NEWS OF THE WEEK.
WAR between Russia and Japan draws perceptibly nearer. The Russian Government, which always needs time to draw its great but scattered resources together, delayed its answer to Japan for forty days, but it has at last been presented, and is found altogether unsatisfactory. One report ascribes the cavalier methods of Russia's negotiations to the fact that Russia believes that Britain is using all her influence with Japan to prevent war, and that she will succeed. According to the accounts which seem least untrustworthy—recollect that a war rouses to energy every unscrupulous speculator on every Stock Exchange—the Government of St. Petersburg has refused to relax its hold on Manchuria; has demanded either a free hand or a condominium with Japan in Northern Korea ; and has insisted on its freedom to acquire or lease Masampho, the great harbour in South Korea, which threatens Japan itself. The Japanese statesmen, though they have dissolved their Parliament to free themselves from unwise pressure, reject these terms absolutely, and have, in a Note presented to the Russian Minister on the 21st inst., requested his Govern- ment to " reconsider its reply." This request, even if it did not contain the time-limit, which, if added, was probably added verbally, amounts to an ultimatum, and it is difficult to believe that the Czar can meet it even by an evasive reply. If he answers as Lord Salisbury answered the ultimatum from the Transvaal, by a declaration that Russia has nothing farther to say, war will commence at once, probably with an attack on the Russian Fleet.
