FOREIGN NEWS.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 87, 30 May 1843, Page 3

FOREIGN NEWS.

(From the Weekly Chronicle.)

France. —The Journal des D6bats of Tuesday, publishes an article on the election of president of the United States, and observes, “ that the system of popular election may now be judged by its fruits. In consequence of having exclusively adopted a political system of which popular election is the sole basis, the American nation, assuredly one of the best endowed in the universe with intellectual and moral qualities, has arrived at bankruptcy under the name of repudiation—at confusion and degradation, and, in fact, at a complete political and moral rout. This innovation in the art of governing, the boldest which had been seen for a long period, has completely failed, and more than one American citizen is fully convinced of this truth. A valuable lesson is thus afforded to all who wish to be instructed. Popular election, taken as the sole foundation of the government, has disadvantages equal to those of an absolute monarchy. For this reason the two extremes are equally disapproved of; and nations,, now more enlightened than they were half a century or even fifteen years since, evidently, as far as regards Europe, seek improvement under the aegis of monarchy controlled by the elective franchise.” The French Sickening of their Glory. —lt would seem from a long article which the

National publishes against the system of military expeditions pursued by General Bugeaud in Algeria, that the French were beginning to tire of that expensive toy. “We are far from demanding,” says the National, “that France should abandon her conquests in the north of Africa : but, inasmuch as we appreciate its importance, we consider it the more necessary to point out the situatien of affairs there, and the expenses that attend the occupation of Algeria under the present government. With respect to the preservation of the troops employed there, the following fact will serve to illustrate the system: —There exist at the moment we are writing 24,000 sick in the military hospital of Africai General Bugeaud, in his last expedition against Ben Salem, had great difficulty m collecting, out of the 80,000 men under his command, a column 'of 3,000 or 4,000 convalescent combatants, and even to form this small force he was obliged to form one battalion of sappers, engineers, and artillerymen. Within the last twelve years Africa has consumed 70,000 of our tr<?ops, the least part of whom fell under the balls of the Arabs ; the remainder died under the influence of the burning sun, the frosty nights, and the pestilential marshes of Algeria. These are, we confess, enemies difficult to combat; but it would have been certainly very possible to have rendered their effects less fatal by adopting a more rational system of war. It may be said that the troops which incurred those chances in the mountains of the Atlas have at least acquired experience in the art of war, and so become an element of force for France. No doubt good soldiers and excellent officers are formed in Africa, but the following fact will prove that the army, notwithstanding the kepys with which some regiments are adorned, is not much recruited by the warriors of Africa. Last year, out of 10,000 sick which left the hospitals in Algeria, 2,000 only could rejoin their regiments. Those facts are not to be found in the bulletins destined to obtain the staff of field marshal, or the epaulettes of general, for the favourites at the Tuileries ; but it is necessary that the French nation should be informed of these details, in order to know the value and the expense of the system pursued for the last twelve years.”