Extracts,

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXI, Issue 26, 5 April 1862, Page 3

Extracts,

The Bishop op Oxford on Pbince Axbebt's Death. — We have copied from the Daily Telegraph an admirable article, on the Bishop of Oxford's treatment of the death of the Prince Consort as a chastisement of Providence provoked by the sins of the nation. This slander on the nation, blister to the Queen's green grief, and presumptuous, profane interpretation of the will of the Almighty, was conveyed in a sleek, smooth, soapy, slippery speech at a meeting for the propogation of the Gospel in foreign parts. Does it not prove that there is' a grievous want of the true Gospel nearer home ? Does it not show tbat there is great and urgent occasion for the conversion of a Bishop to Christianity? Is it not written, " Judge not lest ye be judged," and is not the rashest, the most presumptuous of judgments one on the inscrutable dispensations of Providence? Amongst the very heathens, what was struck by the bolts, supposed to be the bolts of heaven, was held sacred ; and Shakspeare, a very different moralist from Bishop Wilberforce, says, beautifully and benignantly, "This Borrows sacred ; it strikes where it doea love." The Bishop of Oxford would emend the text to hate. But will be condescend to explain why death is to be understood as a mark of Divine displeasure? To us it seems that the life, the existence of such a Bishop as Dr. Wilberforce may be a more marked sign of tho wrath of the Almighty than the death of a blameless Prince like the late Consort of our Queen. "Heaven sends its favourites early doom ;" not so, perhapa, the grovelling sensualists, the sanctified hypocrites, the oily Tartuffes. They are the living Bcourges of our sins. It ia to see them mitred in the high places, whose passionß and propensities are all in the low places, that is the opprobrium of the land. Shocking, indeed, it is to find one of Epicurus's hogs in the sacred fold. Prince Albert, as we have before observed elsewhere, had penetration. He was solicited by a Bishop, we will not say by whom, to support the claims of a man of very doubtful opinions to a bishopric. He demurred, expressed his misgivings of the ambitious candidate's orthodoxy. Shortly afterwards the disappointed man went over to Rome. When next the Prince met the Bishop, he observed how fortunate it was that he, the Prince, had not recommended his friend, the renegade, to ecclesiastical advancement, to which the indiscreet but characteristically unprincipled answer was, "Had your Royal Highness done so, the apostacy would not have happened." From that moment the Prince knew his man ; and that man, whoever he is, now treats the Prince's death aa a judgment. Out upon him! — Examiner, December 21. The Anglo-French Trade. — The extended trade which i 3 springing up between Great Britain and France must for a time be, in certain respecta, tentative in its character. In a tabular form the comparative results of the first three months of the open trade, and those of the corresponding months of 1860, are thus given by the Daily News :—: — 1860. 1861. Increase. September . £470,125 . £935,299 . £465,174 October . . 517,707 . 1,158,909 . 641,202 , November . 529,926 . 908,837 . 370,000

£1,517,758 £3,003,045 £1,476,376 At this rate our exportationa to France would ba something near twelve millions a year, instead of six millions, as formerly. But if peace be preserved, we see no reason why we should not look forward to a still further multiplication of commercial transactions with our active, inventive, and acquisitive neighbours. If in the first three months of free trade we have been, able to offer them woollen cloths, linens, calicoes, haberdashery, mixed-stuffs, hardware, and cutlery, cheaper and better than they can make them at home, to tne amount of two millions, in addition to raw materials to the amount of a million more, who shall say what the total of our transactions is likely to be at the end of another year? Who shall say what dimensions such a commerce may attain, if uninterrupted five years hence ? Cost of Misrule. — The finance of despotism gets from bad to worse. Metternich wa3 able to manage, going slowly down hill, to keep things together with but a moderate annual deficit. At the close of the European war of 1815, Austria, like the other great Powers, had contracted a considerable debt ; but unlike them, she neither thought of keeping it down nor paying any part of it off. The Aulio Chancellerie thought itself happy if every year it added only a million or so to the permanent debt. In 1848 this had amounted to 100,000,000 sterling, the cost of repression up to that time. The extinguishers then took fire ; and ever since it has been terribly expensive work trying to mend and remake them. Between 1848 and 1857, it cost £72,000,000 more of borrowed money ; and now the Exchequer of Vienna admits its liabilities to be somewhere about £240,000,000 sterling, charged on a nominal revenue of £30,000,000 sterling. If this were all the case would not be hopeless. To owe eight years' income and not to be able to pay off the principal, is nofc necessarily a ruinoua state of things, as England can by experience tell. Measured by the mere multiple of stated revenue, our own. case would seem more disadvantageous. But there is this essential difference between the two, that in time of peace it v our rule of finance that both ends must be made to meet, while in Austria the rule is that they should never do so ; and that whereas we hold it to be a duty to pay off any additional war debt we may contract aa soon as war is over, the rulers of Austria never appear to think of doing so. The net result of all calculations, therefore, regarding Viennese finance is the same. It signifies nothing, whether the totals are made out in red ink or black ink, in moments of transient quiet or of intermittent insurreotion. Austria neither pays her way, nor pretends to pay. The whole inventive skill of her financiers is devoted to the discovery of new means of borrowing. Sometimes the bankers are fleeced, sometimes the landed proprietary ; yesterday, the people were subjected to extra taxes ; to-day, the Crown lands are to be mortgaged or sold. But the notion of seriously reducing the expenditure, or of augmenting the revenue, never seems to have occupied the serious attention of the Imperial Cabinet. Venetia,like an unserviceable thoroughbred in a boxed stall, stands uselessly there "eating its head off." It has cost long ago ten times more than any one would give for it in money ; and there is not a chance of his Majesty Francis Joseph being ever able to ride or drive it safely. Victor Emmanuel would gladly become the purchaser to-morrow for a good round sum; but Austria is true to her traditions, and will not listen to any terms, however tempting, while they can be made. She might have got her own price for Lombardy three years ago, but she would not ; and now the steed is stolen there is no use hanging about the door. It will be the same with Venetia, but with this difference probably, that she will throw more gbod money after bad in trying to keep the Quadrilateral during the next campaign than she did to keep Milan during the last. As for Hungary, the process of insolvency appears to be going on with inexorable precision. In the course of the la9t year the revenue of that kingdom baa fallen eleven millions of florins, in consequence of the legal and social anarchy into which the country has been blindly flung by the Acts of the Imperial Administration. The Austrian Government plumes itself on its title of " Apostolic ;" we do not care to controvert its claim to the epithet, but it is pretty clear that in charaoter it deserves to be called neither wise as a serpent, nor harmless as the dove. Passive resistance worka well. Let the Hungarians be consoled for their long- deferred hopes : for misrule assuredly doea not pay. What ia to become of " our auguat ally," as Lord Aberdeen used to oall the most decrepit and disreputable empire in Christendom, the Golden Calf of the Jews only knows. In the long run her creditors will inevitably go to the wall ; for there does not seem the alighteat probability of a change of politioal system in the administration of the empire, and without it financial improvement is simply impossible. — Examiner, December 21. Destruction op a Mill by Fire. — For the second time, within a period of six years, the papers record the total destruction by fire of the cotton spinning establishment known as Roach Mill, situate on the banks of tho River Derwent. When the former fire occurred, the mill was in the occupation of Mr. Dall; the owner on the present unfortunate occasion it Mr. Parker of Preston. The estimated damage it betirteil £16,000 and £29,0W, partly wenwd fey umaißwei,