MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 32, 17 May 1845, Page 1

MISCELLANEOUS.

Royal Debts. — Extraordinary Statement. — The following rumour is current in London : — That his late Royal Highness theBute of Saxe Coburg Gotha< wishing to in* crease hisrevennes by certain territoriarimproveraents, applied to M. Rothschild for the loan of £250,000. M. Rothschild expressed his willingness, conditionnally, on receiving security for repayment by his Royal Highness's royal son Prince Albert affixing his name, to the bond. The Duke visited his son, and it wjas done. The time for repaying the bond cam© — the Duke failed, and M. Rothschild applied to Prince Albert for payment. This application came to the knowledge of his royal spouse, who, first writing a letter in terms of gentle remonstrance to the Duke of Saxe Cotmrg, Gotfia, immediately caused the money to be paid. On receipt of this letter, the Duke, committed suicide, leaving to the royal pair a legacy of sorrow, which has not yet found a remedy. Such, it is said, is the principal cause of the late great reductions of expenditure in the Royal establishment. — Leeds Times.

Post Office Commissioners. — These gentlemen are travelling abouij the country obtaining local information respecting the Post-office, and have directed most voluminous returns, tending to throw light upon the actual state of the department, to be prepared. When these returns have been prepared, they will be embodied in a report, with such suggestions as the commissioners may think advisable ; but we_believe they have no authority to direct any alterations, but simply to report. As the returns that are in preparation will occupy the clerks some time, the commissioners intend to proceed to Port Philip very shortly, atid by the time they returned to Sydney the required information will be ready. They will then proceed to Hobart Town and make similar enquiries in Van Dieman's Land, and subsepuently to New Zealand. Whether they will then proceed to South Australia and Swan River is not yet determined, and will in a great measure depend, we believe, upon instructions they may receive from England. Although nothing has transpired as to the objects of the enquiry which is going on, the nature of the information which the commissioners are procuring shows that the two main points they have4ir*vfe# are the introduction of an uniform rate of postage and the extension to the Australian colonies of the benefits of steam communication with Europe. — Sydney Morning Herald.

The Timber, Woox,, and Guano Trades. — It is said that the above trades are the only ones in which large sums of money have not been lost by importers during the present year : and it is a fact worthy of notice, that in. two out of three of these trades the protective system has been in whole, or in part, abandoned during the last four years. It will be remembered that one of Sir Robert Peel's earliest measures was to diminish the amount of protection on colonial timber, and that it was most confidently predicted at the time that the colonists would be uined by the change. The result has- shewn that this was a false prophecy, for the timber trade has never been in a more healthy or prosperous state. This is partly the result of the breaking up of a system of speculation and overtrading, but still more of the revival of trade and commerce. People have once more begun to build houses, mills, warehouses, and ' ships, and the result has been to create a brisk demand for timber, and to show that commercial and manufacturing prosperity are of infinitely more value to the timber trade than all the protecting duties that ever were invented. Another trade which has prospered, either in consequence or spite of the repeal of protective duties, is that in sheep's wool. The repeal of the duty of Id. a pound on foreign wool has not only been followed by great briskness in the demand for that kind of wool, but also by equal briskness in the demand for colonial and British wools, to which the duty served as a sort of protection. Theyj have seldom sold better than during the present year, and although it would be too much to Bay that this is owing to the change in the duties, yet it is clear that the change has had no injurious effect upon the wool growers, whilst it has greatly benefited the manufacturers and all dependent upon them. The import of colonial wool, which twenty years ago was a mere nothing,, has now reached the large amount of 70^000 bales from Australia alone.— -Liverpool Times.