ENGLAND.

Press, Volume II, Issue 46, 29 March 1862, Page 3

ENGLAND.

1 he following is a summary of the English news by the mail which arrived on Sunday last, the most important item in which is the intelligence which reached us a lew days since, of the lamented death of the Prince Consort. The subjoined extracts are chiefly from the ' Home News.' "The journals of the past month have recorded an almost countless number of meetings held in all parts of the country for the purpose of voting addresses of condolence to the Queen on her recent bereavement. There is hardly a public society, institution, or profession in the kingdom which has not already forwarded such an address to the Homo Secretary for presentation. Kor have these addresses emanated from bodies in this country only. British residents in various towns on the continent have given several testimonies of their esteem for the character and their admiration of the conduct of the late Prince. Amongst our latest news from America is one recording the holding of a crowded meeting of the British inhabitants of New York, at which an address of sympathy with her Majesty was unanimously carried. The next subject which has engaged the attention of all classes of the community has been the erection of an appropriate monument, or rather of appropriate monuments, to the memory of the prince, it is now settled that a national monument shall he subscribed to by the country ; and that, in addition, local monuments shall he raised in the principal provincial towns, and in such placed as possess any special association with the late Prince's life. " The central committee for tliu national monument was appointed "t a meeting convened by tlie Lord Mayor, at the Mansion-hour;, on Jan. 14. The Lord Mayor presided, and.

among those who took part in the proceedings were the Bishop of London, Lord Stratford do Redcliffe, Baron de Rothschild, and Mr. S. Morley. The practical resolution adopted by the meeting declared that the memorial should be of a monumental and national character, and that its design and mode of execution should be approved by the Queen. Committees throughout the kingdom were ordered to be formed, and the Bishop of London, in his able speech, expressed a hope that the fund would comprise the pennies of the poor no less than the larger contributions of the wealthy. " The total amount received for the memorial fund was, on January 25, about £15,000. " Subscriptions for local monuments have been opened ia Manchester, Birmingham, Salford, and other places." A meeting of Australian and New Zealand colonists resident in London had agreed to and presented an address of condolence to lier Majesty. An autograph letter, which is reprinted in another column, had been addressed by the Prince of Wales to the Commissioners for the Great Exhibition, expressing her Majesty's wish that a etatue of the late Prince should be placed on the Memorial oftho Exhibition of 1851. The Duke of Devonshire has been elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in the room of the late Prince Consort. The differences between Great Britain and the United States, arising out of the seizure , of Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board the British mail steamer Trent, had received a pacific solution. The despatches from Lord Kussell demanding the restoration of these gentlemen were received by the British Minister at Washington on the ISth December, and the next day he communicated the substance of them, as he had been instructed, uuclficially to Mr. Seward. "Up to the 23rd, the American Government declined to avail itself of the opportunity thrown open to it of making voluntary reparation, so as to escape the humiliation of appearing to yield to menace ; and accordingly on the morning of that day Lord Lyons made his official communication. Seven days clear were allowed for the answer. Four days elapsed without any notilication; on the 27th, Mr. Seward announced the determination of the Cabinet in one of the most wonderful ** yarns " ever issued by a Minister of State Earl Russell has replied to tliis marvellous State-paper by accepting the surrender of the prisoners as sufficient satisfaction, reserving for further consideration the grouuds assigned for that decision by Mr. Seward. It may bo well to show what these grounds are, and what they arc worth. " The pith of Mr. Seward , a arguments amounts to this* : that Captain Wilkes was wrong, not in what he did, but in what he did not do ; that that wrong was venial; and that it consisted in the mere "inadvertency" of not taking the Trent into port to be adjudged before a Prize Court. Were we to admit this interpretation of international law, there would not be a shred of protection left for neutral flags engaged on their lawful business. "In order to arive at this result, Mr. Seward asserts the right of belligerents to search and capture neutrals, sailing between neutral ports, should any contraband of war by found upon them ; and in order to accommodate this doctrine to the case of the Trent, he maintains, what no jurist has ever held, and no judgement of an Admiralty Court even affirmed, that the persons of civil agents, or repesentatives of the enemy, are contraband of war. Thus, in order to support the violation of one fundamental principle of international law, he is obliged to set up another principle of hie own, which is against all law. If the persons of civil agents arcnot contraband, the whole fabric of his reasoning falls <it once to the ground. But the other assertion in still more fatal to his argument, and to his reputation aa a statesman, because it involves either great ignorance of a rule which liea at the very base of all international law, or a determination to ignore it. A neutral vessel, making a voyages from ono neutral port to another neutral port cannot have contraband of Avar on board ; that 13 to say, that nothing found on board such a vessel so employed can be declared contraband, under any circumstances whatever. "This was exactif the situation of the Trent: therefore, even assuming that the Southern Commissioners might bo contraband had the situation been different, they were clearly not contraband on board the Trent. This indisputable fact alone is answer sufficient to the entire despatch. It literally cuts the ground from under Mr. Howard's whole position." " The attitude of Canada throughout the recent negotiation has been in the highest degree gratifying. Without waiting for intelligence, or suggestions, from England, the whole population, including all races, colours, and parties, commenced a voluntary system of organization, until, to use the description of a local chronicler, the country was armed to the teeth. The great part of the reinforcements sent out from England arrived in safety. If our difference with America has been productive of anxiety and a considerable outlay, it has at least Served to furnish us with an evidence of Canadian loyalty winch is considered quite worth what it has cost." The protest of France against the violation of the rights of neutrals by the seizures on board the Trent, has been followed by similar documents from Austria and Prussia. The harbour of Charleston, the most important on the South Coawt, had been permanently ruined by the Federal Government, by ainking hulks filled with blocks of granite on the bar at the main entrance. This barbarous proceeding had called forth general indignation in Europe, and had already been remonstrated jigaiiist by the British Government.

The Federal Treasury and the Banks in the Northern States had suspended specie payments ; and the latter had declined to take up any more of the loan which the Federal Government is anxious to raise; it is anticipated the Government will have recourse to the issue of paper money. The expenditure ot the Federal Government, which at the commencement of the war was £16,000,000, was supposed to have reached £100,000,000 per annum. A Federal and a Confederate vessel of war were watching each other in Southampton water, and they were both under the surveillance of a British man-of-war. Italian affairs wear a threatening aspect. Austria and Italy are each complaining of the warlike preparations of the other. The Pope, although advised on all hands to make concessions, obstinately refuses to do so. The death of the late King of Portugal had been followed by that of one of his younger brothers, making three members of this family who had been carried off by typhoid fever within a few weeks. Under the impression that they had been poisoned, the populace of Lisbon had sacked the chymists shops, and destroyed all drugs supposed to be poisonous. An appalling colliery accident had occurred near Newcastle on Tyne, in consequence of the falling of the beam of a pumping engine down the shaft of a pit, and the blocking up of the shaft. Upwards of 200 persons were buried alive, as it was several days before the mine could be re-opened. Mr. Adderley, M.P., had an unpublished letter addressed to Mr. Disraeli, and also in a lecture delivered at Saltley, pointed out what he considers fundamentally erroneous principles in the present colonial system of Great Britain; his remarks apply chiefly to the question of Colonial Military Defences. The Union Bank of Australia had, at its'half-yearly meeting, declared a dividend at the rate of 14 per cent, per annum. The following is a copy of an autograph letter from lus Eoyal Highness the Prince of Wales to the council of the Royal Horticultural Society : — "Osbomc, Dec. 28, 18G1. " Gentlemen, —Prostrated with overwhelming grief, and able, at present, to turn her thoughts but to one object, the Queen, my mother, has constantly in her mind the anxious desire of doing honour to the memory of him whose good and glorious character the whole nation in its sorrow so justly appreciate* Actuated by this constantly recurring wish, the Queen has commanded mc to recall to your recollection that her Majesty had been pleased to assent to a proposal to place a statue of herself upon the memorial of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which it was intended to erect in the new Horticultural Gardens. The characteristic modesty and self-denial of my deeply lamented father had induced hini to interpose to prevent hla own statute from filling that position, which properly belonged to it, upon a memorial to that great undertaking which sprung from the thought of his enlightened mind, and was carried through to a termination of unexampled success by his unceasing superintendence. It would, however, now, her Majesty directs mc to say, be most hurtful to her feelings were any other statue to surmount this memorial hut that of the great, good prince, my dearly beloved father, to whose honour it is in reality raised. The Queen, therefore, would anxiously desire that, instead of her statue, that of her beloved husband should stand upon this memorial. Anxious, however humbly, to testify my respectful and heartfelt affliction for the best of fathers, and the gratitude and devotion of my sorrowing heart, I have sought, and have with thankfulness obtained, the permission of the Queen my mother to offer the feeble tribute of the admiration and love of a bereaved sen, by presenting the statue thus proposed to be placed in the gardens under your management. " I remain, Gentlemen, "Yours, " A lbert Edward. "To the Council of the Horticultural Society."

London Wool Retort—January, 1862.—Since the satisfactory termination of our difficulties with America a better feeling has existed in our market, and some few hundred bales have changed hands at a slight advance on November rates. The accounts from Leeds and Bradford are better, and should a fair demand continue, it is probable that lair prices will bo established at the February-March series. Much, however, will depend upon arrivals, as from the last accounts it is expected a large sprinkle will arrive of the new clip, particularly that of Port Phillip ; if so late rates can scarcely bo expected for combing wools. Other descriptions?, however, will no doubt main: in late rates.