BRITISH INTELLIGENCE. House of Commons, March 1.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 130, 28 August 1847, Page 3

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE. House of Commons, March 1.

New Zealand Company. — On the motion that the New Zealand Company Bill be read a se cond time, Sirß lnglis objected that a bill of such importance should be allowed to pass as a private bill. He should object to the further progress of the bill except under the sanction ami responsibility of a government department. Lord John Russell said he was not acquainted with the provisions of the bill, nor indeed had he until that moment, known of its introduction. Previous to its fnrthei progress, he w ould make enquiries at the Colonidl ottice. Mr. Hume obseived that it had been under* stood that no private bill was to be proceeded with except under the sanction of a government department. Me trusted that the rule would not be departed from in this case. — Motion agreed to 5 bill read a second time.

Theaccounts from Ireland continue to be truly heat trending. To the horror of famine, is added pestilence, — pestilence rapid and extensive. We read of people, in many places, from the thronged state of the consecrated grounds, dragging their dead for interment in the open fields. Jn Dublin, a soup kitchen on the Soyer's plan, feeds 5000 persons daily. To take one account :— According to the parish priest of lloachford, 4000 out of GOOO souls, who compose the population of his parish, have not for the last three months had " even one substantial meal in the day." One in every seven of the population is reported to be sick j and of 300 families, among the most destitute, •• not less than three on an average in each family are afflicted with fever, dy sentry, or dropsy." The moitality as may be easily conjectured, is very great under such circumstances, — so many us forty adults dying in one day. Every port is filled with mechanics, farmers and labourer*, eager to escape from this devoted island. The town of Dungarvan is about to lose every tradesman and mechanic that can scrape up enough to pay their passage. We are grieved to say, that among the ailiz us of Dublin, the greatest destitution prevails ; and we have heard that a general meeting is to be held to petition government to enable them to emigrate. Lord de Yesei, solely at his own expense, had sent one hundred persons from his estate in Queen's County, to New York. He paid their passage out, directed they should be provided with beds, piovisions, and every thing necessary for their transit to the New World, and gave an order on New York, that they should receive £1 each on their ariival there A letter from the I6le of Skye, dated March 31, represents the condition of the poor as being exceedingly bad. The writer eomp'lains of the great efforts made for li eland, while nothing is being done for the starving Scots, men. At least 100,000 persons are computed to have perished by sheer famine in Ireland during the I past winter, and the prospect is by no means cheering for the coming one, from the general neglect of agriculture. At Damascus and throughout Syria, the cholera is stated to have ceased its ravages. The loute by the Isthmus of Panama, which is calculated to be of so much service to New Zealand eventually, seems likely to be effectual. Thelioyal Mai! Steam Company, and the Pacilic Steam Navigation Company, have come to a satisfactory arrangement fixing the rates of fi eight across that Isthmus, which will save the long, dreary, and circuitous passage round Cape Horn, to dwellers on this side the Pacific. The sub-marine telegraph between East and West Cowes, Isle of Wight, has ptoved com^ pletely successful. A line of wire sunk to the extent of halt a mile, and drawn across the channel is found to be the means of instant electric communication betwixt both shores. Fortifications of nearly every outport in England, and along the coast of Scotland, continue, in progress, leaving the amicable continental relations of England to be inferred of rather problematical continuance. Although the receipts of revenue for the quarter ending in April, exhibit a very favorable increase, especially in the item of customs, neatly half a million sterling, yet the funds were reported as rather below ordinary averages, owing it is to be supposed to the large joan negocialed by government for Ireland,