ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 270, 1 March 1848, Page 6 (Supplement)

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

At Manchester a great meeting was held, " to consider whether any and what steps can be taken, in order to limit the drain upon the'floating capital of the nation, occasioned by continued railway calls, and to diminish the pressure which is now so injuriously affecting the trade of the district. A severe battle was fought between the Americans and the Mexicans, in August last. The loss of the Americans is said to be one thousand, whilst that of the Mexicans is five thousand, including thirteen generals, either killed or wounded. The strength of the former was only 6000 ; the latter 15,000 to 20,000. The United States cotton crops present an unfavourable appearance. In the papers which have come to hand no mention is made either of wool or tallow. Marshal Soult had been appointed MarshalGeneral of France. Tltis had created the greatest excitement throughout the political circles of Paris. Lieutenant-General Sir George H. F. Berkeley, K. C. 8., has been appointed Com-mander-in-Chief of the East India Company's Forces in the Madras establishment.

The Queen, on the Ist of October made the following appointments : — Charles Fitzgerald, Esq., Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the territory of Western Australia and its dependencies ; Richard Graves MacDonnell, Esq., to be Governor and Commander-in-rhiefinandoverherMajesty'ssettlementsinthe Gambia and their dependencies; Richard More O'Ferra'l, Esq., to be Governoi and Comman-der-in-Chief in and over the island of Malta and its dependencies. The remains of Prince Louis Bonaparte, the ex-King of Kolland, were interred in the Church of St. Leu on the 29th of September. In Ireland more distress is anticipated. " The accounts from the west of Cork," says the Times of October 2, " already show signs of another season of famine and destitution. • Her Majesty the Queen had ordered that prayers and thanksgivings should be offered up for the late abundant harvest. Mr. Alderman Hooper is the new Lord Mayor of tl.e City of London. El Popular having announced that Mr. Bulwer demanded his recall in consequence of ill health, the Heraldo, of the 28th, says, that it is disposed to attach credit to the assertion, but that it was not on account of ill health that Mr. Bulwer wishes to quit Madrid, but because he has been reprimanded by his Government in consequence of the improper manner in which he interfered in the affairs of Spain. A Saragossa paper announces the capture of the celebrated Carlist chieftain Martial, and the destruction of bib band. In Ireland the fine harvest has not secured a tranquil winter. On the contrary, as the people revive from the depression of actual famine their perversity seems to revive. It now takes a different shape — agitation against the payment of rents to landlords. The old struggle for the land is renewed. An immense meeting has been held in Tipperary, professedly to promote the extension of the Ulster tenant-right to the Southern provinces : what the meeting resolved to demand, however, was, not the customary tenure of Ulster, but a compulsory law, conferring on the tenant a right to his occupation so long as he pays his rent. This would either resolve itself into absolute property, the rent sinking to a nominal form ; or it would- become a species of base tenure or villenage, — a social stage anterior to that of free tenancy, and incompatible with free institutions. At the meeting, indeed,-a-speakexjsh.CL could noi_be put down, and who evidently found favour with a considerable part of the crowd, boldly demanded a perpetual tenure for the tenant, irrespectively of rent. In some parts of Ireland, the tenants, acting on. a similar principle of indepindent right in the soil, are actually repudiating the payment of rents now due; And finally, Mr. John O'Connell issues an address to the people, exhorting them to pay their rents to the " cruel landlords," in such terms as to imply that the payment is a voluntary sacrifice. From this addition to the many organized anarchies of Ireland, it is evident that the prospects for the ensuing winter are not smiling. They are the worse inasmuch as this perverse deliberate resolve not to pay is likely enough to be backed in many instances by actual inability to pay. There is no money for rates, or rent, or food. Deprived of the potatoe, which has been sown over a much smaller breadth of land, the people will want maize, but the maize must be bought, and it does appear doubtful whether they will be much better supplied with cash than they were last year. It is true that a much larger breadth of land has been sown with grain ; but that must go to pay the rent ; and small part of the proceeds will reach the tenant or the labourer to buy maize withal. At the Tipperary meeting, one of the speakers suggested that the tenants could retain that grain as food ; and iir Clare,- the anti-rent agitators have punished the payer of rents by appropriating his corn. There is likely, therefore, to be a struggle for the crop as well as for the rents. It must indeed be sooner determined ; but the fact shows the bad faith which mixes with the bad fortune of the Irish, and so powerfully helps to cripple their resources.