WaybackWire

PARIS, Saturday.—France has answered with mobilisation. An official decree orders the general mobilisation of the French army, beginning to-morrow.

The members of the Cabinet have issued a joint proclamation to the nation. Mobilisation, it says, is not war: “Under the present circumstances it would appear, on the contrary, to be the best means of assuring peace with honor.”

It calls the nation to unity: “There are no longer any parties. There is an eternal France.”

Crowds paraded the city with the tricolour and sang the Marseillaise, and the cry “On to Berlin!” was heard.

LONDON, Saturday.—Britain has still to decide her course. The Cabinet is to meet to-morrow to consider Britain’s attitude.

The King has sent a last message to the Tsar, after an audience with Mr Asquith in the small hours.

The Bank of England has raised its rate to 10 per cent, higher than at any time since the Indian Mutiny of 1857. An hour after the Bank opened some 500 people were in line, largely clerks and many women who had been paid their wages in notes and wanted gold. The Bank porters have been sworn in as special constables to handle the crowds.

Telephone communication between London and Paris, and between Paris and Brussels, has been interrupted as the Governments take over the lines.

TOKIO, Saturday.—Japan is ready to do her part should Britain be drawn into war. The national defence council met under the Premier, Count Okuma, and the Foreign Minister, Baron Kato, told the Times correspondent here: “If hostilities unfortunately are opened between Great Britain and the other powers we are ready to do what devolves upon us in virtue of our alliance.”

The Japanese Ambassador in London says Japan will take no action so long as the warships of the Triple Alliance remain at Tsingtau, but would act in the spirit of the alliance should British interests be attacked. German forces in China are concentrating at Tsingtau, and Hong Kong is to be the British naval base in Chinese waters.

At Penang the Malay States Guides who arrived on Friday have been drafted from Taiping to guard the two cable stations. The Resident Councillor’s notice, printed in six languages, warns: “At night anyone approaching is warned to answer the challenge of the guard, otherwise he will be shot.”

In Singapore the share market is stagnant. With the London Metal Exchange closed there is no official quotation for tin, rubber has no market, and several foreign firms have been ordered by their European head offices to stop all buying.

From Lahore comes word that home leave is stopped for all officers of the Army in India. In Bombay the sugar market is in a perturbed state, and Tata Iron and Steel ordinary shares have fallen to Rs. 82 1/4.

SINGAPORE, Saturday.—Two Eastern papers, writing this morning before Germany’s declaration was known, take opposite sides on Russia.

The Malaya Tribune rests the issue upon the will and the acts of the Tsar, and holds that Russia has made no move from the very start of the crisis to preserve the peace. The Kaiser’s measures, it says, show that “it is futile to expect aught but the worst.” It looks ahead: “Evidently next week is likely to be one of unusual excitement in the Far East and of very stirring events in the Great West.”

The Bombay Chronicle sees it the other way. Of Germany’s reported demand on Russia it writes: “If this is true it seems to be a highly provocative and gratuitous action.” Its verdict: “Russia’s reasons for mobilising are obvious to all, and very good reasons.”