THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, March 22, 1851.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 472, 22 March 1851, Page 16

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, March 22, 1851.

Journals become more necessary as men become more equal and individualism more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve only to secure liberty : they maintain civilisation. Db TofcftUEVILLE, Of Democracy in America, vol. iy,, p. 200. By the arrival of the Cornelia, we have English papers to the 12th of November, having been kindly favoured by Captain Mickleburgti with the latest dales obtained previous to his sailing. The passage of the Cornelia has been unusually long for so fine a vessel, but this arose from the unfavourable weather she encountered in the Channel, where she was detained five' ■weeks, and where she had the misfortune of losing one of her men overboard. The life-buoy was instantly lowered, which, though gained by him, only served, we fear, to prolong his misery, for it was found impossible to send a boat to his rescue. The .news brought by the Cornelia had already been anticipated within a few days, by papers received via the United States, California, and Sydney, portions of which W6 gave last week ; but our present files of papers will enable us to supply some additional particulars. The subject chiefly agitating the public mind in England, where it was causing a ferment from one end of the land to the other, was the late creation of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England by the Pope. In every city and town, almost in every parish, meetings were being held, and addresses voted either to the bishops of the respective dioceses, or to the Queen. As aome of our readers may be but imperfectly acquainted with the nature of what is thus considered as an outrage on the Protestantism of England by bis Holiness, we will extract a portion of the Pastoral Letter of Cardinal Wiseman, the new Archbishop of Westminster, addressed to the clergy of his diocese, which will explain the matter: — " Health and Benediction in the Lord—lf this day we greet you under a new title, it is not, dearly beloved, with an altered affection. If in words we seem to divide those who till now have formed, under our rule, a single flock, our heart is as undivided as ever in your regard. For now truly do we feel closely bound to you by new and stronger ties of charity ; now do we embrace you in our Lord Christ Jesus, with more tender emotions of paternal iove ; now doth our soul yearn, and our mouth is open to you- r (2 Cor. vi. 2)— though words must fail to express what we feel on being once again permitted to address you. For if our parting was in sorrow, and we durtt not hope that we should again face to face behold you, our beloved flock ; so much the greater is now our consolation and onr joy, when we find ourselves, not io much permitted, as commissioned, to return to you, by the Supreme ruler of the Church of Christ. " But how can we for one moment , indulge in selfish feelings, when, through that loving Father's generous and wise counsels, the greatest of blessings has just been bestowed upon our country, by the restoration of its true Catholic hierarchical government, in communion with the See of Peter ? " For on the twenty-ninth day of last month, on the Feast of the Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the Heavenly Host, his Holiness Pope Pius IX. was graciously pleased to issue his letters Apostolic, under the Fisherman's Ring, conceived in termi of great weight and dignity, wherein he substituted, for the eight Apostolic Vicariates heretofore existing, one Archiepiscopal or Metropolitan and twelve Episcopal Sees ; repealing at the same time, and annulling, all dispositions and enactments made for England by the Holy See, with reference to its late form of Ecclesiastical Government. " • " And by a Brief dated the same day, his Holiness was further pleased to appoint us, though most unworthy, to the Archiepiscopal See of Westminster, established by the above-mentioned letters Apostolic, giving us at the same time the Administration of the Episcopal See of Southwark. So that at present, and till such time as the Holy See shall think fit otherwise to provide, we govern, and shall continue to govern, the counties of Middlesex, Hertford, and Essex, as Ordinary thereof, and those of Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Berkshire, and Hampshire, with the islands annexed, as Administrator with Ordinary juridiction. " Further, we have to annouce to you, dearly beloved in Christ, that, as if still • further to add solemnity and honour before the Church to this noble act of Apostolic authority, and to give-an additional mark of paternal benevolence towards the Catholics of England, hit Holiness was pleased to raise us, in the private ComUtory of Monday, the 30th of September, to the rank of Cardinal

Priest of the Holy Roman Church. And on the Thursday next ensuing, being, the third' day of this month of October, in public Consistory, be delivered to us the insignia of, this dignity, the Cardinalitial bat; assigning ns. afterwards for our title in the private Consistory which, we attended, the Church of St. Pudentiana, in which Si. Peter is groundedly believed to have enjoyed the hospitality of the noble and partly British family of the Senator Pudens. ■ " In that same Consistory we were enabled ourselves to ask for the Archiepiscopal Pallium, for our new See of Westminster ; and this day we have been invested, by the hands of the Supreme Pastor an^ Pontiff himself, with this ,badge of Metropolitan jurisdiction. " The great work, then, is complete ; what you have' long desired and prayed for is granted. Your beloved country bjg» received a place among the fair Churches, which normally constituted, form the splendid aggregate of Catholic Communion: Catholic. England has been restored to its orbit in the Ecclesiastical firmament, from which its light had long vanished, and begins now anew its course of regularly adjusted action round the centre of unity, the source of jurisdiction, of light, and of vigour." - This "invasion of the Queen's supremacy, this insult to the nation and its Church," as it has been characterized by the Times, ha 3 been met boldly, as our readers are already aware, by Lord John Russell, in a letter addressed by him to the Bishop of Durham. In reply to an address from bis chrgy, the Bishop of London thus speaks of the proceeding of the Pope — "He has dealt with the church of England as. though it had no existence. He treats us as though we were unbelievers; for it is only on the ground that We are still inpartibus infidelium that he can justify, even on the principles of his own canonists, the pretended assumption of authority in constituting sees of this kingdom, which has been already divided into ancient archbishoprics and bishoprics which have been recognized by his predecessors ; and though, in the eyes of the Pope, those sees have been filled for some centuries by heretics, as he terms us, or schismatics, he has never before questioned the existence of those sees, nor dealt with us as though we we're absolutely unbelievers. But now, without an express abiogation of our ancient sees in England in terms, the Bishop of Rome has thought fit virtually to wipe them all, as it were, out of the map of Christendom, and to parcel out this Christian country into new sees of his own constitution. I boldly maintain that he was not justified in doing that even on the principles of his own church. We need not trouble ourselves much what the principles of his church are ; ,we take our stand upon the ground that this is an innovation of our constitution of church and state. We hold that the Church of England is entirely independent of the Pope." And again, in the same address, Bishop Bloomfield says — " After all, lam much inclined to believe that in having recourse to the extreme measures which has called forth your address, the Court of Rome has been ill advised as regards the extention of its influence in this country, and that it has taken a false step. That step will, lam convinced, tend to strengthen the Protestant feeling of the people at large, and will cause some persons to hesitate and draw back who are disposed to make concessions to Rome, under a mistaken impression that she has abated somewhat of her ancient pretensions, and that a union of the two churches might possiblyvbe effected without the sacrifice of any fundamental principle. Hardly anything could more effectually dispel that illusion than the recent proceeding of the Roman Pontiff. He virtually condemns and excommunicates the whole English church, sovereign, bishops, clergy, and laity, and shuts the door against every scheme of comprehension save that which should" take for its basis an entire and unconditional submission to the spiritual authority of the' Bishop of Rome." It "must not be supposed, however, that the Catholics are on their part silent during this ferment. Two of the newly- appointed bishops (the Bishop of Northampton and the Bishop of Birmingham) have respectively issued addresses, in which they attempt to show that the establishment of this hierarchy is a very harmlessbusiness, and that it does not in the least trench on the supremacy of the Crown. In this view they are also supported by a portion of the press. Looking at the whole affair from this distance, while we think the act of the Pope may be made serviceable to the Protestant Church by winnowing off the chaff which has lain mixed with the grain — contaminating what otherwise' would be sound and healthy, we yet fear that it may be the cause of reviving religious prejudices and strife, which we should conceive to be an unmitigated evil. The threatened disturbance of the peace of Europe by a war between the German powers, was beginning to excite apprehension. The article copied by us into this day's paper from the Times of November 12, will show the grounds of this apprehension. The " leading journal " has espoused the side of Austria and the southern States <n this quarrel, but among -the liberal section of the press of England, the prevailing sympathy is with Prussia. It has been notorious during all the late strug gles in Europe,- that the Times, ihdugli professing liberal opinions at home, hus uniformly espoused the side of the alvsolu tista on the Continent. The next iutel tigence we receive will settle th«j question of peace or war, as far as the present German quarrel is concerned.

Iceland contributes ita quantum to the general stock of news, which, as usual, is chiefly made up of human honors. These have become of late such every- day events," that they almost cease to be regarded ; but now and again a case of unusual oppression gets dragged into notice, which shocks every feeling of humanity, and people then wonder that such events can possibly take place in what is called a Christian country. The Evening Mail of the 18 th of October, gives the following narrative of a recent event in Clare : — ' " There is a parent, workhouse at Ennistymon, and an Auxiliary workhouse at Miltown sevenJrish miles off. At the latter place there were aT^rtnight ago, and probably are now, among othei paupers, a multitude of boys from sto 14. Our' 1 correspondent, who- has visited and closely in-* spected most of the unions in the. west of Ireland, has several times described the sort of creature implied by a male pauper of those tender years, and as his evidence is abundantly borne put by that of many other eye-witnesses, we see no reason to doubt it. These starving and almost mouldering relics of humanity are penned, by hundreds within yards aud lofts, and subjected to (the dreadful experiment, — on how little human lilj may be prolonged. Of the most meagre quality of food the smallest possible quantity is administered. When the victims of the experiment begin to drop xather too fast a little more is added, to be checked again when it is found to do m,qre than keep body and soul together. . Tottering in, a balance between just alive and actually dead, or rather, to 'use a common Irish ejaculation, "dead alive," the human subject rapidly and fearfully deteriorates. He becomes dwarfish, stooping, and contracted. His arms are thin and pendant ; his fingers, long and bloodless. His eye becomes dim. His jaws and cheek-bones become brutishty prominent. . His face is qovered with a down suggestive of a more terrible degradation. A boy at fourteen acquires the sodden and careworn look of an old man. Smiles are unknown in this form of humanity. 'Even hope is not always there, anikthe natural affections are liable to be displaced by animal cravings. Witnesses assure us that as they beheld hundreds of these beings herded together listless, unemployed, incapable of instruction, of religion, or of any human office, except those which are common to the lowest ranks of animal life, they were possessed with a fearful foreboding as to the new generation of man thus sent upon the earth. In whose image have these beings been created? Into what image have they been transformed ? It is possible to estimate the heights to which humanity may ascend even in this sublunary sphere ; but we have not yet fathomed the degradation of which it is capable before, on the very verge of the brute creation, it is mercifully extinguished. Though human reason may be lost, -happily brute instincts cannot be acquired, and when man siuks below manhood he -ceases to exist. We declare that from that truth we derive our chief consolation when we contemplate the state of things at this day and hour in the west coast of Ireland. Fifty-five of these wretched beings, besides several men and women, were driven from the auxiliary to the parent workhouse, on Monday, the 30th ult., to be seen and "checked" by the Bally, voughan guardians ; that is, to have their charge- ■ ability inquired - into. The day was' unusually "hard," raw, and cold. The herd left Ennistymon workhouse about eight in the morning, having been previously served with " a few spoons of stirabout" a-head. Seven Irish miles are equal to ten English- miles, and the poor creatures could not be got to the parent house till twelve or one o'clock. With the authorities of the union, assembled in that house, and inquiring into the cases of these living skeletons, not a soul of them — if we may venture to talk of their souls — had a morsel of food after walking ten miles on a few spoons of stirabout. They were kept fasting till five or six in the evening, and then driven back in the dark the same dreary ten miles to the auxiliary house they had left in the morning. Let it not be forgotten that their ages ranged from five to fourbeen. On the way they soon began to faint, and two of the younger ones becoming incapable of proceeding, the porter took them up in his arms, when all the rest dropped or dispersed themselves, and could not that night be collected. , Some |felt themselves " falling dead," others " falling blind " with weakness. Some managed to pilfer beans from the road-side, and perhaps saved their lives thereby. Many did not arive at the auxiliary house till the next day. When the muster roll was at last read in the morning, a child eleven years old was still missing. It afterwards transpired that, finding himself fainting from hunger, he had asked one of his companions to go into a house and get something to eat. This, however, under the circumstances, was a delirious request, and was not complied with. He still staggered on in the dark, exciting but little notice where all were in much the same condition. At last a sound and a cry were heard. He had fallen with his skull against a wall. The blow was but trifling, but when his companions tried to raise him they could not, for they were faint, and he was quite dead. All the comment made by those who saw -this dreary famine march was, that they wondered more had not perished, and that J more certainly wouldj have perished but for the care taken of them by the matron on their arrival." The journalist bitterly denounces the Irish landlords, and says of them — " Irish landlords cry aloud to Heaven and earth that they are ruined by an extravagant and impolitic Poor Law. If our pity is to be in the ratio of their liberality, it will not be much. When they next plead for mercy we shall remember Dennis Kearin taking a few spoonfuls of stirabout, walking ten miles to be seen by the guardians, fasting in their presence five or six hours, and sent bnck t*-n miles in • a hard, dark, and cold night,' to stagger, fall, and perish on the road." The Protectionists were still clinging to the hope that free Trado would break down,

and notwithstanding the' general prosperity ot the nation, their incessant cry is, " We will be , ruined." It is doubtless very perverse of the country to prosper, when these gentlemen can satisfactorily prove that such is not its business 4On B orne recent Returns of the Board of Ttade, the Times says— "Those returns are really so conclusive that a glance i att, them is sufficient to prove the general prosperity of the nation, and our only object in returning to them now i 8i 8 for tho benefit of those who do not study the moneymarket. • It appears that for the month endinir laßt October 10, the total declared value of our exports exceeded those of the same month last year by £807,742. Of the 31 heads into which our exports are distinguished, four only, \n& , fttaoee comparatively unimportant, exhibit ** decrease. The increase, then, is all but uni. versal, and includes every branch of manufacture. With the exception of the two previous months, the same has been the case throughout all this year, so that the aggregate value of our exports during the first nine months' of the present year has been £50,236,402. against £44,830,414 in the like period of 1849, showing an increase of £5,455,988; while in comftonson with the same period in the disastrous year 1848, the increase is £13,751,542. As a matter of course there is a corresponding improvement in the imports. The comparison of the month ending October 10, 1850, with the same month last year shows an increase in the following articles of foreign produce taken for home consumption :— wheat, flour, coffee, sugar, tea, tobacco,- fruits, spices, and wines. The increase in tea has been from 4,778,7261b. to 5,068,2931b. ; and on coffee in much the same proportion. . Thus it appears that during the month under review, and, indeed, during the present year, as a whole, this country has been exporting and importing, producing and consuming, very much more than last year; and that as far as the Customs' returns can inform us, the increase of production and of consumption has pervaded all employmets, and probably all classes. • • Will anybody persuade us, then, that the classes depending upon agriculture have been excluded from the benefit of this general prosperity? Why, certainly, if agriculture were a petty craft, and the persons concerned in it a small knot of men — if agricul- * turists were about as numerous as photographists, or ivory turners, or chairmakers, one could understand bow a change of fashion or a neve discovery might have thrown them into the rear, while all the rest of society was rapidly improving in employment and condition. But the classes depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture are very numerous — some authorities tell us two-thirds of the population j and the whole country, it is evident, is more or JJess intarested in their prosperity. How can a country show a very great general improvement by bigns which cannot be gainsaid, and- yet txro thirds, or even 6ne*~£ third, be excepted ?" This reasoning is, we think, conclusive, and the general prosperity of the country is the best reply to the croaking of the Anti-Free Traders. •The harvest in England was not very abundant. It had been estimated that the * quantity of sound useful corn grown last year in Great Britain is less by 5,000,000 quarters than what was grown in the years . 1844 and 1849.

We have copied from the Australian and New Zealand Gazette (late New Zealand Journal) a Report of a meeting of absentee proprietors of this settlement, held for the purpose of considering the steps they should adopt to obtain compensation similar to that -already given to the resident purchasers. Some of the statements made by these gentry are a little startling, and will be quite new to people here. We shall not discuss the question this week, hut in our next we shall strive to show the absentees, that they are either deluding themselves, or are suffering themselves to be deluded by others.