The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1885.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 295, 19 December 1885, Page 2

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

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1885.

For the c»uie that lacks asiiituoe, For the wrong that needi resistance, For tbe future in the diittnc*, Aid the good that we can do.

Prince Alex.vkdeii ib not to be robbed of j the fruits of his victories and diplomatic.) astuteucts. He assumea ibe Govoraordhip of Bonmelia for life under nomination from

tho Porte, with tho approval of the Powers, and, if favonred by good fortune and long life, he ought; during his rule, to build up a strong kingdom between tho Danube and tho Sultan's dominions. The Eastern question is thus gradually assuming a new and more hopeful aspect. It was the policy of Mr Gladstono-a policy endorsed by Lord Salisbury—to raiso up powerful freo Statis on the Balkan peninsula as the natural successors of the waning Ottoman dominion. Princo Alexander, trained in tho best Gorman schools, has shown during the little war with Servia that ho possesses military skill of no mean order. His little Court at Sofia lias been almost entirely composed of a select military coterie, undor whose guidance the army of j tho young Principality was broughtinto tho state of discipline which astonished the Servian invaders. King Milan's ambition, leading to this wicked fratricidal war, fails in its purpose, and tho potty monarch's boasts about occupying Sofia within a week aro now quotod in ridicule. Russian diplomats will lose in this settlement tho joy which stirred them when the protege of the Berlin Conference stood in peril. Although the mutual distrust and rival interests of Austria and Russia aro doubtless mainly responsible for tho settlement, it is still a triumph for English diplomacy. Almost alone among tho Powers, England advocated a recognition of tho results of the popular movement in Roumelia. In opening the Reichstag on November 19th, Emporor William, speaking the mind of the Gorman Government, expressed a hope that the signers of (.he Berlin Treaty would succeed in securing respect for its provisions from tho peoplo mado independent by it. Popular feeling in Germany, however, wa3 all in favour of Prince Alexander and tho aspirations of his Bulgarian subjects. A peoplo who can so bravely defend thoir independence aro worthy of it; and if it should prove that tho cable in this instance has not told a story to-day which it will contradict tomorrow, thero is good reason for universal satisfaction that a disturbance which threatened tho poace 6f Europe ia finding a solution in tho extension of liborty and the oroetion of a now bulwark for ita future defonco, in South-Eastern Europo