The Times of Friday has a curious article on the
necessity of mediation between the belligerents, the pith of which is that the Germans, if they win, will have a right to claim the expenses of the war, a recognition of Germany as a whole, and a permanent reduction in the armed force of France. We do not like the terms. The real danger is lest King William, who, once in the field, grows stern, should ask for the line of the Vosges, the old German frontier, and one more defensible than any which exists. If he ash this,—and he hints that he will ask it, and add out of it to Bavarian possessions—the war will go on ; but even if driven from this, the demand as to the army is absurd. It will only compel the French to adopt the Prussian system, and send her whole population, as Prussia did, through the military mill. The money Germany must have— the one tactical fault of Berlin is stinginess—but it is greatly to be regretted that France has not a good big colony to offer. We are not certain even now that Prussia would not accept, say, the Isle de Bourbon and Cochin China, sooner than Alsace, which the French would plot for ever to regain. Ships, colonies, and com- merce are German "ideas."
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