The Southland Times. TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1872.

Southland Times, Issue 1609, 23 July 1872, Page 2

The Southland Times. TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1872.

The news brought by the Nebraska, though not later than the intelligence received a few days ago by the AngloAustralian telegraph, furnishes a few additional details of interest. It will be remembered that a special telegram, dated London, 7th June, received by the last Suez mail, stated distinctly that the American Government had authorised their Minister in London to inform the English Government that, under the supplemental article to the Treaty of Washington, signed a few days previously, the indirect claims were definitively abandoned. This intelligence was at once laid before the Parliament by the Government, and received with the utmost satisfaction. A motion by Earl Russell, urging the cessation of all negotiations until such definitive abandonment of these claims on the part of America had been announced, was, at the time, the subject of a warm debate in the House of Lords, but on the receipt of this despatch, the motion was withdrawn. The later news, received by the Anglo-Australian telegraph, via Sydney and Auckland, contained intelligence said to have been extracted from Java papers to the 14th June, of a somewhat sensational character, containing, amongst other items, the announcement that England and America had been nearly declaring war. "We pointed out at the time that this news was probably not later at all, and that at best it appeared to be the reflection of what the Java papers had said about the debate in the British Parliament on Earl Russell's motion, and so, of course, unworthy of consideration as actual intelligence. By the same steamer, however, a London direct telegram, of date 22nd June, referring to the price of wool and some minor matters, was received, and the question naturally arose how, if this late information had been obtained, no more complete details of the political events which must have occurred between the Bth and the 22nd June had been received. The difficulty is now explained, and the explanation confirms the view we took of the matter. The late telegram of June 22nd was sent by an agent of the Argus in London, whose instructions are to forward special telegrams, supplementary to Reuteh's, as often as he thinks such supplementary information required. An arrangement had been made with Eeuteb's agents in India to send forward daily supplies of news, such aa they are themselves provided with daily from. London. They, not being prepared for the opening of the line, sent nothing, while the Argus's London agent duly forwarded his supplementary message. ( fhe news subsequently received was collected from the Java papers, and sent on to Adelaide by Mr Todd, of the Australian overland line. Just then the submarine cable between Java and Port , Darwin broke, it is supposed on a coral j

revf, and has not since been repaired. J The news now brought hy the Culitbrniaa j steamer furnishes a continuation of the story up to the 20th of Juue. On the loth the Geneva Tribunal met, and Lord Tknterden presented a portion of the British case, and asked for an adjournment for eight months, for reasons which are not assigned. The question of the adjournment had been considered with closed doors up to the 19th, when the Tribunal adjourned up to the 2Gth. Here our information stops for the present, and it is not improbable that we shall have to wait for the next Suez mail, due in Melbourne on Ist August, for tbe next instalment of the history of these important negotiations. Meanwhile we may congratulate ourselves on jthe stage they have attained, and the prospect afforded of a peaceful and even a comparatively early solution of this long-standing com- t plication. Nothing can be clearer now than the fact that the feeling of the American nation, as a whole, is utterly opposed to the extremity of proceeding to actual hostilities with England, on this or any question which admits of any other method of solution. This is a great step in advance, to which it may be believed the Atlantic telegraph has contributed not a little. The American disinclination to engage in war with England is said to have been materially strengthened by the publication in the American papers of a jeu d 'esprit, after the model of the Battle of Dorking, in which the horrors of a bombardment of New York by the British fleet, and the powerlessness of the American navy to prevent such a catastrophe, were skilfully depicted. The desire, on the part of many American politicians for a speedy settlement of the difficulty, is attributed to the impossibility of arranging, on favorable terms, certain financial operations contemplated by the Government of the States, so long as the question remained open. Hence, it is said, the prompt acceptance by the Senate of the supplemental article to the Treaty. Of other items of news, the two most interesting are the nomination of General G-bastt to the Presidency, by the Republican party, which virtually amounts to his re-election, and the confirmation of the previous reports of the safety of Dr Livingstone.