Spain and Portugal.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 458, 22 December 1849, Page 3

Spain and Portugal.

Madrid, July 16* — A scheme for Customs Union between Spain and Portugal is being drawn up in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and will be presented at the commencement of the next session.

Madrid, July 17. — The day before yesterday, General Narvaez, dressed in the fall uniform of a Field Marshal, and bis bosom blazing with crosses and stars, and patriotism, of course, successively presented himself to the Senate and the Congress, and read the Royal decree, by which the Queen, making use of her prerogative, put an end to the Parliamentary session of 1849. Government is about to dispatch the new 26-gun corvette Ferrolano, with a picked crew, on a voyage round the world, in order, as the Ministerial papers say, that the Spanish flag may .regain its proper position in foreign seas. The vessels route is thus marked out : from Cadiz to the Canary Islands, from thence to Port Victoria, New Holland, where she will land the Spanish Bishop of that Settlement, with thirty missionaries and artizans who accompany him. i

Lisbon, July 19. — Well informed persons here doubt as to the stability of the Count de Thoraar's cabinet. The Dukes of Terceira and Saldana keep aloof from it, the latter having resigned his situation as Ambassador at Paris. Financial difficulties are increasing, but tariff modifications are iv contemplation, which it is hoped will recruit the

languishing revenue by giving an impuUe to trade. It is likely, however, tlut no alteration will be made before tbe meeting of the Cortes in January next, and that the interval will be employed in the collection of such mercantile and fiscal reports as may form some kind of statistics upon which to base a general revision of the tariff. The Spanish movement towards Free Trade principles may probably do more towards leading the Portuguese Government to seek the increase of its revenue by a prudent reduction of excessive and prohibitive duties than any ill-timed insinuations of British politicians.