Prince Bismarck's semi-official organ,—as it is called,—the Nord Deuteclu3 Gazette,
has given Europe a fright this week, by a manifesto against the anti-German tone of the French Press, and a warning that such displays of temper in France, if not controlled, will sooner or later lead to war. The truth seems to be that the better organs of the French Press have not been at all bitterly anti-German, but that a few of the less weighty papers have been indulging in anti-German diatribes, especially a little paper recently set up expressly to attack Germany, which the new Press law in France did not permit the Govern- ment at once to suppress. Whether the Nord Deutsche Gazette's article is really due to a wish to prevent international quarrelling, or is the kind of warning which the wolf gave to the lamb that was drinking beneath him in the same river, is not at present very clear. But Germany cannot really wish to kindle a war, for the excellent reason that such a war, unless positively forced upon Germany, would be so unpopular in Germany, that even brilliant results might be fatal to Prince Bismarck's power there. Doubtless, there is some reason for the tone taken by the Nord Deutsche Gazette, but whether that reason be found in domestic policy or foreign policy,—we suspect, the latter,—is a problem that will for some time remain unsolved.
