GENERAL SUMMARY. [From the Home News, Feb. 24, 1848.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 308, 12 July 1848, Page 4

GENERAL SUMMARY. [From the Home News, Feb. 24, 1848.]

The foreign news of the fortnight has been full of events of the deepest interest. There have been earthquakes in Malta and Sicily, but in the latter island the moral convulsion lias withdrawn all attention from the physical visitation. The revolution begun before our last despatches were sealed up, is not yet over, nor will it be notwithstanding all the concessions of the king,' uniil he consents to a "repeal of the union" between Sicily aud Naples, and grauts a separate and distinct constitution to the. lslanders. The continental state of Naples has been easier appeased. Following the example of the Palermitans, the Neapohtani broke out and demanded reforms which the reluctant king granted, and his example has been followed in Sardinia and Tuscany. At Milan the Austrians and Italians are " standing in the slips," ready to engage ; at Rome great events are passing. All Italy is in a ferment. But we cannot dwell on these events, interesting as they are, for while we write, confusion, worse confounded rules in Paris. We can merely point attention to the reports from the Chambers on the address, the'prohibition of the Reform Banquet and the entente which followed. After this serious disturbance, it is almost absurd to talk of the revolution on the eve of accomplishment in Bavaria, where the ungovernable spirit of Lola Montes, and the fond dotage of the king, have caused scandals which have shaken the throne. Starvation and discord, continue in Ireland ; but we have not a word for the sister kingdom, England herself having a new and horrible vision before her in the shape of an increased income tax. Even the panic and the invasion yield in interest to the plan of Lord John Russell for making up tie deficiency in the Treasury, and providing against increased expenditure. The whole country is discontented, and ministers have sought safety in a Secret committee, who are in fact to balance the estimates with the ways and means. On the authority of the party itself, we learn that Lord George Bentinck has renounced the leadership of the party called Protectionists ; from other authority it is clear tli at the Marquis of Granby, who was nominated the noble lord's successor, will not accept the office. The Daiy Nats assents, as a confirmed truth, that Sir Robert Peel himself has formally and finally renounced the leadership even of his own section of the * Conservatives. Here then is the body of the Opposition without a head. The entire force of resistance in a state of dissolution and ■without any distinct command. Sir Robert Peel lays down the constitutional principle that the leader of the Opposition should he prepared, in case of the defeat or dissolution of a ministry, to accept office and to construct a cabiuet. Now he had determined, he says, " never to place himself in such a position as that he could be reasonably called upon to take office again." He suggested the Earl of Lincoln as a leader ; and it is very probable that his lordship will, for tbe time at least, be followed. The death of the most Rev. Dr. Howley has caused a promotion in the Church. "Pope John," who appears destined to merit the title, has appointed Dr. Suraner, Bishop of Chester, to be Archbishop of Canterbury. How strange it seems that that minister, •whom of all others the Church dreaded and disliked, should hare lived to nominate the two archbishops and three bishops in r the course of a lew months, one-sixth of the entire prelacy of England ! There have been thirteen debate nights since the last mail, and although we have done our best to condense the Parliamentary report, it occupies a larger space than we could desire. Here we shall merely sketch the outline : — On the Monday of the mail Lord Stanley, in the House of Lords, on presenting a petition from Jamaica, advocated the interests of the West Indies, describing the sufferings of the planters, which Earl Grey said arose'

partly from the sanre general cause that had brought on mercantile difficulties in this country, but chiefly from the imperfection of the measure of 1833. In the House of Commons, on the 7th, the Jewish Emancipation question came to be discussed upon a motion by Mr, Stafford, " that the seconJ reading be postponed for six months." Lord Burleigh and Loid Mahon, Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Newdegate vigorously supported the amendment in the " name of Christianity." Mr. Wood and Mr. M. Milnes demanded, in the spirit of Christianity, that the Jews should be dealt with as we would have them deal with us. Sir W. Molesworth showed that, at the present moment, a Jew -might be lawfully elected ; being so elected he was bound to serve, and that he could only do in ihe House of Commons. If he did not attend he might be committed to the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, and if desiring to avoid that punishment, he did attend, and refused, on religious grounds, to take the oaths, the House had no power to relieve him from the oLligation, and no power to declare his election void ; and even if it had that power, his expulsion would not prevent his re-elec-tion. From this dilemma how escape 1 Mr. Sheil asked what was this Hebrewphobia 1 Had not the friends of the Church of England more to fear from the Free Kirk, the spurious Catholics, and from mutiny within herself than from the quiet and unproselytUing Jew? (Cheers.) In Catholic Belgium and France all political distinctions between Jew and Christian had been swept away. Would Prote>tant England linger on this march of liberality ? London bad elected a Jew for its representative, and it was proposed to throw the Jew back upon London. For what ? That London might throw back the Jew upon the House ? It was on the 14th that Mr. Osborne attacked Mr. Barry for the delay and expense of the New Houses of Parliament, and was most fully answered. He asserted that the original contract was for £707,000 and that £808,000 had already been paid ; but it was shown that of that sum £378,000 had gone for embanking the river, &c, which was not included in the architect's demand, so that really only £430,000 had been expended on the estimate. Everybody bore testimony to Mr. Barry's merit and his character, and especially Sir Robert Peel, and happily, those who saw that such a design as Mr. Barry's should not be stinted by pressure for time, or withholding of money, were in the ascendant. On the 14th, also, Lord John Russell intimated to Mr, Horsman that the next Archbishop of Canterbury would enjoy £15,000 a year, subject however, to certain charges ob- t scurely hinted at by his lordship as possible and impending. The Yarmouth election committee reported on the 14th, that the election of Mr. Coope and Lotd A. Paget was void, on account of bribery, and that the freemen ought to be disfranchised. The writ was suspended till the report of the committee be considered. Mr. Grantley Berkeley was declared duly elected for West Gloucestershire. When the Bishop of Exeter, on the 15th, presented a petision for the repeal of the punishment of preemunire, the law lords, Campbell and Denman, agreed that the word of the thing shou d be expunged from the Statute Book. Lord CoUenhara said it might, but he would retain it as a form, to remind parties of a duty to be fulfilled, not as a threat and a punishment. The bishops, however^ especially the Bishop of Chichester, spoke very strongly against the absolute nomination remaining in the Crown, and hinted at a schism in the Church if that privilege were insisted on. Sir W. Somerville occupied the Commons on the 15th with an outline of a somewhat complex bill for amending the law which regulates in Ireland the relation between landlord and tenant. It did not seem to satisfy anybody in the House. It will be a miracle if it satisfy both tenant' and landlord on the other side of the Channel. On the 16th, from noon till evening, the Commons discussed Mr. Anstey's bill for further relief to English Catholics, which wa's committed, a'ter a division, which gave 186 for, and 154 against the motion. The bill foi establishing or restoring diplomatic relations with Rome originated in the House of Lords, and was discussed on the principle and the details (in committee) last week, and was recommitted pro forma, for the insertion of the annexed amendments on Monday last. Its purport is ' merely to remove a restriction of the privileges of the Crown by declaring on the authority of Parliament that, notwithstanding the existence and dicta of any statutes whatever,' the Crown shall not be restricted or prevented from sending an ambassador' to the papal ' court, and receiving in return an envoy from Rome. At the suggestion of Lord Stanley, the statutes rendered nugatory by this bill are not named in the preamble. On the proposition of the Duke of Wellington, the generalization " es-

tablish diplomatic relations" is substituted for the words " ambassadors, envoys, ministers," or any express definition of the rank or grade of ambassadorial digni:y. On the motion of the Earl of Eglinton, it was enacteJ, by a majority of three votes, that the ambassador from the Pope should not be an ecclesiastic, or a member of any religious order, especially a Jesuit. Such are the safeguards adopted in the bill. There was some rare confusion, and fine demonstrations of the monkophobia. The Earl of Aberdeen attributed to the Nuncio the powers of a legate, and elevated to the rank of Cardinal the prelate who performs the functions of the Nuncio ; wondeiful tales were told of papal intervention in free countries, by those artful personages, who, it seems, monopolize wisdom and wickedness to the damage and confusion of the simple-minded statesmen of this and other countries. It would seem that the Pope has even now the power to keep all the learning and talent of the world to himself and his agents, and to lock up all the rest of the world in a pitiable ignorance and apprehension of the influence of these subtle masters. The debate on the banking bill of 1844, which was opened by Mr. Herries, the exChancellor of the Exchequer, took a new interest from the fact of his re-appearance on the parliamentary boards. It will be seen that the act itself was generally condemned, and its suspension by ministers in the late crisis as geuerally approved. On Friday, the 18th, Lord John Russell made his financial statement. It was a painful revelation. It was a counterpart, as Mr. Cobden said, of the balance sheets of half the mercantile firms in the country. He told us of the disasters of last year ; of a deficit in the treasury ; of increased and inevitable expenditure ;of increased taxation. He calculates on an expenditure for the year 1848-49 of on an income of £51,250,000 ; and, therefore, in order to meet this deficit and leave in the treasury the small surplus of £113,000 against possible and scarcely evitable contingencies, he finds it absolutely necessary to lay on new taxes to the amount £3,500,000. His course is simple, ingenuity and calculations are dispensed with, any attempt to equalise the weight upon the whole mass of the people is avoided . Ireland is left unscathed, and the new vampire assumes the odious form of the income tax nearly doubled, s~per cent , and falling upon all earnings or savings, income or property, over £150 a year. A heavy burden to throw upon such few and such hard-working shoulders. Lord John, in the course of his speech, looking to the future expenditure, spoke very wisely on the threatened invasion and the coast defences. In so doing, he gave great offence, especially 10 l»is own side of the house. He was charged with making a war-speech, with provoking France to hostilities, &c. He proposed to increase the service estimates, navy, army, ordnance, and militia, by £603,000, which appears to create a greater sensation than even the added income tax. In this part of his speech, however, the noble lord said something of interest to the reader in India :—: — " With respect to the army, it should be stated, that although we do not propose to increase the military force by a single man, yet in the curse of the year the number of men in the United Kingdom will be materially increased by thp return of several regiments from India. I cannot compute the number of men who arrive in England from India in the course of tjie spring and summer at less than 5,000, and it probably will be more. The reduction of the army in India has been accomplished by the prudent and economical arrangements of Lord Hardinge, who, having triumphed by his skill and courage in the conduct of hostilities, determined as soon as hostilities were terminated, to place the finances of that country in a satisfactory state by taking on himself »he unpopular task of effecting great reductions. (Hear, hear.) I may say that, notwithstanding those reductions, T believe the safety of our Indian empire was uever so well secured as it is at the present moment. There will remain in India an army of 240,000 men, of whom 28,000 are European troops, after all the reductions which Lord Hardinge proposes, altl'ouph those reductions will effect a saving of upwards of £1,000,000 sterling. One effect of the new arrangement with respect to the Indian army will be, as I have already stated, a considerable increase in the number of soldiers in this country during the present year. The number of rank and file at present in the United Kingdom is 55,00^; but I expect it will amount to about (50,000 in the course of the summer. I believe that it is long since so large a military force as that has been maintained in this country. The augmentation recollect, is not caused by any direct increase in the gross number of the army, but partly by. the arrival of men from the West Indies, in the course of last year, partly by the return of a regiment from the Cape, which had been stopped there on its way from India; but which Sir H. Smith has sent thence, and partly by the anticipated arrivals from India in the course of the ensuing spring and summer. I believe that during the present year the number of men in the United Kingdom will exhibit, an increase of 20,000 as compared with the year I before mentioned — 1835." On Monday last, the 21st, Lord Stanley 7»ave notice that on' Thursday (this day), he would call the attention'ot the House to the first number of a seditious and tebelttous pa-

per published in Dublin, and called The United Irishman. The Marquis of Lansdowne brought up the report on the Relations with Rome Bill. Earl Fitzwilliam called attention to a ] etition from Ireland, asking that all workhouses, be made bouses of industry, and that the paupers be set to some employment; '- The Marquis •of Lansdowne, Lord Monteagle, -and Lord Carew took part in lamenting the present distress, in Ireland, and suggesting ameliorative measures. Earl ,Grey explained that with regard to emigration, all the Government proposed was to find means to send out to the Australias such young girls, being orphans, of the ages between, ,18 and 21, as should desire to go, and who. should become so trained and educated as to be fit, to send out. To such persons great .good must come, and they will be doing great, good to others. In the House of Commons,, Mr. Horsman gave notice for Monday, next of a motion to modify the Income Tax. M t r. Bright w^ould propose an extension of the probate and lega* cy duty. Mr. Ward would extend the income tax to Ireland. \ The Chancellor of the Exchequer explained some difficulties in Lord John Russell's speech on the budget. He denied that it was a war budget, and proposed a , secret select committee to examine into the charges in the army, navy, and ordnance estimates. Mr. Hume contended that the budget speech was hostile to France ; that the budget was a war budget ; and when he found that the actual deficiency was £6,700,000, be could not support additional expenditure. Why had we, in September last, 1,0 ships, 754 guns, and 7000 men in the Tagus ? Why had we 46 ships, with 279 guns, on the coast of Africa ? There was no answer, and after a few comments on Mr. Labouchere's bill for the protection of emigrants tp Canada, theHouse went into a committee of supply,and discussed the navy estimates. The vote for the excess in the expenditure of the navy £245,000 was withdrawn after ailong discussion, to be referred to a select committee, against which there were many protests. On Tuesday, the day before yesterday, | both in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the question of slavery, and our West African squadron, came on the tapis. The Earl of Aberdeen complained that the people of England were grown indifferent to the subject of slavery, and that the cheap sugar policy of the Government was equally injurious to the dignity of the kingdom and the. interests of humanity. There were explanations on all sides, and all bore testimony to the merits of the souadron. Mr. Huttin the Commons, proposed a committee to consider the whole question, and its appointment was agreed to : but few appeared to be of Mr. Hutts opinion when he asserted "that our sacrifice of twenty-one millions, and innumerable lives, had extended and not diminished the slave trade, and aggravated, not mitigated its horrors." The Chancellor of the Exchequer moved for two secret committees, one to inquire into the expenditure for the navy, army, and ordnance, and another to make the same investigation as to the miscellaneous. Thus the business of the House was the appointment of committees. Sir R. Peel was ready to support the estimates t'ithout inquiry. Anything to prevent a change of Ministry. Yesterday, Mr. Anstey renewed his preparation for the impeachment of Lord Palmerston, by moving for papers and making on enormously lengthened speech which the noble lord humorously compared to "a kaleidoscope out of order." If Lord Palmerston's treachery be the grain of wheat in all this bushel of chaff, it is surely, not worth seeking for. Mr. Shiel said, " the honourable and learned accuser could not be regarded without commiseration." We quite agree with him. Lord Palmerston in that part of his speech which appeared to be the beginning of a reply, addressed himself to Mr. Urquharts one charge, and passed over <all Mr. Ansley's. To-night the: noble lord will continue the answer which the speaker interrupted yesterday, and it is possible that the public will owe to Mr. Austey what they can never receive from liira, a valuable account, of our foreign policy as it is. We shall, at least hear what the Foreign- Secretary wishes us' to know on the subject. We may then 'balance the two accounts. ; Lord Falkland sails for Bombay on the 20(h of March. He has appointed Lieut. M'Mahon, son of the late commander-in-chief. one of his aides-de-camp. 3%e-Bj)mbay opium case, in appeal before the judicial committee of the Privy Council, was argued on the 22nd instant. Judgment will be pronounced oh the 28th. We bad prepared, at some length, a report of tbeicase, but refrainvfrom publishing it until we are enabled to accompany it with the judgment, which we shall do in' our. next issue. ,