New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5052, 2 June 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1877.

A humok was somehow or other promulgated about town, yesterday afternoon and evening, that war had been declared between England and Russia. It is unnecessary to say that no telegrams giving proper grounds for such a rumor had arrived. It doubtless had its origin in the news that the Ambassadors of Russia at the English, German, and Austrian Courts had gone to St. Petersburg, which, leaving it to bo concluded that those at Paris and Rome had not left their embassies, pointed apparently to a concord between the three first-named Powers, as against an agreement between Russia and Austria on the Eastern Question, whilst Italy maintained herpromiseof neutrality. The inducement of France would of course be the chance of obtaining rc-posscssion of Alsace and Lorraine. Austria, as of old, could have an eye to the Danubiau provinces, Germany to extending her frontier along the Baltic Sea, and England, as she has honestly declared from the first, would act in her own and in European interests by preventing the keys of the Black Sea falling into the hands of Russia. The telegram which we published as an extra yesterday, and which, owing to its transmission by a different route, was evidently anterior in date of despatch to that bearing date from Singapore, may bo taken to explain the complications which have evidently arisen. The Russians are faring ill in Asia Minor. With their advance into Turkey, has come a rising in their tra°ns-Cancassian provinces of the people they have hitherto held in bondage there, whilst at the same time their communications from Russia with those provinces have been cut off by the Turkish fleet. Wo may expect at any moment to hear of the great movement of the war being commenced in Europe at some point along the Danube ; and in connection with this an embroglio may

have arisen, shadowed by the many rumors we hear that Prince Gobtchakoff s going to Ployosti has given rise to. ihe anxiety of the semi-official .Russian journal, Le Nord, to assure England that Russia will neither interfere u' l *' l j}or assail Britishinterests, and the exhortation of the German official Press to secure the peace of Europe, point to doubts and difficulties in respect to British interests, and the peace of the Continent, that may easily have produced the departure of the Russian Ambassadors from London, Berlin and Vienna. The rumors of peace telegraphed from the Hague through German mediation, and received by us at live minutes to three this morning, only show that the imbroglio above mentioned has occurred, and the fact that the German troops in Alsace and Lorraine have been reinforced, is proof that the latest created empire m Europe, despite French assurances, relies on Yon Moltke’s predictions.