WAR IN SOUTH AMERICA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 49, 16 January 1869, Page 6

WAR IN SOUTH AMERICA.

(From the" TimeaJ 7 ) The intelligence from tbe Biver Plate, describes the position of the belligerents as being at the end of July very much Us it was atvthe close of February* • At this latter date My, G-ould, Her Majesty's Charge d' Affaires at Buenos Ayres, announced that the Paraguayan Dictator, President Lopez was " hemmed in on .all sides, and would soon be compelled to surrender at discretion," By the latest account it appears that the bom- , bardment of Humaita inflicts very lit* tie damage on the fortress,, tndv that, notwithstanding, the sore distress. to which that closely-invested stronghold lias been reduced, its fall is no Jonger looked on as imminent. But even the loss of Humaita would not be a decisive blow, as Lopez could still fo^lotig his resistance on the Teticuary, Where, according to all accounts, he has taken up a position scarcely less impregnable than that behind, which he has- stood at bay for the best part of three years. Diplomatic negotiations can Aardly be said to be more advanced than military operations. The correspondence lately laud before our houses of Parliament, with dates up to the beginning of July, contains much valuable information.as to the original causes as well as the ultimate prospects of the war. When in March, 1865, the Argentine Bepubkcnrst joined Brazil in an^p|sfensive and defensive alliance agains£Par&guay it was clearly, stipulated that the -icon-, tracting states harbored no ambitious designs either against the territorial or the. political -independence of the hostile Republic, and that peace, should be offered upon certain conditions which seemed capable of being easily enforced by the results of arsingfe campaign. Notwithstanding, however, the "TJ* — i disproportion of the forget, H^dM^^^jfche campaign disappointed ; the heroic Jesisv. exasperated \ V adversaries^ andi