The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 322, 30 June 1849, Page 3

The New-Zealander.

He just and fear »6t: Let all the ends thou aim&'t at, be thy CountVy's, Thy God's, ami Truth's.

SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 184 9.

The Barque " Jane Catherine," from London, the 13th and Falmouth the 24th February, came into port, in the course of Thuisday night. She is very deeply laden, having brought out a large quantity of Ordnance and other government stores. Anything under the strict appellation of news is out of the question, she having been so greatly anticipated by the " Berhampore." Nevertheless, through the kindness of Mr. James Boyd (to whom we are indebted for a perusal of his numerous journals), we proceed to pick up such waifs and strays as we may encounter, and which we may deem acceptable to our readers. The castigations inflicted upon the several hoards of Admiralty, in consequence of the improvident and profitless expenditure in the National Steam Marine, which, as a whole, may be regarded as a deplorable and despicable failure, have elicited a circular of six and twenty minutes, expositary of a plan for reducing the expenditure and increasing the efficiency of the several arsenals. It is high time that something like an honest system were enforced in these Royal rookeries, where the study, has too long been how the public might be most cunningly fleeced, not how the navy might be most effectually served. Every one conversant with the career of Lord Nelson, and of Lord St. Vincent, will remember with how much bitterness, and how much reason, both these illustrious men complained of defective ships, rotten spars, and many other grievances, which, but for their own extraordinary mental resources and indomitable energies, might have proved deeply injurious, if not fatal, to the fleets under their commands. That the improvement in these rotten reservoirs has not kept pace with the spirit and enterprise of the age is shown at once by contrasting the costly failure of the Naval Steam Marine, with the acknowledged excellence of its commercial rivals. And, it is clear, an admission of dockyard inferiority can no longer be withheld, since their Lordships' Secretary, in transmitting this circular, avows that — " The only way to disarm the jealousy with which the growing expenditure of the naval yaids is viewed, is to satisfy Parliament, and the country, that these great national establishments, are conducted with the same regard to economy, the same honest desire to make promotion dependent upon merit, and the same scrupulous attention to those minute details of management upon which the loss or gain of a manufacturing establishment depends, that in all private enterprises have constituted the secret of success." Admiral Cecille,wcll known in the Auslra-

Han Colonies, has been appointed Mini&lcr from the French Republic to the Court of St. James. A French paper, the Corsaire, gives the following. "The ex-king, Louis Phillipe, has just writte.i to M. Louis Bonaparte, and to M. 0. Bariot. In his letter, he protests that his intentions are pure, and that he has no desire to engage in politics, in case he should be permitted to return to France. 'All my desire,' he says, ' would be to live en bon bourgeois.' He does not ask as his residence, for the chateau of Neuilly, which is too near Paris, but for the chateau of Itandan, in Auvergne. In returning to France, his sons and himself would take an oath to abandon all pretensions to the throne. NeitheL the President of the Republic, nor the President of the Council has paid any attention to this stiange letter." The same journal says, — "M. Guizot has sent word to one of his intimate friends, that he should not get ready to return to Paris until after the anniversary of February 24. The intention of the ex-minister is to come forward as candidate at ths approaching election." At a "Farmers and Financial Refotm Meeting," held at Brighton, the Duke of Richmond in the chair, his grace, amongst other things remarked, " Cobden and Bright j seek by agitation to prevail on the govern- ! ment, which is supposed to be made of rather i squeezeable materials, to go back to the estimates of the year 1835, by disbanding a por- j I tion of the army and navy, and by abstaining from public works. Have we no more colonies now than in 1835 1 Are we at peace in India? Have we not had insurrection at the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon 1 If you dis- j band your army and navy, so as to make it too low, you are consenting to the murder of | those soldiers and sailors whom you will send ! to those colonies. Look at Australia . See how that has increased since 1835 ! New Zealand you have taken (and Heaven knows why you have taken it under your charge), for I always thought it a useless place for any thing. If you keep possession of this place, you must have soldiers and sailors to do their duty. Then, Mr, Bright, because he happens to be a Quaker, says, — ' You should not go to war — -war is ridiculous. Have a Peace So- 1 ciety,and leave everything to their arbitration.' j Really, gentlemen, this humbug is too gross for discussion. If he thinks he can promote peace without an army, navy, or police, I recommend him to go over to Ireland, and try to keep one village quiet." The Duke is unquestionably correct in his i military views ; but he is very far fiom being oracular in his thoughts of New Zealand ; and we would suggest, ere he so unsparingly denounces it, to adopt the recommendation he himself tenders to Mr. Blight," come over and see it," when, sure are we, that a farmer, like his Grace, would not fail to appreciate the superiority of its soil, and other natural advantages, or to admit the "humbug " of discussing, so dictatorially, a question, upon which, it is clear, he is worse than imperfectly informed. Let his Grace but study Colonial Reform, and lend to it the weight of his influence and his name— and, then, he may live to make New Zealand her amende, and to admit, that of the territories of British rule she may be made one of the most useful, whether as a home for 1 English enterprise, or as a valuable appanage of the English Crown. All New Zealand requires is fair play, to show the stuff she is made of ; and to develope those resources which colonial impolicy keeps hid. The inhabitants of Edinburgh experienced a great degree of alarm on the 25th of Janu- ! ary, by an explosion, which caused an intense I vibration of the earth, and shook the houses in the Cannongate so violently, that, in many instances, the inmates were thrown down, and the windows shatteied. This disaster was speedily ascertained to have arisen in consequence of fire having communicated, in some unknown manner, with the immense gas-holder of the Edinburgh Gas Company, the whole of which was speedily one vast sheet of flame, which cast a portentous glare upon the crowds ] of people congregated on the Calton Hill, the ] Regent Road, and every amphitheatrical point i overlooking the burning mass below. The fire | continued to rage with extraordinary fury, until gradually, as the gas was consumed, the gas-holder became immerged in the tank amongst the water beneath, and the conflagration was eventually extinguished by means of wet blankets, and coarse sacking being spread over the shattered remains of the gas-holder, which was completely isolated and surrounded by a wall within which no fire or combustible substance was permitted. Under such ciicumstances the mystery is how ignition could have taken place. There were nearly three hundred thousand cubic feet of gas in the holder, the greater portion of which was consumed. The damage was estimated at about two thousand pounds. Fortunately life does not appear to have been lost, nor any personal injmy to j kaye ensued. j Another of those frightful collieiy accidents, by the explosion of fire damp, occunod in a pit, near Barnsley, about the middle of January. A loud report warned the labouiers above j ground, that some lamentable catastrophe had j taken place below, and, in about fifty minutes, the atmosphere became sufficiently puuficd to

admit of several persons to descend. The sight that met their view was harrowing to the last degree, the shaft's mouth being strewed with the dead and the dying, many of them shockingly burnt. — Of one hundred and ten who had gone down to their, morning's labo lr, only twenty seven were got out alive, and of these, tluce more died in the couisc of that evening. Many of the sufferers presented scarcely a vestige of the human form, and the frenzy of widows and mothers, in their search after the bodies of missing husbands and sons, is represented to have been dreadful. Eighty three men and boys, and six horses perished.