English and Foreign.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 376, 11 June 1856, Page 6

English and Foreign.

ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE. (From the '« Guardian," Feb. 6.) A protocol placing on record (sous litre de •projet de prellniinaires) the acceptance by all parties of the five Austrian propositions was signed last Friday at Vienna Ihe plenipotentiaries are expected to meet at Pans by the 20th inst., and the Confe rence to open before the 25th. An arrai stice will be concluded as soon as the formal preliminaries are signed ■ it is to expire on the 31st of March, and is not to extend to operations by sea. Peace looks very near now. The o. rav j tation towards it on all sides has become more visible and decided. All parties seem to desire it. What secret spring if any, have been set in motion-what hidden wheels have been at work—whether it is true, as grave authorities say, that a certain stimulus has been applied both to Prussia and to tireat Britain, propelling them in different .directions, but with convergent aims, by the French Emperor's expressed convictum that Russia is only vulnerable on her Polish side, and his determination that across Germany, therefore, the torrent of war should flow, whatever frontiers it might remove, whatever political ruin it might cany ,„ ltß track-historians must tell v?, if they ever find out. AH that we see is)

that the course of events move that way — yet that a small thing might check and turn it.

The general tone and behaviour of the reassembled Parliament are such as they were expected to be. The Royal Speech authenticating the fact that " conditions have been agreed upon" which, it is hoped, may form the basis of a treaty of peace, and the report that negotiations are about to be opened in Paris, the Opposition steps forward to say that durinsr the pendency of those negotiations it will not meddle with them, adding a voluntary and ample promise to abstain from " comments, conjectures, observations, questions," which may "unnecessarily" embarrass or interrupt the Government in the task which the latter has to fulfil. All concur, and there would have been nothing more to have been said had not Mr. Roebuck, nettled at this general agreement to be quiet, started up to claim for Parliament, in his most acrid tones, the right to chalk out the course to be pursued, indicating at the same time his own preference for one which would lead back to war. But nobody applauding this peevish sally, it fell flat, and the House relieved itself by cheering heartily Mr. Stafford's warm testimony, drawn from personal examination on the spot, to the state of our military hospitals in the

East-

It will be observed that the official statements called forth by the meeting of Parliament are more precise than anything we have had before, and dissipate some of the clouds which have been stirred up by the Ministerial Press. Lord Clarendon does not say that Austria has imperfectly explained the views of the Western Powers. He does not, nor does not Lord Palmerston suggest, or seem to feel, any doubt about the opening of the Conferences. He believes Russia to be sincere. He has even come round to Mr. Gladstone's opinion that a peace which will be " degrading" to her will not be safe. In short, he is already in a frame of mind very proper for a plenipotentiary. All this is satisfactory. On the side of the Opposition, the chief thing to be noted is the difference of tone between Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli. It is not. merely that, whilst they touch (by concert of course) the same prominent points of the subject, Mr. Disraeli is cold and cautious —just takes up his position and nothing more—while Lord Derby indulges him c f with an elaborate and purposeless niti jue on the Speech, in the course of whica he says a hundred ill-judged things ; but the common view, the ground adopted by the party, beinsr the vague one that the peace must be on. accomplishing the original objects of th '. war, Lord Derby's way of treating it is to insist that we must obtain no less —Mr. Disraeli's, that we obtain no mo~e. You sometimes meet with a person having two voices, a shrill and a bass, which involuntarily alternate, and there is a Gloucestershire story of such a person falling into a ditch, and shouting to a passer-by for assistance. k> If there are two of you,'' said the latter, quietly jugging on, .'• you may help one another." Are there two Oppositions—or none ?

It seems to be assumed on both sides of the water that nothing will satisfy the Americans but a quarrel. That .nothing could be more suicidal or more absurd, that we were never in our lives less inclined for one, that we are excellent friends as well as the best of customers to each other, is admitted on all hands. Still we are to quarrel. Mr. Crampton is to be sent away ; so, of course, is Mr. Buchanan ; we are to break off all mutual civilities and cease to be on speaking terms. The bone of contention—the most obstinate one at least—is the old recruiting business. Our view of the case being that, as regards public law, no

offence has been committed, and, as regards municipal law, none by Mr. Crampton, it is likely enough that we have offered no apology which the Americans think sufficient, and if they are convinced that their dignity demands a temporary rupture, there is no more to be said. So it must be; and all that we can do is to take it quietly, and minimise the trouble and annoyance of having to transact public business through irregular channels. As to the Central American question, we have offered a reference to arbitration, and it has been refused. If say the Americans, Lord Aberdeen's Government had remained in office three months longer, these matters would have been settled, and they live in hopes of the fall of Lord Palmerston's.

The business transacted in Convocation has been confined to the appointment of a committee on Church Discipline. The two Houses stand prorogued to the 15th of April. The Dean of Bristol acted as Prolocutor on this occasion, and discharged the office very well.