NEWS OF THE WEEK.
GERMANY has, it is said, annexed the Caroline Islands (near the Philippines), without taking any notice of the claims of Spain, though Spain had been making preparations ever since March for the effective occupation of the Carolines, and a sum had even been entered in the Budget estimates for the expenses of occupation. Indeed, it is asserted that a military decree was issued in March establishing a Government in the Caroline Islands, and that a Spanish officer is resident in Yap Island, and presides over the group of the Caroline Islands and the Paloas. Of course, the irritation in Spain is very great, and would be much greater if the Spaniards could think of anything just now but the cholera which threatens their lives. It certainly would be a very high-handed measure of the German Government to select a group so near the Spanish group of Philippines, and one, moreover, on which Spain had herself laid a claim. Apparently, however, Germany is determined to find occupa- tion for her navy in the South Sea ; and we suppose that the protectorate of a group of islands to which another European Power lays claim, will occupy the navy even more actively than the protectorate of a group with regard to which there is no such competition.
