NEWS OF THE WEEK.
IN the region of foreign affairs sensational events follow each other with bewildering rapidity. Though "the drums and tramplings " of the Portuguese Revolution are still in our ears, public attention has been switched off to France, where the great railway strike has brought the country to the verge of civil war. Happily the good sense, good heart, and general soundness and moderation of the Prime Minister, M. Briand, the instinctive desire to maintain order which belongs to the mass of the French people, and last but not least, as we cannot help thinking, the determination of provincial France not to tolerate in the future, as they did in the past, revolutionary movements "made in Paris," leave little doubt that the crisis will be surmounted, and that very shortly normal conditions will he restored on the French rail- ways, and this without any recourse to bloodshed or cruel and unjust measures. As we write on Friday morning, all the symptoms point to an early collapse of the strike. In spite of the threats of the strike leaders, the Southern, Eastern, and Orleans lines are practically working as usual, while on the Northern and Western railways the situation is greatly improved. For example, on Thursday night the London mails arrived in good time, and it is stated that the grande vitesse goods traffic has been resumed, while in Paris itself the Metropolitan Underground Railway is still working under conditions which are described as nearly normal.
