NEWS OF THE WEEK.
QUPPOSE, just as a wild supposition, as the upshot of all this horrible imbroglio, this devil's dance of civilization over its own resources, that Alsace and the Vosges mountains went to Germany, that the demand for money were limited to a repayment of the German loans—£30,000,000—and that France, preferring liberty to a Republic, elected Leopold of Belgium her King, with Belgium as his dower, how would the world stand then ? German feeling about her frontier would be satisfied ; France would be intact ; Belgium would come in at the top instead of the bottom, as Scot- land came into Great Britain ; and we should be out of that dangerous guarantee. No right would be violated except that of the people of Alsace, who might secure their civil autonomy under, say, Duke Ernst. It is a dream, of course, but history is not ended yet.
