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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 233, 1 October 1868, Page 2

We learn from good authority that something more tban opposition to the Government as a body has actuated some members, at all events, of the House of Representatives who recorded their votes with the Opposition, on the motions lately brought forward by Messrs Fox and M'Lean. A conviction has grown up, and is now strongly entertained, that the present Minister for Defence, Col. Haultain, is not equal to the onerous responsibility at present imposed on bim, and in view of the existing grave aspect of native affairs, it is believed that a paramount necessity exists for substituting an efficient head of this important department. If this surmise be correct, as we have good reason to believe is the case, a defeat of the Ministry would in all probability not lead to the advent of Mr Fox to the Premiership, but to a reconstruction of the present Ministry, with the substitution of a more capable functionary for the present Minister for Defence. The receipts of the Panama railroad during the month of April last were £90,000. The expense of working the railroad during that period was £12,000. The enormous sum of £540,000 was remitted by the Irish in America to their relatives in this country during the past year. Of this sum 202,000 was transmitted as returned passage orders. Since 1848 the Irish io America transmitted fourteen millions and a-half pounds sterling to this country!