FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume X, Issue 1070, 3 November 1855, Page 6

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

(From the Times Correspondent.) FRANCE.

Paris, Monday, July 2, 6 p.m. The crowds of strangers and the fine weather have imparted to Paris a degree of animation unusual at this season. The wholesale merchants sold pretty largely during the week, and the retail trade recovered from its stagnation. Paris, in short, is beginning to feel the influence of the Universal Exhibition, which is now really brilliant. The Parisian manufacturers are also benefiting by it, and afford labour to numerous operatives who had been out of work for the last six weeks. The accounts from Lyons and St. Etienne are still most favourable. Many of the Lyons articles had increased in price, plain velvet 25c. per yard, and velvet-nouveaute 25 per cent. A nearly similar movement was observed at Elboeuf, Turcoing, and in all the industrial districts in the north. Transactions were also active in Alsace. At Rouen business was calm, after being very brisk during the last two months. The railway fever having partly subsided, the tide of speculation is now setting in towards commercial enterprise. Several important maritime companies have of late been formed at Havre, Marseilles, and Paris. The powerful company just founded at Paris enjoys particular favour, and its shares already sell at a premium of nearly 100 feet. Another most important and respectable company, that of French clippers, has not yet been able to commence operations, in consequence of some tedious routine formalities having to be complied with before it can obtain an authorization to register as French ships a number of Englishbuilt vessels conditionally purchased by the directors. That authorization, although unhesitatingly granted by the Emperor, and declared d'urgence by the Ministers of War and Marine under present circumstances, is held back by some official underling, at the risk of ruining an enterprise the more likely to benefit the country as English capital has been invested in it to a considerable amount. The advices from all parts of the country as to the prospect of the coming harvest are of a satisfactory character. The continued cold and rain, whieh had for a moment endangered it, have been succeeded by genial summer weather, and the fields have experienced a magical change. have accordingly declined in all the markets, and the holders who speculated on an insufficiency of grain until the next crop hasten to dispose of their stock. Flour of superior quality has fallen in Paris from 95f. to 93f. per sack of 157 kilogrammes, and the inferior sorts were offered at from 87f. to 92f. There is no change in the cattle or wine markets.