20 MAY 1843, Page 9

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FRANCE.—The Chamber of Deputies has been occupied with the bill for suppressing beet sugar, with indemnity to the growers ; the policy of which has been hotly contested. A Committee on the bill reported in favour of the less summary measure of equalizing the duties on beet and colonial sugar ; but on Friday, M. Cunin Gridaine said that in 1839, when the duty on colonial sugar was reduced from 45 francs to 33, and that on beet-sugar was raised from 10 francs to 16, it had no effect on the importations. The suppression of beet sugar would not be so detrimental to agriculture as was supposed ; the cultivation of beet for sugar almost being confined to four rich departments. In these departments beet had taken the place of oleaginous grain, of which they were obliged to import sixty-six millions of kilogrammes from abroad. These were brought from foreign countries in foreign ship- ping: better far for French shipping to bring home colonial sugar, and for the farmer to grow rape instead of beet. On Monday, Admiral Roussin enlarged on the maritime view of the question, saying that the rejection of the Government plan would be worse for the marine of France than the loss of a naval battle : the suppression of beet sugar would add 11,000 sailors to the commercial navy, one-half employed in the transport of sugar and one-half in the fisheries to feed the colonies. M. Talabot resisted the Government plan, because Negro emancipation has obliged the English people annually to pay 3,500,000/. more for their sugar, and that increased charge is one of the great causes of the distress in England ! M. Gaulthier de Rumilly, the reporter of the Committee entered into long statements and figures to show that the number of French sailors was increasing, and stood in no need of having beet-root sugar sacrificed for their further augmentation. M. Berryer declared that there was no sacrifice of beet-root interests, for 342 out of the 370 manufacturers demanded the law of suppression. Some one cried out that they did so for the sake of the indemnity : re- fuse to pay the indemnity, replied M. Berryer, and you must pay ten times the sum on the differential duties of the two sugars. And after a multitude of questions, he cast them aside, to appeal to the glory to be acquired from an increase in the French marine : sailors, he said, were glory—were empire.

• In the Chamber of Peers, on Thursday, Count Tascher stated that the Protestant Consistory of Niort, the Pastor and Notables of the =church of Apres les Veines, in the department of the Hautes Alpes, lrrotested against the encroachments on civil liberty ; complaining that the law against the meeting of more than twenty persons without a licence from certain authorities had been applied by a recent decision, to religious congregations. Count Gasparin condemned the decision as violating the Charter, which guaranteed religious freedom. The Duke de Broglie said, that practical inconvenience had resulted from the law- " Unfortunately, municipal bodies in many parts of France undertook of themselves to employ the restrictive clauses of the penal code and the associa- tion law against dissident and Protestant congregations. Thus the Munici- pality of Metz refused permission to a most respected member and congre- gation of the Confession of Augsburg to meet and pray in his house ; al- leging that this would offend the Jews. The individual collected his friends, and prayed in despite of the Mayor. The latter prosecuted, but an acquittal was the result."

M. Martin (du Nord), the Minister of Justice and of Public Wor- ship, contended that religious equality was not violated, because the law extended to all denominations alike. All liberties should have free scope, but on positive and foreseen conditions; and the Charter did not abrogate a previous law on the subject, the 18th Germinal year 10.M. de Barente differed from the Duke de Broglie, and was for putting every obstacle in the way of the formation of dissident congre- gations. People who drew their religion from either their own reason or their own imagination were wont to fall into great extravagance : *witness the United States. Some mode of obviating this ought to be left. M. Odier, though a Protestant, did not think Protestantism me- naced. There was a desire with some to be martyrized, provided mar- tyrdom did not go too far ; and this he could not approve of. With a few more observations, the conversation dropped. In a discussion on Monday, on the presentation of some petitions for freedom of instruction, M. Villemain said that he was preparing a plan of public instruction.

SPAIN.—The Spanish Ministerial crisis is over for the present. The Madrid Gazelle of the 10th instant publishes the decree of the Regent appointing the following Ministers- " S. Lopez, President of the Council and Minister of Justice ;

S. Aguilar, Minister for Foreign Affairs; General Serrano, Minister of War; S. Fries, Minister of Marine; S. Ayllon, Minister of Finance; S. Caballero, Minister of the Interior."

' On the 11th, the President of the Council submitted to the Cortes a programme of the Cabinet policy ; of which the following is a sum- mary— " Respect for the constitution, and a rigorous observance of the rights of the Cortes. Development of the national prosperity ; and, as a consequence of such basis, the presentation, shortly, of a law on Ministerial responsibility, and of another one whereby an amnesty is to be extended to all political offences committed subsequently to the conclusion of the civil war. No influence to be exercised over the elections. No more towns to be placed in a state of siege. A better organization of the national militia to be effected. The sale of na- tional property to be hastened. A good understanding to be kept up and in- creased with foreign countries, whilst upholding the dignity of Spain."

Ttrannv,—Letters from Constantinople, of the 27th April, announce that Hafiz Pasha, who was appointed Governor of Belgrade, in the room of Kiamil Pasha, on the 19th, took his passage for that destination, in one of the steamers, on the 24th. The Druse Scheik Shibley el Arian, the chief of the last revolt, had arrived in the Turkish capital, under a strong escort.

SEnira..—The Times gives the substance of the latest intelligence re- ceived in Constantinople from Servia- " In reply to the communication from the Porte urging Kara Georgewitsch to tender his resignation, in order to save the Sultan from further humiliation, that Prince has addressed to the Sultan his declaration that he will neither abdicate nor dismiss his Ministers ; that his election has been made in strict conformity with the institutions of his country ; that he and the Servian people are fully aware of the paternal intentions of the Porte, and that in sub- mitting to Russia it has merely yielded to coercion; and that as the Porte is not sufficiently strong to defend its own rights in Servia, and to protect the liberties of its faithful people, they will take this sacred duty upon themselves, and fight for their liberties so long as they have a man left."

The Times says, that instead of being a feeble youth, as represented by Lord Aberdeen, Kara Georgewitsch is a man of forty, active and popular ; and his party is by no means despicable-

" Among his advisers there is at least one man whose talents and integrity are applauded even by his enemies—we mean M. Petroniewitsch. It was he who more especially laboured at the critical period of the peace of Adrianople to defend the right bank of the Danube from Russian influence ; and to his conduct at that moment the existence of Servia is perhaps owing."

UNITED STATES.—The Britannia mail-steamer, which left Halifax on the 3d instant, brings intelligence from New York to the 1st. It is unimportant ; the most interesting things being rumours—first of a difference in political principles between the President and Mr. Webster, which had definitively compelled Mr. Webster to resign ; and secondly, of a commercial treaty in progress between the United States and Great Britain, which is said to embrace the settlement of the Oregon territory dispute, an international copyright, and a tariff regulating the admis- sion of the produce and manufactures of either country on favourable terms.

The spring trade had opened with some activity ; but the mercantile community showed unusual caution. The rate of exchange on London was 6i to 7 per cent premium ; on Paris, 5 francs 32 to centimes.

The following petition against Repudiation has been presented to Congress on the part of the Reverend Sydney Smith, the celebrated English divine. There is at once a directness in its friendly admonition and a biting sarcasm, which make it more likely to tell upon the American public than a thousand polite diplomatic persuasions or as many threats of war.

"THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE REVEREND SYDNEY SMITH, TO THE HOUSE OF CONGRESS AT WASHINGTON.

"I petition your Honourable House to institute some measures for the restora- tion of American credit, and for the repayment of debts incurred and repudiated by several of the States. Your petitioner lent to the State of Pennsylvania a sum of money, for the purpose of some public improvement. The amount, though small, is to him important, and is a saving from a life-income, made with difficulty and privation. If their refusal to pay (from which a very large num- ber of English families are suffering) had been the result of war, produced by the unjust aggression of powerful enemies—if it had arisen from civil discord— if it had proceeded from an improvident application of means in the first years of self-government—if it were the act of a poor State straggling against the bar- renness of nature—every friend of America would have been contented to wait for better times : but the fraud is committed in the profound peace of Pennsyl- vania, by the richest State in the Union, after the wise investment of the bor- rowed money in roads and canals, of which the repudiators are every day reap- icg the advantage. It is an act of bad faith which (all its circumstances con- sidered) has no parallel and no excuse. " Nor is it only the loss of property which your petitioner laments: he laments still more that immense power which the bad faith of America has given to aristocratical opinions, and to the enemies of free institutions in the old world. It is in vain any longer to appeal to history, and to point out the wrongs which the many have received from the few. The Americans, who boast to have improved the institutions of the old world, have at least equalled its crimes. A great nation, after trampling under foot all earthly tyranny, has been guilty of a fraud as enormous as ever disgraced the worst King of the most degraded nation of Europe.

" It is most painful to your petitioner to see that American citizens excite, wherever they may go, the recollection that they belong to a dishonest people, who pride themselves on having tricked and pillaged Europe; and this mark is fixed, by their faithless legislators, on some of the best and most honourable men in the world, whom every Englishman has been eager to see and proud to receive.

"it is a subject of serious concern to your petitioner, that you are losing all that power which the friends of freedom rejoiced that you possessed, looking upon you as the ark of human happiness, and the most splendid picture of justice and of wisdom that the world had yet seen. Little did the friends of America expect it, and sad is the spectacle, to see you rejected by every state in Europe, as a nation with whom no contract can be made, because none will be kept; unstable in the very foundations of social life, deficient in the ele- ments of good faith ; men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, teeny pressure of taxation however light. " Nor is it only ;his gigantic bankruptcy for so many degrees of longitude and latitude which your petitioner deplores, but he is alarmed also by that total want of shame with which these things have been done—the callous immorality with which Europe has been plundered—that deadness of the moral sense which seems to preclude all return to honesty, to perpetuate this new infamy, and to threaten its extension over every State of the Union." " To any man of real philanthropy, who receives pleasure from the improve- ments of the world, the repudiation of the public debts of America, and the shameless manner in which it has been talked of and done, is the most me- lancholy event which has happened during the existence of the present genera. tion. Your petitioner sincerely prays that the great and good men still eziat- ing among you, may, by teaching to the United States the deep disgrace they have incurred in the whole world, restore them to moral health, to that high position they have lost, and which, for the happiness of mankind, it is so im- portant they should ever maintain ; for the United States are now working out the greatest of all political problems, and upon that confederacy the eyes of thinking men are intensely fixed, to see how far the mass of mankind can be trusted with the management of their own affairs and the establishment of their own happiness."

CANADA.—Sir Charles Metcalfe, the new Governor-General of Canada, had been installed at Alwington House, in Kingston ; but rather pri- vately, out of delicacy to the state of Sir Charles Begot, who de- sired to be present, but was forbidden by his medical attendants to

rise from bed. He had taken leave of his official coadjutors in the Go- vernment ; who were much affected. Subsequently, Sir Charles Begot was able to rise and to walk about the house. Addresses had been presented to the new Governor ; but his replies did not yet distinctly indicate his intended course of Government.

The report is revived, that Montreal is to be the seat of Government.