The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 1885.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 85, 18 April 1885, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 1885.

for the cause that looks assistance, For the wrong that noeds l-oslstaßO* For tbe future in the distance. And tbe -*od that we can do.

An undofincd danger is always more terrify, ing than ono which is known nnd definite, honco there is somo oxcuao for the somipanic which provails in some parts of tho colony bocauso of tho possibility of a Russian cruiser making a descent upon our shores. A few dayß ago wo had tho alarm that a strange man-of-war hud boon seen at tho entrance to Cook's Strait, and today tho report is that a largo stcamor, evidently a stranger, has boon sighted in tho Bay of Plenty. When tho air is thick with rumours of war these reports havo a vory disquioting oilbct. Dospito the contradictious of tlio Russian Consul at Molbourno (which only make tho affair look more suspicious), it is clear that Russian war-ships havo recently boon at Colombo and tho Capo. "What's in tho wind?" asks tho "Natal Morcury" of January 20. "Tho Russian corvette Skobeloff arrived at Cape Town yesterday, making thrco mon-of-war of that nation at presont in port. Two more Russian corvettes are shortly expected, and ' Das Capland ' has authority to stato that tho harbour authorities havo beon notified of tho expocted arrival here of a fleet of nino Russian mon-of-war," It is plain that somo of those "expected arrivals" had takon place, for six Russian war-ships sailed from the Capo in February, and might easily havo reached New Zoaland by this time.

But what is more to tho point is to boar in mind that, until war is declared, thoro is nothing to bo foared from hostile cruisors. Nay, further, until tho Russian commanders know that war has boon declared, they daro not attack our commerce or ports, so that wo may consider ourselves absolutely safe for nt least sovoral wooks after tho actual outbreak of war. The alarm gonorated by roports of strango vessels being sighted is theroforo most irrational, Vory likoly tho vessels soon will provo to bo quito familiar craft, distorted into strange guise by the oxcitod feelings of the beholders. If a man-of-war should bo sighted on tho coast, tho natural thing to oxpoct would bo to find it a British warship looking after our safoty. H.M.S. Espiogle left Sydney about tho beginning of tho present month for a destination not disclosod, and as a full stock of shot und shell wus laid in prior to sailing, it is oxtromoly probable that sho had boen despatehod on a cruise in Pacific waters. This sudden doparturo was in rosponso to v telegram from tho Com-mander-in-Chief at Molbourno, and it was reported that all the warships in Sydney harbour had received telegraphic orders to holdlhemsolvcs propared forany oniorgoncy. Theso orders have an undoubted connection with the threatened outbreak of hostilities botweon between England and Russia, and they provo that so far from thoir boing any ground for alarm, theso colonios may rost assured that thoirsafoty from hostile cruisors will bo carefully maintained, nnd that "the mistress of tho seas " will not allow hor prestige to suffor through lack of watchfulness, even in those lono and distant waters, Several of tho largo passenger liners to theso colonies, including the Now Zoaland Shipping Company's Raikoura, and tho Coptic now in port, are to be armed as cruisers, and though war should unhappily result from the presont Afghan compbeations, colonists need indulge no vaguo fears of danger, though they may prepare thomselves to offer a oruvo resistance to any that may threaten.