NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE belief in a great war in spring has perceptibly increased all the week, and has begun at last to affect the calculations of financiers. A fall has taken place on the Bourse at Vienna, where the Government, moved by the debates on the German Army Bill, is making preparations with something of haste and alarm. The garrison of Metz has been officially warned that the instant the order for mobilisation has been issued, the wives and children of officers must be sent back to Germany, and has received directions, planned with German forethought, as to the routes to be adopted. London, it is asserted, has been swept bare of tinned meats by a sadden German demand, and the French have been buying immense quantities of boards, with which to hut increased garrisons along the frontier. At Rome, no one pretends to believe in peace ; and in Brussels, all the arrange- ments are being made for the mobilisation of the Belgian Army. AU these statements may point only to defensive preparations rendered necessary by the, situation ; but the importance attached to them shows a growing uneasiness in the public mind, which, again, intensifies the " tension " so often preceding great events. On the other hand, it does not often happen, just before a great war, that everybody is so wideawake.
