THE PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1976, 30 November 1889, Page 3

THE PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

The information reaches the Vienna correspondent of the Daily Telegraph from an unimpeachable source:—-In Armenia affairs are about as bad as can be—as to that there in no question. On the Russian side everything is being made ready for a f ' walk over ” the frontier at short notice. The Russian preparations are, in fact, on a far larger scale tha\n those made for the last war. On the Turkish side there are no preparatioos, or next to none, as far as Erzeroum —the Russian objective—is concerned. Russia’s next advance on Constantinople will not be made through the Balkan Peninsula, Ihere is, however, little danger of a winter campaign; indeed’,., there are manifold symptoms which, justify the hope, expressed a few days ago by Prime Minister Tirza, of seeing peace maintained for the present. For instance, the Emperor of Germany’s spproaching visit to Athens and Conatancinople would hardly be undertaken if war were imminent, 'then sundry preparations of pßiramount importance, such as the construction of strategic railroads, which it will take some months to complete, have lately been commenced, and that would not have been done if war were at band ; this can be said, it would be rash to entertain sanguine expectations as to a prolonged era ot peace. Everything

points, on the contrary, to events of the utmost gravity for the coming spring. The opinion both at Court and in well-informed political circles is that the present strained situation cannot last more than six or eight months longer.