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completion of a great engineering feat, which may exercise incalculable influence upon the history of the world. The canal, which only cost eight millions to build, or less than the annual increase in the English Naval Estimates since 1885, will, it is estimated, be equivalent to the doubling of the fighting force of the German navy, and may at the same time so facilitate the dispatch of a German expedition from the Baltic to the North Sea and the Channel, as to affect decisively the fortunes of some future war. Of all this nothing was said,

fleets was an

event, in its

way, as not

able as, or perhaps more notable than, the mustering of manufacturers of all nations at international exhibitions, such as at Chicago and at Paris. There the competitors, although rivals, were rivals in the arts of peace, whereas at Kiel the exhibitors were armed to the teeth with the latest appliances of science for the purpose of destruction. It is the daily thought. and the nightly preoccupation of every officer on board those one hundred fighting ships how he can most speedily wipe out of existence, by torpedo, cannon, or ram, the vessels which represent the

were

armed strength of his rivals. The antagonism, latent in times of peace, was very near the surface in the case of France, who on this occasion could not even suppress her ill-will sufficiently to preserve ordinary civility in the midst of the international concourse. Her admiral, obeying orders, took his ironclads to Kiel, but ostentatiously and sullenly took as little part as he could in the festivities in which he was invited to participate. Still worse, the Russian and French ironclads entered the harbour together as if they one fleet, the command of the entire squadron being vested for the time being in the hands of the French admiral. The Parisian press naturally made the most of this significant demonstration, and declared that the true significance of the fêtes was not the opening of the canal, but the display side by side of the French and Russian fleets. The Germans, for once displaying sang froid than is usually

more

natural to that

sensitive and somewhat thin-skinned race, stolidly

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torially contiguous. Yet it is a fact that it is owing to the ocean that the British drumbeat is echoing round the world. What chance would there have been of colonising Australia, for instance, if we had had no other but land carriage all the way? At the same time proximity is by no means always or necessarily contributory to peace. Hence it is by ro means certain that the canal which brings the Baltic nearer to France will altogether conduce to the maintenance of the sullen peace which exists between Paris and Berlin.

THE GERMAN EMPEROR.

(From a recent photograph by Russell and Sons.)

ignored the French ill-will, so that the incident which might have been serious passed off without creating more than a ripple of discontent. All the same, it is a cause for great satisfaction that the mustering of the navies passed off without a breaking of the peace or a single contribution to the troubles of the chancellories of Furope.

The End of

Among all the reflections which the the Turkish mustering of the navies suggests, one of the most serious from the point of view of the old alarmist was the appearance in the

Fleet.

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harbour of Kiel of a solitary Turkish ironclad. It was well, no doubt, that the crescent should fly at the masthead of one ship at least in the combined navies of Christendom, but its presence emphasised and accentuated the extent to which the power of the Ottoman has faded out of Europe. It is stated on the best authority that this solitary Turkish ironclad was the only vessel in the whole of the Turkish fleet whose boilers were in a condition to get up steam, and possibly the only survivor of the fleet which, thirty years ago, ranked as one of the best half-dozen in the world. Europe has by no means adequately recognised the way in which the Eastern Question has been revolutionised by the way in which the rust has eaten into the boilers of the Turkish ironclads. At the last Eastern war the Turkish fleet, under the command of Hobart Pasha, had an unquestioned supremacy in the Euxine, and in the waters of the Levant. Hence the Russian advance upon the Bosphorus was of necessity made by land. In the future there will be no necessity for crossing the Danube and marching through Bulgaria. The Russian Black Sea fleet could in a moment seize Constantinople, and hoist the Russian eagle over the Mosque of St. Sophia. Of course this might mean war-probably would mean warbut not necessarily with England, for with us the Constantinople superstition is rapidly dying out. But if war it be, it would be a war in which the capital of the Turk would be in the hands of the Russians almost as soon as the rest of Europe heard of the declaration of war.

How stands

There is no reason to anticipate any such Constanti- bold and dashing stroke as this on the 1 nople? part of the Russian Tzar. He might seize Constantinople, but whether he could retain it would depend upon the issue of the war which would then almost of necessity be raging along the whole of his Western frontier. Still, it is well to remember when people are discussing the chances of the great war which some anticipate will break out this autumn, that if France and Russia should really go campaigning together, Constantinople would fall into their hands almost without a blow. The great Napoleon regarded this as such a menace to civilisation, that no consideration would induce him to consent to Russia's occupying the Bosphorus. The Frenchmen of to-day are not so squeamish. In order to wreak their vengeance upon their German conquerors and recover their lost provinces, they appear to be willing to place not only the keys of the Bosphorus, but the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven

into the hands of Russia, or any one else who will help them to vengeance.

France and

Rumours were rife all through last month as to the understanding between Russia. France and Russia, one side of which might easily be very serious for us. It is stated, not officially, but in quarters where the wish is the father to the thought, that Russia will support France in all African questions. This is much too large an order to be accepted without better confirmation than any that has yet been forthcoming. The policy of Russia, ever since the days of the Emperor Nicholas, has been that of acquiescence in English ascendency in Egypt; and although there is a new school in power in Russia, it is doubtful whether the Russian Foreign Office has so far departed from its traditional policy as to try and take the Egyptian chestnuts out of the fire for the benefit of the French Republic. For the moment, France, Russia, and England are all working harmoniously together on the Armenian Question, nor is it likely that the advent of Lord Salisbury to power will jeopardise the good understanding which exists between the three Powers on that important point. But the situation is dangerous, andas the Sultan knows as well as any one else how difficult it is for any of the Powers to fire a shot even to secure the better policing of his Armenian provinces, fearing, as all do, that a spark might be thrown into the European powder magazine,--he is not likely to do more than make faces politely at his mentors, who are in no position to enforce their benevolent lectures by a display of physical force.

The Peril in the East.

Meanwhile, the situation in Macedonia is serious indeed. Macedonia is the great south-western province of the Great Bulgaria which Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, with the aid of Austria, succeeded in 1878 in thrusting back under the rule of the Sultan. By the treaty of San Stefano, Macedonia would have been part and parcel of the Bulgaria, one and indivisible, which General Ignatieff drew upon the map, from the Danube to the Egean. At the Berlin Congress the British diplomatists insisted upon dividing Bulgaria into three parts. The Principality north of the Balkans became independent in all but name, the second division received a modified autonomy under the name of Eastern Roumelia, while the third and most unfortunate-namely, Macedonia-was made over to the uncovenanted mercies of the Turk, a crime which was scantily veiled from the conscience of Europe by a clause in the Berlin Treaty, which

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