LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.

Wellington Independent, Volume VII, Issue 604, 26 July 1851, Page 4

LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.

(From the Singapore Free Press.) London, 24th March, 1851

The Ceylon business has become or been converted into a Ministerial stumbling block all at once. Mr. Baillie gave notice of a charge against Lord Torrington, a charge which is not now urged for the first time :—Lord John Russell however suddenly sees in it a most serious blow aimed at the Ministry, and calls upon Mr. Baillie to proceed at once, says that Ministers cannot proceed to the consideration of the Budget, with such a charge suspended like the sword of Damocles over their heads. Mr. Baillie, however, is not inclined to proceed without the evidence which Government has sent to Ceylon for " without taking a copy !" and withdraws his motion for the present. So that difficulty is removed, what next will stop the way of the Budget, we are now busy in guessing at. In the House of Lords, Lord Torrington has himself given notice of his intention to move an enquiry into the Ceylon affair, and has thus taken a forced step which looks like a bold one.

Lord Brougham has mooted the subject of giving additional powers to the County Courts, and called the critical powers of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Cranbrook upon the proposed alterations or their mode.

The first Lord of the Admiralty has opened his budget and carried it through the house. The navy estimates are £171,000 less than those for 1850, and hope is held out by Sir Francis that the expenditure will be considerably less than the sum asked for; Mr. Hume and his friends made a dotermined effort to reduce the number of men from 36,000 to 30,000 and obtained 60 votes against 160.

Several men at Rochdale, holding highly respectable and some of them even eminent positions in trade, the chief of them being a large flannel manufacturer aud brother-in-law to the late Mr. Fielden M.P., have been convicted of issuing forged notes to a very large amount. Mr. J. Whittles, alluded to above, was taken with £220 worth in his pocket. This is a very serious occurrence to find place in the superior ranks of a great commercial community. The ship-owners' association of Liverpool are making an effort to obtain the abolition of fees to British Consuls in Foreign ports, and that they may be remunerated in future by a fixed salary only.

Some improvement is also promised with regard to the charge for passports. Lord Palmerston promises some changes and diminution of charges, and expresses himself ready to consider any suggestions for improving the present system. Sir Charles Napier arrived in London on Tuesday.

The Cape accounts are rather alarming the Caffres having risen against the colonial authorities, and at one time Sir H. Smith was very like a prisoner. Government sent out the Singapore on the 17th, with £50,000 and detachments of the 6th 73rd, and 90th regiments.

It is said that in future the civil and military governorship of Malta will be vested in one and the same person, and report fixes on a general ofßcer now holding an appointment in the island.

Foreign news is as scarce as home news. The Government in France is strengthening itself, or attempting to do so by the reduction of the National Guard. Iv 1848, that body numbered 250,000, it is now reduced, it is asserted, to 56,000 ; and its artillery has been disbanded altogether.

The attempt to conciliate tho two branches of the Bourbons has ended in a complete rupture; and it is said that the Royalists will certainly now support the President's re-election, and the necessary alteration in the constitution to legalise such election. The President, it is said, is trying to enlist M. Barrot into his service.

Austria and Prussia are as far as ever from a settlement of the German question apparently; the small kingdoms do not relish the idea of being swamped by the very complete embodymeut of Austria iv the German confederation, and seem inclined to make a stand against it. The reports which reach us are, however, so little to be trusted, that it is almost idle to quote or listen to them.

Belgium is better employed in laying down electric wires, and pushing other matters of importance—lines of wire will shortly be completed, which will connect her with Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, aud Saxony.

Our transatlantic friends have ju s t finished their session as ours is broken down. Tho Cheap Postngo Bill bus been passed, and a vote agreed to that a national vessel should fetch tho Hungarian refugees from England, and apropos to this, 262 of the refugees have arrived at Liverpool. The grant which was asked for the purpose of establishing a lino of mail steamers to China, Africa, &c, was. refused.

The Exhibition still is the subject of tho day, aud its importance increases as the time for its completion approaches the painters are hard at work finishing off the building, the glaziers are fully occupied in making good and keeping out the weather, the carpenters in that part of the building assigned to Great Britain have erected the greater part of the divisions and fittings j that part of the building in which the Machinery is to be exhibited in motion, already assumes the appearance of a huge factory, a railway is laid down on which to test the great locomotives sent in for competition; at one end of the building an organ of huge dimensions is growing up under the hands of fifty fitters; the galleries are thickly studded with glass cases, some of them both large and elegant, and here aud there objects of interest begin to show themselves. The building is now a perfect hive, wherein 1700 artizans, and upwards of 1000 other employer's, besides custom house officers, and some hundreds of "sappers" are systematically and busily occupied from morning till late at night. With regard to the British portion it will bo all ready for the opening on tho Ist of May and a very splendid scene will be presented to view. As to tho foreign portion there is not tho same certainty; the French are sadly behind hand, nothing is yet on the ground, the Austrians not much better, and the United States only just commencing, some of them will surely be behind hand. The catalogues are already far advanced. The " great official annotated and illustrated edition," which will be a book of 1000 pages, very large octavo, and in double columns, with introductory articles by two members of the Executive Committee, notes by thirty of the first scientific men, and full of engravings, will appear on the day of opening, and will cost probably thirty shillings. The " official edition" will also be published on that day at the price, within the building, of one shilling, and will contain about as much matter as ten or fifteen Royal Academy Catalogues. The French and German editions will also come out at the same at half a crown each.

The whole of the matter received, viz.: the description from upwards of 10,000 exhibitors, has been printed for three of these editions; the Small Official Catalogues has just been commenced.—A printer only can appreciate the extent of the Catalogues as a matter of printing, when he is told that the new type cast for the purpose weighed 41,000 lbs.; that the composition was commenced on tho 31st January, that the whole of the typo has to be kept standing in galley," or separate slips, from that date till May, four months, and lastly, that the matter could not be put together at first in the proper order, but has all to be re-arranged at the last moment; —four Catalogues, each containing about 16,000 paragraphs, or 64,000 paragraphs in all, which in the course of a week or two have all to be separated from each other and re-arrang-ed iv the precise order iv which the goods will stand in the building. To effect this monster undertaking, there are engaged one compiler, one Scientific writer, one Advertisement manager, one Superintendent for the Illustrations, each with a staff of clerks, amounting in all to perhaps twenty, thirty annotators, perhaps twenty draftsmen and engravers, and about sixty compositors and readers :— without the aid of machinery, and without that subdivision of labour which so strongly marks English operations, such a work could not possibly be performed. As an instance of the interest taken in the Exhibition by her Majesty, I may, inform you that the Queen will be an exhibitor of several articles, amongst others of the Royal Cot, which attracted so much notice a year or two since, of some magnificient articles in electroplate, and of a splendid carpet worked in Berlin wool by 150 ladies of Great Britain. His Royal Highess Prince Albert will also be an exhibitor of farm produce as well as of plate and other articles of vertu. His Royal Highness is also causing to bo erected a model lodging-house for four families, just opposite to the building, for the inspection of the thousands who come to the World's Fair.

The season tickets, which are charged three guineas to gentlemen and two to ladies, have already sold to the extent of from 6000 to 7000.