ENGLISH & FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 702, 22 July 1869, Page 3

ENGLISH & FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

[ritOJl PAPERS BY THE MAY MAIL.] THE ALABAMA CLAIMS QUESTION. The Alabama dispute has assumed threatening proportions. Since the Trent affair we have not been so near a rupture with America. The popular feeling on both sides of the Atlantic has been strongly excited, ana the probabilities of a war have everywhere formed a chief topic of conversation. For a few days the danger seemed imminent, and the funds accordingly fell. There is still mueh uneasiness, but the first excitement has abated. We have now no apprehension of immediate war, yet we are further than ever from a satisfactory settlement of our difficulties with the United States.

Mr Sumner insists that we should not only make good the losses inflicted on individuals, but are liable for the damage done to commerce by the stoppage of the foreign carrying trade. We are charged with the diminution of the American commence during the war, amounting to more than 1,000,000 tons, and representing a value of about £8,000,000 sterling, the benetit of which was reaped by English ship owners. "Beyond the actual loss to the national tonnage, there was a further loss in the arrest of our natural increase in this branch of industry, which an intelligent statistician puts at 5 per cent, annually, making in 1866 a total loss on this account of 1,384,958 tons, which must be added to the 1,229,035 tons actually lost. The same statistician, after estimating the value of a, ton at 40 dollars, and making allowance for old and new ships, puts the sum total of national loss on this account at 110,000,000 dollars/' or £22,000,000 sterling. " These national losses," continues Mr Sumner, "are lar°e enough ; but there is another chapter where they are larger far." Without British intervention the rebellion would have soon succumbed. "The subsidies," says Mr Sumner, which in former times England contributed to continental wars were less effective than the aid and comfort she contributed to the rebellion. The naval base of the rebellion was not in America but in England. The United States paid for a war waged by England upon the national unity. The sacrifice of life is beyond human compensation, but there may be an approximation of the sacrifice of money. It cost 4,000 millions of dollars to suppress the rebellion, 2,500 millions remaining as a national burden. If British interference doubled the duration of the war, England is justly responsible for the additional expenditure; and whatever may be the final settlement of these great ac counts, such must be the judgment in any chancery which consults the simple equity of the case." In plain words, Mr Sumner holds us liable, in addition, for some £100,000,000! That is to say, a sum as large as half our national debt! Meanwhile, there is no mistaking the temper of the English nation. The Times has treated the subject in a series of able leaders, well expressing the opinion of the country. "It is possible," it remarks, " for Governments to assume positions from which national pride may render it difficult to retreat. The only means of averting such a peril is to render it plain from the first what the consequences of such conduct would be ; and for this reason may be of great consequence at this juncture that the public opinion of England should be firmly declared on the points raised by Mr Sumner's speech. The Americans may be assured that Englishmen would be unanimous in refusing so much as to entertain such demands. \V r e can well understand that they are purposely put in their most extravagant form, on the plan of asking more than you expect to obtain Bnt it is the principle of these demands to which we must refuse to listen. They involve nothing less than a claim that the Americans shall be the judges in their own cause —that they shall be the arbiters of international right and wrong whenever it affects themselves. We never pretended to please the Americans in this matter. We endeavored to do what was just between them, our own people, and the other nations of the world. We refuse to compromise our honor by admitting that we were actuated by any other motive. Whether or not we were culpably negligent in performing what we believe to have been our duty is a point wo have offered to submit to arbitration. But further we cannot go, and we could not but regard any attempts to force us beyond this point as a cloak for ulterior designs. After all, however, we return to our conviction that, unless there be a settled design to pick a quarrel with us—which there certainly is not on the part of the American peopleMr Sumner's policy is too prepostordus to be entertained. The attempt to re awaken buried animosities is, indeed, little short of criminal; but the extravagant misrepresentations found necessary for tiio purpose, afford us no slight assurance of the destined failure of the attempt." IRELAND.

The condition of Ireland is such as to excite the gravest thought. It is evident that no ecclesiastical reforms will suffice to change the spirit of the people. Agrarian outrages continue, and acts of violence and 'robbery are reported from week to week. The visit of Prince Arthur to Deny led to u riot. Everywhere he was cordially welcomed, and from Uelfast he crossed to the Isle of Man, and thence he has now re turned in safety to his accustomed quarters at Woolwich ; but at Deny a band of the apprentice boys struck up the party tune of ".No (Surrender," when counter cries were raised and a disturbance ensued, rihowers of stones were flung, revolvers were discharged, and in the riot two p>;rBoaa were killed, luo eaine day at Ath-

lone, Captain Tarleton, a landed proprietor, jwas shot dead in his own lands. Near [Tipperary, but a little time before, a Mr ;Bradshaw, a justice of the peace, and also a landowner, had been found dead on the lawn of liia own house, his head riddled with balls, and his throat cut- The murderers in both cases have, as yet, avoided detection ; but crimes of this kind minister to a widespread alarm The Mayor of Cork, a Mr Daniel O'Sullivan, within the same week, afforded another illustration of Irish feeling. At a farewell banquet given to the liberated , Fenians, Warren and Costello, on the eve of their departure for America, that gentleman expressed a hope that "the day was coming when no strange nation would be dominant in the land" la giving the toast ' : Our exiled countrymen," he said : "A spirit of concession had been aroused ia the dominant race, but he would not say whether this was due to Fenianism, or the barrel of gunpowder at Clerkenwell. Allen, Barrett, Larkin, and O'Brien had sacrificed their lives for this country. There was in Ireland this moment a young Prince—" [A voice.—'He be d -d.'] This interruption is stated to have been received by the company with applause. But the mayor continued :—" When that noble Irishman, O'Farrell, fired at the Prince in Australia, he was imbued with as noble and patriotic feelings as Larkin, Allen, and O'Brien were. [Q-reat cheering, and cries of 'He was.'] He believed that O'Farrell would be as highly thought of as any of the men who had sacrificed their lives' for Ireland. [Loud cries of 'Bravo !'] They all saw How a noble Pole had fired at the Emperor of Eussia because he thought the Emperor was trampling upon the liberties of the people. [Cheers.] Well, O'Farrell probably was actuated by the same noble impulses when he fired at Prince Alfred. O'Farrell was as noble an Irishman as the Pole, and as true to his country, for each was impelled by the same sentiment to do what they did."' These sentiments were cheered by the excited audience. Mr Warren re marked that as for himself and Mr Costello, " his English friends thought they were getting rid of a bad bargain, but whether he would not return with compound interest time would show." When, the nexi day, these grateful recipients of Governrreufc favor embarked for New York, they were presented by their admirers with a "•reen fiaf. Great indignation was expres seel by the more respectable inhabitants of Cork at this outbreak of sedition from the lips of their chief magistrate, the more so that it seemed to incite the assassination of the young Prince then in the country. A proposal which had been made to invite Prince Arthur to the city during the race week had been that very day opposed by ;i small section of the towni council, including the mayor, but after a stormy debate was carried by a majo:ity of 25 to 5. The Prince wisely declined for the present to visit Cork. Meanwhile the speech of the mayor caused great commotion, though subsequently in a lame way, he repudiated any intention to glorify assassination. His brother magistrates refused to act with him, but he deded them. One morning there was a struggle on the bench for the possession of the charge-sheet, which was torn in consequence. Several days the mayor went down early, and liberated the prisoners charged with drunkenness. The mob held a mass meeting to express confidence in him, and there was a burning of tarbarrels in his honor. This state of things attracted the attention of Parliament. O'Sullivan subsequently resigned the offioe of Mayor. MADAME RACHEL.

The Daily Telegraph, May 12, says:—An end has at last been put to Madam ) Rachel's sweet illusion, that, thanks to the technicalities of the law, she might escape punishment which attends fraud, or at least have such a chance to escape as might be presented by a second trial. The legality of her trial before Mr Commissioner Kerr was impugned, it will be remembered, on three grounds : first that at the Central Criminal Court, trials must take place before two Commissioners, neither of whom may leave the Court until the close of the proceedings ; secondly, that whereas only one Court of Oyer and Terminer can legally sit at the Old Bailey at the same lime, two Courts were sitting on the occasion of Madame Rachel's trial; and, thirdly, that Mr Commissioner Kerr was not competent to preside as a Judge in the Central Criminal Court. On Saturday week the case was argued before the Court Queen's Bench, which at once dismissed the second and third objections as inad missable. The first plea was reserved for consideration, and. yesterday it also was dismi-sed. In delivering the judgment of the Court, the Lord Chief Justice said that the Commissions of Oyer and Terminer held at the Old Bailey must be governed by the same principles as if they wore held in any other place. Elsewhere, prisoners are tried before one Judge, and at the Central Court the same practice is equally admissible. Hitherto, at the Old Bailey, it has been the custom for one Alderman to sit on the bench with the presiding Judge, and alter attending for an hour or two he might be relieved by another Alderman. There was a change of Aldermen in the case of Madame Rachel's trial, nd. on that account the validity of the proceedings was impugned. Had the objection been sustained, perhaps three fourths of the criminal convictions which have been obtained at the Old Bailey would, inferentially, have been declared illegal. Happily, the common sense of the Court of Queen's Bench has affirmed no such doctrine, and the presence of Aldermen on the bench at the Old Bailey is virtually pronounced to bo purely oruamental

MISCELLANEOUS. The confinement of the Comtosse de Flandres is expected very shortly, and with ' great interest in regard to the succession to the Belgian throne. A Son in-Law of Burns. —The Glasgow papers announce the death of Mr John Thomson, the husband of the sole surviving daughter of Burns, at Crossmyloof. He was brought up at the loom, but about , the beginning of tin-; century was a sergeant in the Stirlingshire militia, and his colonel, by whom he was much respected, often , spoke of him as the handsomest mm in the regiment. While at Dumfries he met . Elizabeth, daughter of Burns, whom he married when she was not quite out of he* teens; and on leaving Dunfries he was presented by Jeau Armour with many manuscripts and relics of the great poet. < Thomson was not only a man of great physical strength, but had a vigorous intellect and a great fund of genuine humor, and in his day produced some good verses. For manly independence of character he was such a man as Burns would have been proud of as a son-in-law. Tub Emperor op France.—The Court Journal gives publicity to the following startling fact:—" The Emperor of the French has expressed a determination to startle France ere long—and Europe too. undoubtedly. If his Majesty carries out his design, which is to give a sudden order for the immediate concentration of 200,000 soldiers, with, all the material of war, at a given plac >, it is to be hoped that it will not be on the Prussian frontier, or Bismarck might do the like, and out of an experiment a practical issue would, perhaps result." A Saf:<: Invention.—A Berlin burglar has invented a machiie which appears to open safes as easily as a knife an oyster Both the inventor and the invention are in the hands of the police. The Maljquis of Bute.—This young nobleman has been invested at Jerusa'em witli the spurs and sword of the celebrated Godfrey de Bouillon, making him a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. The ceremony was performed in the Latin Chapel of the HolySepulchre, called the Chapel of the Apparition, as it was there our Siviour is reported to have appeared to Mary Magdalene. There was mass in the morning, at which the marquis attended, and afterwards the Latin patriarch or superior performed the ceremonies of investment, ihe sword and spurs of the great crusader are highly-valued relics, used only in the investment of knights, an honor limited to men of noble birth and of the Eoman Catholic faith. —Anglo-Italian Gazette.