Certainly we have been fortunate in the passages which our transports have made. It only shows what can be done under favourable conditions of weather, with selected coal and selected stokers. We understand that the Admiralty pressed on the Government the importance of attending to these points in a matter in which it might come to be a question of a run against time across a danger zone. As we anticipated in writing our last account of the events of the week, the Declaration of War by France was issued after we had gone to press on Thursday, May 19th. It was therefore only barely in time that our great mass of transports safely passed into the Levant. For, as will be seen from the telegraphic report of our correspondent—received last night, so that it has somewhat delayed our issue—the French Fleet has lost no time in following up the Declaration of War. The telegraphic dispatch, which was sent off on the very evening of the greatest naval engagement of modern times, explains clearly the sequence of events which has for some time to come made the Mediterranean once more a safe highway for us. We need not dilate on the vast importance of this event. In the present case it is not merely that our flag is once more supreme at sea; it means that the terrible anxieties, which had been awakened in the public mind as to the possible fate of our Eastern expedition, in case Sir George Tryon should not secure a complete triumph, are now at rest. With the Mediterranean secure it will be a very easy matter to regain possession of the Black Sea.

Whatever may be the ultimate purposes of the Italians in regard to an Algerian expedition, we think that there will now be no injury to the public service in letting it be known that the preparations which were recently made with that apparent object were only a ruse de guerre. Of course, in order that they might attain the object which they have so successfully achieved of drawing the French Fleet out into the open sea, it was necessary that these facts should be known only to Sir George Tryon. Our correspondent, therefore, telegraphs under the impression which prevailed in the fleet at the time. The rule is a sound one, even in regard to fleets where they have communication with the land, that what is believed among your own people will very soon be believed by the enemy. But the Italian Government, as much as our own, recognises the importance of the principle of concentrating its efforts at one point at one time as far as that may be at all possible. The Italians have quite enough on their hands in their war by land and sea with France. Our efforts are already directed to the East. All those most desirable objects, which the people ‘who know,’ or ‘have been there,’ or have been ‘ten years resident’ in various places, have been of late pressing upon the Government through the newspapers, really must wait till we have time, and armies, and fleets to attend to them. ‘One thing at a time’ is a simple principle of military and naval affairs, but it is one which the casual correspondents of newspapers never keep before their minds.

Meantime we have received news of the great battle between France and Germany, a report of which we have been expecting.