their old notion that the alternative to British connection,. is independence, and that absorption in the Union should be only the resource of despair.