HOW BRITISH INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC ARE PROTECTED.

Southland Times, Issue 544, 20 August 1866, Page 2

HOW BRITISH INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC ARE PROTECTED.

(From the " Mercuric") The 31st of March, 1866, was a glorious day for tfpain. On that day Valparaiso, the flourishing seat of commerce in the South 'Pacific, was bombarded. Eight was it that the gallant Mendez Nunez should feast his officers m the evening in proud rejoicings over the exploits of that morning. Now or never would the offended Castilian lion be appeased. The Covadonga might have been taken at Papudo, the Blanca and the Villa de Madrid shamefully repulsed at Abtao by a contemptible force, but at any rate — thanks to that last silk red frock, with its tasteful green paletot, wisely presented by Queen Isabel to the propitious idol — on that day the Eesolution and the Blanca had had their revenge by battering the railway station ; the Vencedora had conquered a great deal of the brick and woodwork of the Exchange; and the Blanca and Villa de Madrid vindicated Spanish honor by setting fire to the English and French goods in the Custom-house stores. It was a noble deed — there was no resistance — not a gun fired from shore to spoil the unity of the thing— just a fine clear stage all to themselves, for the destruction of whatever of commerce, science, and art the devoted city contained, with the additional piquancy of the English and American squadrons looking on at the wanton destruction of the property of their countrymen. When all was over, and people began to reckon up the cost of the destruction, it resulted, as was expected, that almost the whole loss had been suffered by foreigners. Valparaiso, like all towns on the coast, is nothing more than a foreign factory— one might almost say a British factory, when British machinery, British grey domestics and prints are sent for exchange against Chilian copper and corn. Destroy all the places on the coost, and you destroy foreign property merely. Until the Spaniards can bombard away our agriculture and copper mines, they can do no more than, as in this case, burn the fruits of English industry. The distribution of loss sustained turned out to be more or less as follows : —About half a-million lost to the Government of Chili by the burning of their bonded stores, more than counterbalanced, however, by the sum of 700,000 dollars in duties put into its pocket through the immense dispatch of merchandise consequent on the alarm of the bombardment in three or four days, which otherwise it would perhaps never have received, as a great part at least would have been reshipped ; Borne million of dollars in build- [ ings destroyed, lost by private persons ; and about twelve millions of dollars worth , of goods, entirely belonging to foreign merchants, utterly destroyed in the con- * flagration of the Government stores. ' It was against the Custom-house stores * that the Spaniards directed their most < furious broadsides, against which they raged in preference. * • < And o:i that morning when the amazed English and North American merchants s saw their property made a great bonfire, i there were in the bay two powerful quadrons of British and North American s nen-of-war, commanded by an 'Admiral i md a Commodore respectively, capable of s irresting the outrage on civilisation and t lumanity with a word. g

Thus, uuder the pretence of .doing the Chilian Government damage to the extent of some half a million, the Spanish Squadron was allowed to rain^ fire upon some thirty millions of neutral property, in the whole range of Custom-house stores whilst the- English Admiral looked, on at the atrocious crime from his splendid frigate, like Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the blood of that just man. ° "When Admiral Denman, and Mr Willian T. Thompson, her Britannic Majesty's Minister at Santiago, were implored b/ the British residents here to prevent this act of barbarism, the answer was, that they felt very deeply for the cruel position of the merchants, but that her Majesty's 'Government, evidently not anticipating such a thin<r as the bombardment of Valparaiso, had sent no instructions relative to the conduct to be observed. "What ! an English Foreign Minister, who has grown grey in public affairs, in diplomacy, and state-craft, is ignorant of orders having been sent out that every one in Europe wiTs aware of, and has never in thespaceof seven months that the prospect of a bombardment of Valparaiso has been everywhere discussed, and almost expected, imparted to his agents here the course to be pursued ! A New Eifle fob the British Army. — The description which the Times gives of the superiority of the Prussia needle gun (Zundnadel gewehr) over the small-arms now in use in other armies i\« calculated to excite uncomfortable reiiections here as well as elsewhere. The chances of our coming into contact with the possessors of this formidable weapon are, indeed, remote enough, but still it is far from satisfactory to think that, after all the money we have spent, and the experiments we have made, our army is not yet provided with a breach-loading musket. It is, however, some consolation to know, as we announced last month that the Government have at last obtained, a muzzle-loader which has been pronounced by competent authorities even better than the needle-gun, and which will shortly be introduced as the regulation small-arm of our troops. It is a conversed Enfield on the Snider system, with improved ammunition devised by the "Woolwich Laboratory. This rifle possesses the advantages of being simple, safe, cheap, non-capping, and little liable to get out of order. Moreover, it does not require such a reduction of the stock as to destroy the efficiency of a weapon, which, for military purposes, is required to act as a pike as well as a firearm. It may be worth while, perhaps, to repeat our general description of the arrangements : — A portion of the upper side of the breach end of the barrel is cut out for the admission of the cartridge. This vacant space is closed after loading by a lump of steel — the "breech-stopper" or "breech-piece"— which hinges upon one side of the barrel, and forms a false breech, agaii sb the face of which the back end of the cartridge rests ; the barrel is, in fact, shortened to this extent. A plunger or piston transmits the blow of the hammer through the stopper to the cap of the cartridge, which is withdrawn after firing by a little instrument which forms part of the stopper. The cartridge is on the " central fire" system, the chief novelties being the case and bullet. As regards the former, the object has been to provide a case which shall uncoil or unwind to. a certain extent on discharge. The bullet is a . combination of various constructions, none of them original, but producing together a projectile of a sufficiently distinctive character. It has the general form and appearance of the Enfield rifle bullet, with its hollow base and baked clay plug ; it has the cannelures, which originally characterised the Tamisier and the^Minie bullets, and the wood plug in the head to which Mr Metford and Mr Whitworth " may both lay some claim. The cartridge is perfectly impervious of moisture ; it is safe, not liable to lead or foul ; it admits of about 14 rounds being fired in a minute ; and it shoots from 20 to 25 per cent, better than the service Enfield ammunition. — Pall-mall G-azette. National Eifle Association. — The Duke of Cambridge, who presided at a general meeting of this association on the 26th of May, stated that the annual assembling of the Volunteers at Wimbledon, which he had to announce would be -. held on the 9th of July. The prizes which would then be given by the Association, would amount to £4020, whereas in 1865, the prizes amounted only to £3595, thus showing a considerable advance in the amount this year. The total number of prizes this year was 685, while last year the number was only 580, making an increase of 105 prizes. There would be a number of breach-loaders at hand from which anybody might make a selection, and he hoped that some decision might be come to in regard to the difficulties connected with the question of breachloading, Nothing positive had been determined on that subject. Mr. Schneider had gone through the whole of the system, and according to him nothing was more simple than the mode -of conversion of the Enfield rifle into a breach-loader. If, therefore, his mode of conversion could be adopted, the difficulty of changing a muzzle-loader to a breach-loader would be at once solved. tiLis Eoyal Highness did not mean to assert that Mr Schneider's was the best plan that could be invented ; but as far as the system of conrersion went, he certainly approved it, and wai af opinion that it would be a foolish thing m the part of the Government not to 3arry out that plan before they should inter upon any new principle. Women never stood higher than they lo now. — Look at their heels. A good chorus for a man who has to sleep in the fields :— -" Too-rural ! Too'ural! Too-rural! Too-rural-I-lay,?V -' A lady asked a minister whether a peron might not be fond of dress and ornaaent without being rain. — " Madam/ aid tha minister, " when you see a fox's ail peeping out of the hole, you may fee ure the fox is within."