ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 308, 12 July 1848, Page 3

ENGLISH NEWS.

Amongst the rumours which reached London on the 28th February, was one which reported that France had declared war with Austria, and sent off 80,000 soldiers. This rumour is contradicted. A revolution had also taken place on the 24th January at Caraccas, in the West Indies. It is reported at the west end, says BelVs Weekly Messenger of the 4th March, that Lord John Russell is about to resign office on account of ill health. The Morning Chronicle has reason to believe that Sir Charles Napier's force at Lisbon is ordered to Cork to refit and reprovision prior to cruising in the channel. W. H. Barber had arrived in France. Seven arches of a viaduct on the Manchsiter and Leeds railway had fallen in.

Army. — War Office, Feb. 11. — 58th Foot : Major Gen. Charles D'Aguilar, C.8., to be Colonel vice General Frederick Maitland, deceased. 96th Foot : Ensign John Y. O'Donnell to be Lieutenant by purchase, vice Campbell, who retires; William Alfred Smith* Gent., to be Ensign by purchase, vice O'Donnell. Feb. 18.— 51 st Foot. Thomas Crawford, M. D., to be Assistant Surgeon, vice Thomas Leopold Belcher, who retires. Feb. 25. — 96th Foot: Quartermaster Sergeant William Thompson, to be Quartermaster, vice Samuel Fox, who retires on half pay. March 3. — 98th Foot: Ensign R. Mends, from 99th Foot, to be Lieutenant without purchase, vice J. A. Macdonald, cashiered by the sentence of a general court-martial.

Absentees. — Belts Weekly Messenger of the 4th of March says,—" One effect of the late events is scarcely to be regretted — the number of oar countrymen and women whom these events are sending home. The country stands in need of their expenditure* be it great or small."

New Zealand Government. — The bill for suspending the constitution of New Zealand was read a second time in the House of Lords on the 29th February. Earl Grey explained the circumstances under which, on entering office in 1846, he had endeavoured to extend the privileges of local self-government to the colony of New Zealand ; the opinion of Governor Grey, that the measure would not work ; and the effect of the present bill; in all of which he traversed the ground already beaten in the House of Commons. The bill will suspend the proposed form of government for five years ; and at the end of that time the question will receive full consider*-

tiou. Lord Stanley criticised the Conner' measure, and ' the egregious baste of its author $ but without introducing any new mat-, ter, except a panegyric on Captain Fitzroy. He regretted that the proposition had not been to repeal, rather than te-'suspend, the constitution granted to Nev/ Zealand; but, as Lord Grey insisted on the latter course, he would offer no objeciion. He believed that the less Parliament interfered, and the more the business of the colonies was left to the Secretary of State and the Governors, the better would be the result ; and as this was a move in the right direction, he would give his decided support to the bill. The Queen has appointed Dr. Allen Thompson to be Professor of Anatomy in the University of Glasgow. Mr. Dodd, Solicitor- General, and member of the Executive Council at Halifax, Nova Scotia, is appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of that colony, vice "Wilkins, deceased.