VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. [From the Empire, June 8.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 932, 8 July 1854, Page 4

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. [From the Empire, June B.]

The Courier urges on the Government to take immediate steps to ensure tbe colony against a hostile invasion, ibe probability of which s«emed threatened by the late news from Europe. We quote from the journal referred to :—": — " ActiTe vrork on the permanent batteries should be urged on by employing large relays of men. Tbe Sappers should be ordered on service in Hob»rt Town, Bnd get into diligent forwardness. A proclamation ordaining artillery companies should issae, and volunteering recruits be invited, and should when organised be daily drilled at tbe guns. Two or three gun-boats should be built instantly. The ship Gloucester arrived at Hobart Town on tbe 30th May, bringing 102 rank and file men of the 12th Regiment, destined to relieve the 96th, who were about to return home. In consequence of Van Diemen's Land ceasing to be a penal colony, tbe new regulation* of the Local Government respecting the sale of waste lands would no longer be in force. " The Act of Parliament," says the Courier, "excepting this colony from the operation of the Australian Waste Land Sales Act making that exception expressly on account of its being a penal colony. The pre-erapiive right will of course be secured to all existing licensees of Crown lands, as wtll as the enjoyment of tbe rented land held generally in common with such presumptive right ; but after the present date we apprehend that all landi applied for must be put in for sale." A comparative return of the revenue of the colony, received at the Colonial Treasury during the quarters ended 31st March, 1853, and 31st March, 1854, respectively, was published in the 'Government Gazette of the 30th May. The total revenue for the first quarter of 1854 was £97,885 7s. 7d., being an increase on the tame quarter of the previous year of £22,986 19s. 7d. In the customs alone there has been an increase of £13,609 10s., of which £5,228 14s. 7d. has been on spirits. In the territorial revenue there has been an increase of £16,302 25., of which £8,189 Bs. has been on the sale of crown landi by auction, aud £6,820 on land sold under tbe regulations of Ist Ko\ember, 1851. The total decrease, in various items, amounted to £10,780 4s. 7d. ; but this large apparent falling off arises from the fact that the sum of £10,000 appears as revenue in the first quarter of 1853 ; which was simply .a re-payment, and no part of. the actual revenue of the year ; 60 that, instead of a falling off, there has been in reality an increase in the revenue to that extent, making the total increase

£32,986 19s. 7d. The Launceston Examiner stated that some specimens of quartz, impregnated with gold, were picked up on the estate at Illoroo. It was intended to 6end the sample to London for analysis.