There has been a sudden but transient Cabinet crisis in
Madrid, sn account of the refusal of the Romanones Mired/7 to follow President Wilson's lead in making pacific overtures to the belli- gerents. The German colony and their Clerical friends were resolved to drag .Spain into the German peace movement. When Count Romanones declined to be made their tool, he was violently attacked in their newspapers. In one journal owned by Germans; a " high diplomatic personage," who was understood to be the German Ambassador at Madrid, was made to say, almost in so many words, that Count Romanones had been bribed by the Allies, and that Spanish merchant ships would be torpedoed as a "severe lesson " to Spain for her impartial neutrality. The Liberal Prime Minister on Tuesday offered the resignation of the Cabinet, as- a result of this agitation. The same night he was asked to resume office with the complete confidence of King Alfonso. The-German attempt to dictate to the Spanish Government has thus failed completely.
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