NEWS OF THE WEEK.
AN unexpected incident has marked the week. Moved by some impulse still unexplained, Lord Rosebery called a Cabinet Council for Thursday, and the public, aware of the bitter feeling in France, and certain that Ministers would not break their holiday for nothing, at once leapt to the con- clusion that some threat had been received from Paris. All kinds of stocks fell sharply, the price of wheat rose, and the shipping trade for a moment suspended contracts. Rumours flaw about of a fleet sent to the Mediterranean, of a summons to the Naval Reserve, and of some new effort to secure sailors,—in short, there was a pronounced war scare. The Cabinet, however, met without the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer or the Secretary for India ; it sat only an hour and a half, and it was then announced that its business had been to strengthen the arrangements for protecting Englishmen in China. They are in danger in Pekin and the Southern Treaty Ports, and it was necessary to send more ships, and probably some troops from India. The necessary orders were accordingly issued, and in a few weeks the North Pacific squadron will be strong enough to overawe the ports, or if need be, contend with any hostile fleet. The scare died away with no further result than some commercial losses, and a strong expression of opinion on all hands that nothing had occurred as yet to justify such a calamity to Europe, as a war between Great Britain and France would necessarily prove.
