NEWS OF THE WEEK. (From the European Times, February 16th.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIV, Issue 1030, 12 May 1857, Page 3

NEWS OF THE WEEK. (From the European Times, February 16th.)

The 'Daily News' of the 13th states that no troops will be sent from England to Persia, and it has good grounds for believing that no troops will be sent from England to China. With regard to the quarrel with the first named power, the President of the Board of Control, Mr. Vernon Smith, declared in Parliament last week that the Persian ambassa lor now in Paris, has received further instructions from his government since his arrival in this country, fully empowering him to arrange all the questions now in dispute between the two countries, and we may reasonably infer from this that the Persian war will not be a very protracted affair, although it can haidly fa\l to prove a very expensive one. That a good deal of money has been already expended is indisputable, for the fitting out of the expedition to the Persian Gulf must hare cost a handsome sum, but of thie expenditure the East India Company will pay a, moiety, and the British Government the other. With the feeling at home in favour ot reduced estimates, and the determination of the Govern* ment to drop the war portion of the Income-tax, we may reasonably infer tha* the dispute with the Celestials is not viewed in a serious light. It appears from an official return which has just been published, that during the last year the income of the Slate was £72,218,988, and the expenditure £82,323,40 p. The difference, then, bftween.the receipts and disbursements amount to something more than ten millions. It appears also that during the same year the yield of the •ixteenpenny Income-tax was £16,028,421— a pressure on the people under which they have naturally become restive, and the result of the agitation arising from which has compelled .the Government to give up the 9d., or, war portion ,of. Ifce tax wjith the further giatifying assurance that no .new taxes on tne necessaries ot life^will be levied* The balance in hand at the tnd p

the year amounted to £6,942,427. The ntry estimate* for the present year are £8,109,168— ■ decrease on thott of last year of £7,702,959. The cout guild ettimaM has been transferred from tbe department of Custom* to that of naval expenditure,— so that the real decrease i» more than eight millions. Our naval force at the present time is stated to be 38,700 seamen and 15,000 marines. The army estimates also exhibit a large reduction, amounting to nine millions. In the army and navj , the proposed Raving is therefore more than seven* teen millions, whirh is a million more than the whole Income Tax realised. The packet wrvicp department of the Post Office will be Increased to the extent of £29,000, caused by two new muil contracts. It amountsnow to nearly a million annually. The ambitious coach -maker of Southampton, Mr, Andrews,— whose appearance as a candidate at this juncture was as superfluous as a fifth wheel to one of his own vehicles, — was, as might naturally be »uppo»od> at the tail of the poll ; but he seriously endangered th# success of the Liberal candidate, Mr. Weguelin, the Governor of the Bnnk of England. With the aplit in\ the Reform interest, caused by th« obstinacy of Mr* Andrews, the Conservative, Butler, ran a close race with Mr. Weguelin, and was only thirty-two rotes itt arrear, and even now an appeal to Parliament la threatened. At Greenwich General Codrington headed the poll, supported by the Government patronage and hi* own laurels in the Crimea— great or small as public; opinion may pronounce them to be. Hull has returned Mr. Clay, whose appearance in the House of Common* once more will please large numbers throughout the country. In the early day of the present House of Commons Mr. Clay was ejected for bribery, and it waaalways held that this was a bar to a seat until a newParliament was summoned. Mr. Clay, on high legal authority, maintains that his disqualification on tni» score ceased, when the Bribery Act ot 1854 passed,—* point, in the advanced age of the existing Parliament, which no one is likely to raise ; for next to a national contest with a foreign foe, a contest in the walls of Parliament to throw out a member it the most expensive warfare which it is possible to undertake. Mr r Cowper has been returned for Hertford, and Sir RBethell, the Attorney-General, for Aylesbury — bothwithout opposition. The mention of the Attorney- General conjure* up-. visions of his official superior, the Lord Chancellor f and the remarks which we ventured to make in thesacolumns, some time back, respecting the present occupant of the Woolsack, received last week a striking, confirmation in the columns of the leading journal. He is the weakest and most unsatisfactory Lord Chancellor of our time, and every session brings out more painfully his deficiencies. Is it not painful to read such sentences as these respecting the- eleven Common Law Judge who tried 1 and sentenced Rush, theNorwich murderer ? The subject, we ought to premise, is Law Reform, and the abortive bills for that purpose which the Lord Chancellor has again introduced.. "What shall we say to an Administration saddled with* such an incubus, haunted by rnoh a spectre, and on; whose shoulders a perpetual Old Mnn of the Mountainsits inexorably stride ? It is sad, but it is the simpletruth. The Lord Chancellor — we say it with unfeigned, respect lor his office — is such an-incubut-to the present; Government. Year after year he appears- on> tne-Wool l*sack in the Hou.-e of Lords, and! night after night h«patters and chatters, and hems and haws, andi mumbles, and fumbles over this bill and that bill., until the venarable assembly is fairly bored and frightened' out of Us propriety, rejects all the bill 1 in a panic, andi rushes toon adjournment to escape the intolerable apparition of the Old Woman on the Woolsack, which inspires it with, such unmitigated disgust." These are hard words on< the part of our great contemporary, and levelled at so exalted a personage may seem coarae, but they are' truthful, and justified by the noble and learned lord's: career in the Upper Chamber. The moral, we apprehend, is this— that a man may fill creditably one position who id sadly out of plaoe in another and a higher station. The more rabid of the Tory section- of the present House of Commons, and their representatives in the press, are sorely distressed lest the talked of fusion be*tween the Peelite* and the old Conservative party should be actually realised. Mr. Gladstone is the main objectr of dislike and jealousy, to these forgiving and patriotic gentlemen, and Lord Derby is warned of the perilous consequences which he will encounter should- he aid' such an alliance. The 'Daily News,' referring to thi» subject sarcastically remarks—" Mr. Disraeli may in secret rejoice over the return of the Lost Tribes ; but. nowhere do these wanderers openly acknowledge that, they are about to come back to the conservative fold. So long as the mutual aid is requisite for casting-down, salaries mutual aid will be readily givem But Lord; Palmers ton has never been a stiff-necked politician inmatters of finance, and he will submit to suffer Lord 1 Panmure and Sir G. Cornwall Lewis's measures to be cut down to any extent rather than embarrass the Queen < by a crisis, or disturb the country by a dissolution," — a prognostication on the part of our contemporary which, subsequent events have realised. The Manchester people- really apprehended' a cottom famine. Mr. Thomas Bazley, the chairman of theManchester Chamber of Commerce, has been.addressing the members of that body at their annual meeting, last week, in which he throws out a variety of suggestions for remedying the anticipated evil. He does, not wish the Americans to grow a bale of cotton lest,, but he desires that other parts of the world should' grow much more. According to Mr. Bazley, the con* sumption of cotton is proceeding so much more rapidly than the growth, that with tho present limited supply prices are sure to tise to a point which will arrest trade. He advocated a confederation of the trade — a cotton ■ league, in fact, — towards which all should contributein'proporticn to the horse-power which they employ,, and with the funds so raised encouiage the growth of cotton in every part of the world. The speaker mentioned that various portions of the British possessions, abroad were admirably adapted for the growth of cotton-.. He had used some bags of Australian cotton, whichsuited his purpose, and he had seen samples of cotton t from Tunis, ranging from 6d. to 2s. per lb. The views expressed by Mr. Bazley are very prevalent in the cot-, ton manufacturing districts, and the policy which he; advocates is strengthened by the present high price off the staple. Most persons 'conversant with the subject seem to think that India is the part of the w^rlq.to,which we may look with the greatest certainty* on i account of labour being abundant and cheap*, and- rVonu the greater facilities of transit. This- was Mr. John* Bright's view, some years back, when, the sam* adanm pie vailed which now exists. In the London ' Times'' of the 13th, a communication appears with tht signa>tureofA well-wisher to Indian railways," and theobject of the writer is to show that the Indian lines, have been purposely planned to dsvelope the resources, of the cott-n producing districts, and, as he states, "theestablishment of facilities for cairying on the tradd in> that commodity." In Parliament the events have not been very striking, or important. The Lord Chancellor's law reforms, as. we have intimated, have fallen still-bom. On Friday night, the 13th, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.brought forward the budget several weeks earlier thani usual, impelled thereto by Mr. Duraeli's threatened; motion for the repeal of the war portion of the Income- - tax. The interest which would otherwise attach to this.-, financial expose has been considerably lessened , tio«e.< the announced reduction. The right Ron. gentleman's., speech will be found' in another column. Sir George; Grey made a long speech a f • w evenings back on, the j subject of secondary punishments. The changes which i he proposes may be briefly summed up. He will leng«. then the periods of penal servitude to an equal duration with the periods of transportation for which they wereo substituted, — will give to judges a discretionary power? to pus sentences-of intermediate severity,— wUl allowprisoners sentenced to penal servitude to be removed^?* certain colonies, — and will continue the power: of >nviti-. gating sentences, as a reward for good 'conduct. Wes-. tern Australia is the colony which has found' otoit; favour in the sight of the Home Office; but it is inti- . mated that the new arrangement is little better than an, experiment, which may endure for a few years, but - cannot be expected to last longer. The controversy -as -. to the eligibility of other places for the confinement of ; our criminal population continues, and evolves much . interesting information. Sir Robert Peel has beerr called t to account for his roheking lecture, at Saltley, a fewweeks ago, in which he criticised and caricatured { several European celebrities— Count de Mprny,. the. Grand Duke Conetantine, the Duke de Ligny, and( others, u ith whom he came in contact during his »b- . iourn in Russia. The explanatory or apologetic re-, joinder was what the orator himself would , call **a brick:, of a speech," in which the seriousness and, levity were, so strangely blended that it is difficult to say which pre-c ponderated. The House was in good humour, and| laughed at some of the sallies, for the present Sir. Robert is so lightheaded and mercurial— so much the . opposite of his late father, — that no one] who knows or. hears him can be seriously angry with anything which, he may say or do. The absolute monarchies of the Continent are ingratiating themselves wiih their subjerts. It is rumoured . that the Emperor of Austria is about to proclaim a general and unconditional amnesty throughout the whol* empirp, and what sounds still more strange, it is declared t that the Russian Emperor will do.theaame with regard: to his exiled Polish subjects. In the face of this grati-. fying .state of things, the finances of Austria wjllbegreatly improved by the reduction, of its army. The^ Emperor of Russia, has been receiving a deputation of; English merchants stationed at St. Petersburg, and . hfy gave them a cojdial, indeed a gratifying reception.,