NEWS OF THE WEEK.
NOTHING whatever has been made known this week on the subject of the Negotiations. Count Schouvaloff reached St. Petersburg on Saturday, and has had many interviews with his Emperor, but the pacificatory message which Sir Stafford Northcote was to have communicated to the House of Commons on Monday did sot arrive. On the contrary, it is intimated that Count Schouvaloff is coming back, for further conference with Lord Salisbury, and that nothing can be settled for some days. The long delay wearies men, and inclines them to pessimistic views, but nothing is really known to the public which indicates any new chance, either for war or peace. The military preparations -continue, and the ultimate decision rests in the breasts of the two Czars,—the Emperor Alexander and Lord Beaconsfield. This is a self-governed country, but if any Member of Parliament, say, Mr. Gladstone, asked Sir Stafford Northcote what he thought of the situation, he would be told, in conventionally polite phrase, to mind his own business, and would be hooted by the majority for curiosity. With war preparations on every side, industrial revolt in Lancashire, representatives eager for war and expenditure, a Parliament giving entire nights to de-. epicable quarrels, and journals bragging every day, few of the signs which precede great national calamities are absent.
