Spain.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 498, 11 May 1850, Page 4

Spain.

The financial prospects of the country are gloomy, but that is no novelty in Spanish affairs, and it only excites our surprise that any government can so long maintain a stupid commercial system which robs the revenue, and injures the consumer of foreign manufactures, for the benefit of the smuggler. The ministerial journals eulogise the gracious manner in which the Queen and King Consort received the ministers, when they went the otheT night to felicitate their Majesties on the prospect of a certain happy event taking place ; and the same journals add that the Queen took the Ministers into one of her inner aprrtments, where they found a .fall length portrait of General Narvaez, which had been placed there by the Queen's order, thus affording an undoubted proof of her special regard and esteem for him. On the 3rd instant, Senor Moron asked leave to introduce, to Congress a measure by which a great number of Government appointments would be declared incompatible with a seat in the House. The Congress refused to take it into consideration by 107 votes against 57. The decline of the once powerful Spanish navy may be seen in the following account of i its present strength, published in the Epoco : " There are now two line-of-battle ships (seventy four) one of which, however, the Guerrero, is upwards of 100 years old, and is disarmed. The other, the Soberano, is manned by 1 2 officers and 600 seamen and soldiers. There are five frigates carrying lrom 52 to 32 guns each ; six corvettes, eight brigs, five brig schooners, and schooners, eight pilot boats, feluccas, &c, and fifteen steamers of war, of which three are of 350 horse-power, one of 300 ditto, one of 290 ditto, two of 200 ditto, one of 192 ditto, three of 160 ditto, two of 100 ditto, one of 70 and one of 40 horse-power. The total number of guns is 721, and the vessels are manned by 223 officers, 1033 soldiers, and 4940 sailors, &c~. The latest intelligence is that the Queen had just recovered from a slight indisposition, and that the greatest precautions were taken respecting her Majesty's, .health, as it was feared that the newly rtised expectations of

the nation might not be realized. The Spanish expedition to Italy has been positively ordered home. Report stated that a legion of 3000 men would be raised in Spain and placed at the disposal of the Pope. Prussia. The Ministers of Finance, on the 7th instant, laid upon the table of the second chamber the budget for 1848. It shows a deficit to be covered of 20,500,000 dollars. Of this sum 1 0,400,000 dollars are for excess of war' expenditure. The announcement of this fact by the Minister caused a great sensation in the Chamber, and some persons remarked on " the expense of re-action." The Minister proposes several expedients in the way of borrowing and shifting in order to meet the deficiency. — Waldeck has resumed his seat in the Chief Court of Prussia.