Hawke's Bay Herald FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1878.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5015, 22 February 1878, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1878.

We have not much fresh European news before us, as we write, but what we have is confirmatory of the anticipation of a peaceful solution of the Eastern question. Prince Bismarck, the one man from whose lips now-a--days fall those words which Europe watches for with the same intentness with which she watched for the words of Louis Napoleon twenty years ago, has spoken ; and it has been to express his disbelief in the probability of a European war. Without the guarantee of being backed, in the last resort, by ■Germany, we do not believe that Russia, after the exhaxistion of its great struggle, would willingly take the field even against Great Britain singlehanded, and Prince Bismarck knows better than anyone else living what are the chances of any sucli guarantee being given. Why the leanings of Germany, or rather of the German Government, should have been so strongly Muscovite in the past is a problem which the English Press despairs of solving. The Russsian alliance lias, however, been the traditional policy of Prussian statesmen for at least three generations, and indeed a report is current to the effect that Prussia, when she entered on the Trench war of 1870, had the promise that a quarter of a million Russian bayonets would be at her back in the last resort. If this is true, it will accoixnt largely for her recent loyalty to Russia. Still, we feel satisfied that the German nation would not willingly engage in an English war to aid Russia. A conflict with the great sister Teutonic State, even if successful, would be by no means a source of unminglecl congratulation in Germany such as was the triumph over its hereditary enemy, France. At heart, the English and German nations are proud of each other's position in the world, and, we believe, neither would willingly see the other weakened and humiliated. The German Government can, no doubt, go some length in contravention of the popular will, but not a great length after all. No one knows this better than Prince Bismarck, who can well remember the day when he was the most detested man in Prussia. Hence, no doubt, Germany is most sincerely anxious to avert a conflict between to friendly States, to be drawn into collision with either of which would, in any event, be for herself a national calamity.