Year: 1877

a year has passed since the deposition and
death of Sultan Abdul-Aziz, and Europe now
enters upon new Summer Of action and
change All the Omens are of graycr and
more threatening character. In place of the
uncertainty and uneasiness of the past year,
there is the accomplished fact OF war. In
place of a general effort to maintain some con-
cord OF action among the Christian Powers OF
Europe, they now stand apart, sullen and
scvcrally mistrustful. One new disturbance
has been suddenly added to the forces which
threaten the general peace, and others seem to
be lowering in the rear. Whether this is " the
vanguard of evil days" or but temporary
gloom, will probably become evident before
the Summer closes.


The rumOrs of an attempt to establish
peace are certainly uniOunded. Any such
movement would be premature. The bclhger-
ents are in the field, and face to faces the
obstacles which have impeded Russians march
are disappearing; but, even though she should
be successful in her first engagements, the
campaign will not be rapid. When she has
broken through the line of the Danube, that
of the Balkan awaits her, for it is not likely
that her terms of peace will be accepted be-
fore She reaches Adrianoplc. One contingency,
it is true, may bring the struggle to a more
speedy end-a successful revolution at Con-
stantinople. But Russia will consider herself
justified in adding certain indemnities TO her
former demands. She means to fight out the
quarrel on this line, and it will probably take
all Summer to do it.


England has settled into position which
she will maintain for two or three months, at
least. The warlike excitement appears to have
been artliicialy stimulated: it lrls already died
out among the people, who are giving once
more the strongest evidence OF anti-Turkish
sentiment. The Government, Notwithstanding
its majority in Parliament, is thus held in
check, and we cannot believe that any rash
policy of intervention will prevail. Russia
will send friendly and composing cOmmuni-
cation: the British fleet viii hover around the
shores OF the Levant the Suez Canal Will not
be menaced, and meanwhile the inevitable
battles will be fought in Bulgaria and ARMENIA.
But there will be much excitement and anxiety
in all classes of the British population, during
the whole course of the war.


France so far as any effective participation
in the matter is concerned, has deliberately
tied her hands. Her Executive has allowed
himself to be the instrument of a reactionary
complot which is equally absurd and outrageous.
1t may be possible to fell the Republic in
France, but its roots are set fast in the national
SOIL and they will send forth fresh shoots
While the race exists. The memory of six years
of unexamped prosperity can never be blotted
from the minds of the French people. 1t is
true that the irrepressibe conflict between
Church aud State could not be wholly avoided
in France but, in the present condition of
parties, a tacit truce, out OF which some better
relation might be evolved, was possible. The
despotic action of the Government, of which
every day gives us fresh instances, will provoke
a powerful opposition, and then-the struggle
will come.


Somewhat of the same danger menaces Italy,
less from the party of reaction within her own