THE STATE OF EUROPE.

West Coast Times, Issue 10341, 3 August 1896, Page 4

THE STATE OF EUROPE.

Earl Dufferin, British Ambassador at Paris, who is retiring from that position, took leave of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris at the annnal dinner of that body, and in the course of his speech said: — " What do we see abound us ? The •whole of Europe is little better than a standing camp, numbering millions oi armed men, while a double row of frowning and opposing fortresses bristles alony every frontier. Our harbours are stuff eil and the seas swarm with ironclad navies to whose numbers I am forced to admit England has been obliged in self-defence to add her modest quota. Even in the remotest East the passion for military expansion has displayed an unexpected development. In fact, thanks to the telegraph, th i globe itself has become a mere bundle of nerves, and the slightest disturbance at any one point of the system sends a portentous tremor through its morbidly sensitive surface. We are told "by tbe poets of old that when Zeus nodded, the golden halls of his Olympus shook to their foundation. To-day it would suffice for any one of halt-a-dozen august personages to speak above his breath or unwittingly to raise his little finger, and, like heaven over-charged ytith. electricity, the existing condition of unstable equilibrium which sustains tho European political system would be overset, and war, waged under circumstances of greater horror than has bee hithorto known to the experience oi mankind night eventually envelop, jnol Europe,

alone, but two, nay, all the four, continents at once, since in every one of them representatives and offshoots of the contending nations would of necessity be brought into collison. Well, ladies and gentleman, it is to prevent catastrophes of this kind that we meek, civil-spoken, and mild-mannered persons have been invented. Looking at us, you will perhaps say that we are a poor and feeble folk, and our calling a sorry preservation against such dangers, but, such as it is, it is the best device that human ingenuity has been able to discover. After all, a very thin wire proves a perfectly effective lightning conductor, -and for over fifty years, thanks to shis unpretending agency, an unbroken peace has been maintained between your native land and the country with whose prosperity and welfare your owr. interests are so closely connected."