European Letter

Londoíí, Dec. 30, 188S. Tliose belligerent echoes which hare beeu rumbling round Europe duiing the past few days, like the distant sound of tbunder, seem to be dying away again. Tlie journals of Vienna, Pesth, and Berlín, still, indeed, carry on an. interchange of "wars and rumora of wars," but thelr tone Ís less alarmist. Tbe Boursea of tlie continci.v _Uo whch never t(K)k lhe dg_ quieting reportsver ,. . . . . , . , , h heart, liare ended apparently bj' dlsregardlng im. altogetlier, and the news from each great tínancial centre is thiifpricesaresteady.1 Wlieiineisrhboring States grow stronger, frontiers will naturally be reiuforced; but between works of this kind aud arniamenta that créate appreliension of war there ia as great an interval uk betwe! the time when tlie f ortresses of Posen anc Königsberg where founded to the presen day. In other words, there Is in all thii no more a sign of the insecurity of peac tlian in the fact that France and Englanc! are strengthening the annor plating ol tlieir respective battle shipa. If one desired to be critical it might be remarked, no doubt, that ships of war can mor about, and, beingintendedforlocomotion, menaee no particular point or foe, while the essential meaning of a fortress is that it guards a certain spot, and has reference to a special danger. K Etirope ever arrivés at the stage of "peace and good will," really and visibly exemplitied, it will not be, I fear, until more than one Gordian knot of continental policy has been united by the aabre's edge; nor will the mild and holy Influenoa of itsfaith restrain Christendom from the illogicality of lts practlce. Yet uivilizalion gains even by deferring warg, when they cannot be prevented; foreaeh day of peace accutnulates influenceswhieh eventually will be stronger than human imbitions and enmities. When somebody said to Canning, "we must fight sooner or later," he spoke like a wi.ie man bv replying, "in Heaven's name, then let it be later ! " Yet whatever the future keeps in store foiEurope, and howerer gloomy the Inner state of Continental politics may appear to close observers, the clouds have passed, fop the present. There has, indeed, resul ted good fiom the war-scare in so far as it has led to the publication of the general tenns constituting an offensive and defensive alliance between Germany and Austria. There could exist no better u. cu. nucí; oí peace tnan tñat unión, so lonj as it remains conservative and not aggres. sive. It is a stern check to the designs o Kussia, even fretting behind the barrien of the Beilin treaty, bitterly dissatisfled with the tuin of affaire in Eypt, and plaSued at home by NihilUtu and by impend mg financial bankruptcy. In Asia, however, the frontier of the monstrous Tartai Empire comes nearer and riearer to India, and rasli, indeed, would that British government. be which lays all iu plans for domestic reforins, forgetting the forelirn necessities that may arise. The calmness of the Bouises on the continent provee that the muttering storm ha passed, and that the air is clearing. An era of quiet and commercial actlvlty would not onlv do Europe good all around but help to settle more than one polltical problem, which nowappearsfraught with future mischief. There is 1,0 visible reason why the state of repose now existing iiitlieEuiopean worldshould not continue for a lonjc time; and the longer it endures the bettei must become the chance of pacific solution to many a difflcult question of international lite. At all events, it lx a vastadvantage that the world is witnessinjia Christnms-tide unstained by bloodshed. No war is anywhere going on at piesent, and the longer that placid pcrlod L9. the better t wl" for