EUROPE ARMING.

Kumara Times, Issue 1113, 24 April 1880, Page 4

EUROPE ARMING.

[LONDON CORRESPONDENT TO MELBOURNE ARGUS.]

The projected increase of the German army has, according to the Vienna correspondent of the Standard, induced the .Russian Government to resolve on a great increase of the army, both on a peace and a war footing. The Daily News corresponpent at the same capital telegraphs the existence of rumors that the Austrian Government is considering the advisability of fortifying Vienna, owing to the augmentation of the German armaments. The Kolnische Zeitung states that the addition to the German army is chiefly destined to reinforce the Alsace-Lorraine garrisons. Yet in spite of all menacing appearances, the new French Premier [is said to have assured the German Ambassador in Paris that the new German Army Bill did not occasion the French Government and disquietude. The Standard, however, declares on “the best authority” that Germany, considering her military measure as a purely home affair, will decline to give abroad any explanation respecting it. Great activity is reported to exist at the Government cannon foundry at Spandau, where, in consequence of the heavy orders received, numerous fresh hands have been engaged, and labor is protracted into night. Meanwhile a new role is being sketched for England by the journals of Vienna and Berlin. It is affirmed that the vast armaments of the great powers exist because the present state of affairs is “ not definitive.” Germany and Austria dread a combined Franco-Russian attack. “This danger could be averted,” says the Vienna Grenzbote, “if only England could be induced to declare her determination to protect the neutrality of Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, and to demand the neutrality of the Baltic and the North Seain other words, employ her fleets in guarding the German coast against the French, and to close the best line of invasion from France into Germany. If we do this, France apd Russia will be brought to see that the “ combined attack” must fail, and therefore they will not make it ; Germany will be left ,in undisturbed possession of Alsace and Lorraine, and Austria will be able to make herself secure in the Balkans.