and Courtney of Penwith; and the opposition to the Bill was further emphasised meanwhile by a demonstration in Victoria Park, London (June 27). During these Parliamentary conflicts the King and Queen had paid a brief visit to the Midlands (June 24-26) as the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. An official reception at Nottingham, a lunch with Lord and Lady Middleton at Wollaton Hall, and a tour of various hosiery, lace, and cotton factories, filled the first day; a visit to Mansfield and the surrounding coal-mining district the second; on the third their Majesties opened the King George Dock at Hull, and the chief magistrate of the town was permanently dignified with the title of Lord Mayor. Everywhere their reception was enthusiastic, and, as usual, they conversed with the workers and visited some of them in their homes. The following week saw the first step towards a great catastrophe. The murder of the heir to the thrones of Austria and Hungary at Sarajevo on Sunday, June 28, was destined to change the whole course of European history; but, for the moment, it merely shocked and horrified public opinion in Great Britain, and the apprehensions it aroused were limited to the fortunes of the Dual Monarchy and the peace of the Near East. It was only referred to parenthetically in the rambling debate on the Foreign Office Vote (June 29), from which, indeed, but one fact of importance seemed to emerge--that the British Government was beginning to protest against the forward policy of Russia in Persia. After various speeches, chiefly about Persia, whose desperate position, financially and otherwise, was insisted on, but also on other topics, the Foreign Secretary made a comprehensive reply. He began by expressing his personal sympathy with the Dual Monarchy and its Imperial family in view of the assassination of the heir to its thrones, mentioning the goodwill of the late Archduke to Great Britain and the pleasure he and his consort had derived from their visit to the King in 1913. Every Foreign Minister in Europe knew the support given by the life of the Emperor of Austria to the cause of peace. The settlement of the Panama tolls question was due, not to any British diplomatic pressure or _finesse_, but to the respect of President Wilson for treaty rights. As to the Persian oil concession, Great Britain had got no rights which did not exist before the Anglo-Russian Convention. It was improbable that the oil wells would require military protection, and new developments would naturally be near the coast. No new obligation could be placed on Japan under the alliance with Great Britain unless disturbances in the region were the result of causes operating much more widely. The arrangement gave no increase of imperative obligation; the oil could not be got within the British dominions, and where, outside it, could it have been got with fewer and less dangerous commitments? The Government desired