EUROPEAN NEWS

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 262, 24 April 1860, Page 3

EUROPEAN NEWS

TO FEBRUARY 18

[From, the, Sydivij Morninj JLrdd.)

Sydney Morning Herald Office, Wednesday, 6 p.m. [FROM OUR ADELAIDE SPECIAL CORIIESPONDENT.] The Benares, Captain Burne, arrived at Nepean Bay at 2.45 a.m. The-cause of her detention were head winds and foal bottom. She left Suez 28th February, and Aden 4th March.

The submarine telegraph between Suez and Aden was broken. Vessels engaged in inspecting wire. No Aden telegrams received.

The P. and O. S. Benares anchored at 12-30 a.m.,! this day, has placed us in possession of. our London Correspondent's letter, and our files of English and Indian papers. -

[from our city correspondent.]

London, Saturday, January 21.

The Commercial treaty between France and England, announced in the Emperor's letter to M. Fould, has been and still is the one great subject of conversation and newspaper controversy in both .countries. The general effect produced is most satisfactory. Everyone admits that it necessarily must draw closer the alliance between the two Governments, while it is the preliminary step, towards the adoption in France of Free Trade, vice Protection. There can, I think, be little doubt of its likewise resulting in the extension of Free Trade principles in this country. When France and England both hold up freedom of commerce, it seems impossible that other countries can long resist the .adoption of the same policy. France will sweep away all her present " prohibitions," and substitute protective duties of 30 per cent, on a mass of articles coming under that designation, " prohibitions." The duty on coal, coke, and iron will be reduced : cotton and wool to be free of duty. England will reduce the duty on French wines and brandies, silks, and articles of Paris. Lord Cowley has returned to Paris with the draft of the co rtmercial treaty, "and for which Mr. Cobden has laboured zealously. The Pope has refused to accept the counsel given by the Emperor Napoleon, regarding the cession of Ilcmanga, and has formally and officially protested against the recent pamphlet.

Count Cavour, the Sardinian minister, has formed his cabinet of men devoted to the cause of Italian independence. There appeals to be, to my thinking, a storm brewing in Naples. If the King does not taka care assuredly he will have a revolution, but circumstances are not yet sufficiently developed to say more at this moment. Bat if there be what I anticipate,

Venetia will assuredly follow, and the question of Italian independence will become general—universal on every foot of Italian soil. •■ ■. •

The Spanish troops have occupied the forts on the banks of the Tetuan, which place it is intended to attack. The Moors fight with the most desperate courage and fortitude, disputing every foot, nay, inch, of ground, but they assuredly are each time beaten.

Austria has officially enacted that for the future the testimony of Jews shall, in all judicial proceedings, be regarded as of the same value.as that of Christians. This is as it should be; but the Austrian Government is still far from tolerant. ;

Application is said to have been made to the King of Naples by English capitalists for permission to extinguish Versuvius, by cutting a canal from the sea to convey the water into the crater, and thereby extinguish the fire, at a cost, it is declared of £80,000, and restore land to cultivation of ten times that amount.

From China, we learn that the Celestials are making preparations for warlike operations. The City of Pekin is being strengthened.

Parliament meets on Tuesday next, the 24th instant. *

The bank has raised the .rate of discount to 3 per cent., and as this advance will not suffice to arrest the-drain on bullion, they must put it on again, and if they wish it to be effectual at a!!, must make it 4 per cent, at once. The pressure is considerable, and the general state of the money market denotes a pressure. A committee of enquiry has been appointen in the matter of the Great Ship Company. , . The masters and Officers of>American ships appear, from a number of cases recently brought to light, to be committing great cruelty upon the colored portion of their crews, resulting in the deaths of many. The Treaty of Commerce between France and England was signed on Monday last in Paris, and will be laid before Parliament on next Monday week, the 6th February, on which day the Chancellor of the Exchequer will bring forward his financial statement regarding the contents of which very great secrecy is observed—and nothing has been allowed to transpire as to the commercial reforms Mr. Gladstone contemplates, but those who do know something of its general character aver that it will be one of the most splendid and comprehensive Budgets ever brought forward—that it will be something really astonishing that will take every one by surprise. The only fact that I can give about it is that chicory will be for the future taxed—that a great many small duties will be repealed; and this is more than any one else knows, but my source of information is first-rate. lam also able to state that there has been a voluminous correspondence between the Governments of France and England, part of which I have the opportunity of seeing, and from which I gather that Mr. Gladstone is likely, and purposes, to make great .alterations in the British tariff, and simplify the Collection of duties, and lessen the expense of collecting.

The Financialptatement of M. Magne to the Emperor states that since 1852 the foreign commerce of France has increased SO per cent. Projects will be submitted to the Council of Stale for clearing and draining uncultivated land marshes belonging to parishes to the extent of 2.790,000 hectores, by advances for the execution of the same of 10,000,000 francs by payment of one-half of thd ground so cleared. There is also to be a large sum expended in improving the navigation of rivers, building bridges, and forming new lines of railway. Subscriptions in money are being sent it is said, to the Pope by the Sovereigns of Roman Catho ie States, and meetings for the expression of sympathy are still being held in Ireland and in England. A Treaty of Commerce between Sardinia and Prussia .is in course of negotiation. ■ There had been a ministerial crisis at Naples in consequence o! the King desiring to render armed assistance to the Pope.

The New Turkey Bank is to come into operatimyrin June, and the paper currency of Turkey is to be withdrawn by the end of March, by a tax of 10 per cent, on the ren s of ail houses in Constantinople.

Captain Harrison, of the Great Eastern was drowned last Saturday, at Southampton by the upsetting of his boat (the ship's gig.) There were several boats promptly in attendance, but it is supposed that he must have received a blow under water; for he was quite dead when taken on shore. The coxswain and'a youth of the name of Lay were likewise drowned. The loss of Captain Harrison, who had become so identified Ajith the big ship, is felt like something national.

The seventy-second anniversary of the settlement of the Australian colonies was celebrated as usual by a dinner at the Albion Tavern, on Thursday evening last, Mr. J. E. Fitzgerald, of New

Zealand, in the chair; who, in one of his speeches, declared that the warmest and truest loyalty to the Crown of England existed in the colonies. I enclose a report of the s'arne.- 1

Saturday, February 4th,

There has been considerable agitation in France, Sardinia, Savoy and Switzerland generally upon the subject of the proposed annexation of Savoy and Nice to France. The course of affairs has been this—emissaries have been stirring up certain sections of the people of Savoy anJ Nice* to proclaim a desire for annexation to France. This movement has been duly chronicled by the French Press, and loudiy, warmly » and generally applauded* without one

word of restriction from the French Go ■veL-nment., Meetings accordingly have been held in favor of such a course. But the patriotic po.tion of the people have met these manifestations by counter meetings and counter propositions for annexation to Sardinia, which latter suggestion has made the French Press Carious;-while a third party has become alarmed for the independence of Switzerland, and have made an appeal to England for preservation. Such a matter as the annexation.of the province of Savoy to France is one necessarily that would be likely to be taken notice of in Parliament, and accordingly numerous applications have been made for information as to whether the. fact be true that France purposes securing that province. The Government, after much fencing of the question, at last notifies though Lord John Russell, in answer to Mr. Disraeli, that he could not produce the papers relating to the projected annexation of Savoy to France, but that Lord Oowley had had two interviews with Count Walewski on the subject, at the last one of which, in July last, the French minister declare expressly that the Emperor no longer entertained the idea of such annexation. Here we have the fact that his Majesty did once entertain such a notion, and, therefore, may permit such a thing, provided it could be declared to be in accordance with the expressed wish of the people of Savoy, and thence it is to be argued the permitted publicity by the Paris press of any popular demonstration favorable to the annexation. ■ This announcement, however, from our Government has quieted the public feeling on the subject, and the importance of the local movement is much diminished. The Univers, the organ of the Jesuits in France, has been suppressed for giving publicity, at the request of the Papal X uncio of an encyclical letter from the Pope addressed to the Patriaichs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic Church, which states, in language positively amounting nearly to a defiance of the Emperor and his Government, the reason why he regrets the advice of his Majesty to surrender the Romagria, at the same time condemning the Imperial dynasty. The Univers is in future to be published at Brussels. The Constikulionml regrets that the Romish Court is as much under the influence of Austria,, as before the war. That the Pope having refused to follow the advice of Napoleon 111., the duty of France is fulfilled. Nevertheless, though France would still defend the Pope against anarchy in Rome, yet, should the political authority of the Holy Father be everywhere else doomed to experience another crisis, the responsibi'ity would not rest upon the generous nation which has done everything to ward it off. The meaniug of this evidently is. that the Emperor will not defend the political authority of the I'ope. There is some probability of the Prince of Wales espousing the Princess Alexandiina, the daughter of Prince Albert of Prussia, who is in her eighteenth year. The Prince of Orange will espouse the Princess Alice of England. His Royal Hiohnefs is on a visit to her Majesty. (jaiibaldi was married, 24th January, to the daughter of March ess Raimondo.

Mr.;Cobden,it appears, took great trouble to enlighten his Majesty Napoleon on the subject^'the advantages of Free Teade, and to show the effect of the Commercial Treaty, of which he had been the chief promoter and fraraer. He is said- to have shown his Majesty thirteen tons of.English goods, comprising patterns of every kind of English produce, their price and quality being duly contrasted with French.

Two more new steam batteries are to be constructed of 3668 tons each; cost, exclusive of equipment and engine, £157,724 and £161,392 respectively. When complete I hey will cost altogether two-thirds of a million of money. These already in course of completion are of 6000 tons each, costing £264,000 for the hull alone, and when fitted for sea above half a million each. . A memorial to the memory of Sir John Franklin is to be erected at Spilsbury, his native town. Mr. Spurgeo,n has been preaching in Dublin—present, the Lord Lieutenant, the Dean.of Ardagh, and the Hon. and Very Rev. the Dean of St. Patrick's. London, Saturday, February 11. Sir John Pakington has presented numerously signed petitions from Tasmania, praying that Parliament will advise the Queen to withhold the Royal assent from. Acts passed by the Legislative of that colony, • " to alter the constitution of the Legislative Council,'' and further " to provide for the abolition, on certain terms, of State-aid to religion." Colonel Sykes asked if any and what proceedings had taken place, when Mr. C. Fortescue replied in effect that it was,not a case in which the Queen should be asked to interpose a vote on a resolution passed by the local Legislative Council as if there was anything unfair in it. The constituents of Mr. Justice Home had the power of remedying it by means which their Constitution gave them. A meeting of the creditors of Mr. E. JWheeler, of the Australian trade, when it was resolved that the estate should be liquidated under inspection. The liabilities were given at £31,591, and the assets at £16,377-

The English and Australian Copper Company will declare a dividend of 2s. 6cl. per shave from profits on the year ending June 30, 1859, of £40,950.' A meeting of .the Australian Royal Mail Company, when it. was announced that a further distribution from assets, on account of return of capital, would be made of ss. 6d. per share. The English, Scottish, and Australian Chartered Bank has declared a dividend at the rate of $ per cent. per annum.

The Spaniards'have taken Tetuan, after a battle fought, on the 4th instant, in which they fiad ten 'officers and'fifty-eight men killed, and fifty-three officers and 7U men wounded. 800 large tents, forming the five encampments of the Moors, and fifty pieces of artillery, camels, and all other equipage of the Moorish army were captured, Tetuan had' been entered with acclamation. Madrid has been splendidly illuminated in honor of the event. Marshal! ODohnell has been raised to the rank of Duke of Tetuan, and made a Grandee of Spain, and the ground where the victory was obtained granted to him. The Donald M'Kay, from Melbourne, has arrived.

TheChineseare strongly fortifyingPekin, in anticipation of another war with England; and at the Peiho the entrance is being strengthened by fortifications, and the concentration of 100,000 Tartar troops. The British trade with Japan has been stopped by the excessive demands of Europeans for Japanese gold in exchange for dollars, and from insults offered to the natives.

The metropolitan underground railway has been commenced, and will .be completed in two years. It is twenty-five feet below the surface, and will connect all the railways on the north side with the City, &c.

London, Saturday, February 18. A motion for the withdrawal of the Maynooth grant has been lost, on a division, by 186 to 128. The French Government has suppressed another paper, the Bretagnc, and has given notice that the publication or republisfition of false news, even if done without evil intentions, will be punished. The Moors have asked Marshal O'D.onnell on what terms peace will be re-estab-lished, who has referred to Spain for instructions. These have been sent from Madrid, but the nature of which is not known. There is a rumour that no peace will be concluded until the Spanish troops have taken Tangiers. O'Donnell has, in an address to the army, declared that he will continue offensive operations until the enemy asks mercy of Spain, until reprisals have been taken fov insults of the enemy, and an indemnity obtained for the sacrifices of Spain.

Austria is about to grant reforms by a Constitution to each province. Austria is taking extraordinary measures to reinforce the Quadrilateral. She is also allowing enlistment of soldiers for the armies of Home and tne King of Naples; and replies to the representations made to her by Sardinia, that they are in return for Sardinia violat-

ing ths principles of non-intervention. The Sardinian charge d'affaires at Florence has been recalled, and the establishment of the legation broken up, which would imply thai; the annexation of Central Italy is certain.

■ The King of Naples has liberated political prisoners arrested on suspicion—those only who are evidently guilty, being reserved for trial.

Agitation in Sicily continues; political arrests increase; a proclamation has been circulated, calling upon the people to rise in insurrection to the cry of "Italy, and Victor Emmanuel for ever."

Rioting in the Church of St. George's-in-the-East has been stopped by allowing the police to enter the Church. Messrs. Smyth, Searle, and Co., in the India trade, ha?e failed; liabilities about £25,000.

The Board of Trade returns for the year have been issued. Our exports in 1859 amounted to £130,440,427; in: 1858, to £116,008,756; and in 1857, to £122,066,107.

The imports* in the first eleven months of the year were, in 1859, £122,832 675 ; in 1858, £115,147,266; and in 1857, £135,051,414.

The money market is easier. Good bills are done at 3f to 4 per cent. The bank returns are favorable. Consols, 945, |-. New South Wales debentures, 99 to 100 ; South Australia, 109 to 111; Victoria, 110| to 11H-; Bank of Australasia, 78 'to 80: Australian. Agricultural, 32 to 33; South Australian Land, 34 to 36. .