NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Protocol is published at last. It is a very short and toler- ably clear document, and registers formally the opinion of the Six Powers which sign it upon the means necessary for the " pacification of the East." These are, briefly, that the Porte should make peace with Montenegro by conceding a rectification of frontier and the free navigation of the Bojana, should replace its armies on a peace footing, and should " put in hand, with the least possible delay, the reforms " necessary for tranquillising the disturbed provinces, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria. The Powers will watch these reforms carefully through their repre- sentatives at Constantinople and through their local agents, and should their hopes be disappointed, they will consider what course ought to be pursued. There is not a word in the paper which binds them to abstain from using extreme measures of coercion, and not one which pledges them to coerce at all. The Protocol is, in fact, only a recorded opinion, and the moment it was signed, a written declaration was handed in by Lord Derby, declaring that if Turkey and Russia did not both disarm, the Protocol would be null ; and another from Count Schonvaloff, asserting that if peace were made with Montenegro, and if Turkey set about reforms in earnest, and if the Porte sent an embassy to St. Petersburg to treat of disarmament, the Czar would consent to that measure.
