The Stra. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume X, Issue 1843, 1 February 1888, Page 2

The Stra. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

WEDNESDAY, FEBEUABY 1, 1888. THE RUMORS OF WAR. + The cable continues to report preparations for war, and certainly everything points to the probability of an outburst before long. la fact so far as the strain upon the nations' resources is concerned Europe may be said to be already at war. The waste of energy and of money owing to the present state of tension must be so enormous that economically it would be an advantage to bring matters to a crisis. Great wars a few years ago must have been less expensive than preparations for war are now-a-days ; and as regards the present, the art of killing has taken such wonderful strides, even since the Franco-Prussian war, which, was certainly not a long drawn out affair, that the fight would certainly be short, sharp, and decisive, and might be less expensive in money than the preparations now proceeding. That war involving such human misery as must inevitably follow may be averted is devoutly to be wished ; but the signs of the times are seemingly against it, and if the sword be unsheathed may it never be returned until the Muscovite shall have been tamed into quietude for many a year to come. To-day's telegrams, though contradictory, are not less threatening in their tenor than those of many days past ; and, when a man like Dilke, who probably knows as much about European politics and especially about Russia as any living man (certainly more than Churchill, who talks of peace), prophesies war, the situation must be critical indeed. And his forcast that England must be drawn into the quarrel receives point from the fact that Turkey is appealing to England from the threats of Russia. The line of English policy, of late years, has been to largely withdraw from the initiative in reference to European politics. For years she had been the catspaw used to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for nations having as great interests at stake as she has. But her interests in continental affairs, and especially in reference to Turkey, are yet so great that she cannot be a passive spectator of any contest which may affect the future of Turkey. It is rather ominous, too, that Russia should have announced an intention to strengthen her Pacific fleet and put it upon a footing something like equal to that of England's. This cannot but he considered a covert threat of attack upon the colonies in the event of Great Britain interfering with Russian designs in Europe.