All this means, in so many words, that instead of a Christian governor,
Home Rule, and the payment of a yearly tribute to the Turks, the Cretans
shall go back to the old state they were in before Greece interposed.

We shall probably hear a good deal more about Crete before the winter is
over.

* * * * *

England's conduct in regard to the seal question looks as if she had
been playing the old child's game of asking her pinkie finger before she
could give us a decided answer.

From Lord Salisbury's conduct in the affair, one would suppose that he
had shut himself up in his study, and consulted the oracle:

"Pray, my dear little finger, pray tell me whether I shall join the seal
conference or no? Yes--no--yes--no": and so on.

He has said "yes" and "no" so many times that it looks as though he had
just come round to the pinkie again at "yes."

After stating that the end of the five years agreed on in Paris was time
enough to consider the seal question, his lordship has now sent word to
our ambassador that England will join the United States in a conference.
The conference is to be held about the same time as the other one, but
is to have no connection with it.

It seems a pity that England will not meet the Russian and Japanese