Friday's news in regard to the Balkan crisis is better,
or Perhaps we should say a little less bad, for there seems some reason to hope that the Emperor Francis Joseph is exerting himself in the interests of peace. Against this must be set the very grave communication from the Paris correspondent of the Tin148 (one of the best informed of living students of European affairs) which also appears in Friday's issue. His communication, curiously enough, endorses by a,ntici- pation almost everything we have said in our leading article of to-day. Though the thought of war, and especially of such a war as may result if Austria-Hungary fastens a quarrel upon Servia, is utterly hateful to us, as it is indeed to every Englishman, we are absolutely confident that the sense of national honour, and also the instinct of self-preservation, will, if unhappily the occasion should arise, make this country virtually unanimous in its determination to maintain the Triple Entente, and to face the consequences of doing so, no matter how momentous. We have felt obliged to describe plainly the possibilities of the situation, for we cannot be a party to keeping the public in the dark.
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