NEWS OF THE WEEK.
DULCIGNO has not been surrendered, and reports have been current all the week that the Sultan would break his word. He had discovered, it was said, that Germany and Austria were opposed to coercion, and would, consequently, keep Dulcigno, or at best so evacuate it that the Albanians could enter before the Montenegrins. It is certain that Riza Pasha proposed to Montenegro a convention, containing impos- sible demands, such as that vessels from Dulcigno should display the Ottoman flag—which would be to acknowledge vassalage, as Austria does in Bosnia and England in Cyprus—and the maintenance of the Turkish laws, which would make Monte- negrin evidence inadmissible in Montenegrin Courts ; but it is doubtful if it is intended to break faith. The Porte cannot bear to do anything straightforwardly, or lose any excuse for -delay, and so the Ministers invent heaps of conditions. The -Sultan, however, must be well aware that if Dulcigno is re- tained, the Powers will at once proceed to punish what they will consider perfidy, and we cannot, therefore, believe that Ire intends to recede from his engagement. Until it is executed, however, the European Fleet remains at Cattaro, and there is as dangerous an excitement at Constantinople as if resistance were intended. The pause gives the Powers time for consider- ation, and already there is evidence that they doubt the ex- pediency of allowing their concert to be broken up, or even suspended. Their views, as we have argued elsewhere, are not -to be sought just now in the newspapers.
