Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUG. 80, 1900. The Outlook.

Manawatu Herald, 30 August 1900, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUG. 80, 1900. The Outlook.

♦ Day by day ominous bits of news loak out which tend to create a dread ; hat in the near future one of the biggest wars upon earth will have commenced. We most fervently hope that such will not be the case, but the possibility is ever present and the cable news becomes each day of more absorbing interest. It is not the long accounts of proceedings that we have to read to watch the remarks which serves to show where the danger lies, but it is in short items and crisp sentences. If the unfortunate war in the Transvaal was at an end, peace elsewhere might be secured, but with the European feeling against the Empire, and with the hope that we have all our -work yet cut out in the Transvaal, appears the temptation to our enemies to suppose they are capab c of acting against us. It is a pi.v, but some of the Powers profess friendship too WUSJi-^^aQy^M

tvarily. It is a well-known fact that in'.uice and Russia work hand in baud, at anyrate as again.it the Empire, and it therefore is not surprising to read after the statement that France has a number of cruisers at a port the closest to the English sho::e, to learn that Russia has also been acting in an unneighbourly way to us. To-day's cables tells us that the Czar of Russia has granted an interview to Dr Leyds, the European representative of the Transvaal Republic. This is according that person a recognition which, from the position of his government buffeted from pillar to post, he is not entit ed to. It has been suggested that the stand the Boers are making has been on cou raged by the idea that thecom- ■ in China might eventually bcT'fp their advantage by the Empire j getfcing^nibroilod with one or more i of the Euidpean nations, and the new.-i is not so sfc'runge as it might have been, that a Fuissian has beon arrested as a spy. at Preioiua^wbo had in his possession thirteen spatches addressed to General Louis , Botha ! Thus our readers will see that the position of a part of the French fleet at Calais, and tho Russian communications to General Botha have an ominous appearance, sufficient to contradict the public assertions of friendship. Russia is anxious for a port in Persia, and France want 3 Morocco, neither of which will be attainable if Great Britain can prevent it. The question under discussion is, can she prevent it? Some little time ago particulars were published of an alleged French plot to invade England. The plan was to create trouble in a direction which would draw the Channel fleet away from the English shores, when a large army, ostensibly collected for manoeuvres at the close of the Exhibition would .be rapidly moved across the Channel in huge barges said to be all ready, under the protection of the French fleet, which was to be assembled in the north for that purpose.