NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THERE is little of importance to record this week in regard to foreign affairs. The Times of Monday publishes, however, an extract from the leading article of the semi-official North-German Gazette on Mr. Asquith's speech of Thursday week on the Navy and Anglo-German relations which deserves comment :- "Spoken in the House of Commons by the statesman who is responsible for the policy of the Government as a whole, these utterances have a weight that can hardly be exaggerated. In this pronouncement Germany sees absolute evidence of a happy change in the method of judging Anglo-German relations on the other side of the North Sea. In recent years it has repeatedly been pointed out on the British no less than on the German side that there was no true and reasonable ground for serious dispute between Germany and England. The natural inference, however —that there was, therefore, no obstacle to a thoroughly friendly development of mutual relations—was always wrecked upon the English ' but ' concerning German naval expansion."
