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FRANCE.—The Moniteur has promulgated a decree to determine the re- lations of the Chambers to the " Chief of the State," and to regulate their modes of procedure. The only provisions of popular interest are those for the management of the Legislative Body. The Corps Legislatif has no power of initiating measures ; and even amend- ments which may be suggested by one or more members must be slibmitted to a committee of seven, selected by ballot, and must afterwards be pre- sented to the approval of the Council of State. It "assigns no reasons for its decisions ; which are expressed in the following terms—' The Legislative Body has adopted,' or the Legislative Body has not adopted.' " Orders of the day motive are prohibited. The President of the Chamber is im- posed on it " by the Chief of the State." " No member can speak without having asked and obtained leave of the President." " The member called to order for having interrupted cannot be allowed to speak." " All person- alities, and all signs of approbation or disapprobation, are interdicted." "The previous question can never be demanded on propositions made by the Presi- dent of the Republic." " The President of the Legislative Body regulates, by special order, the mode of communicating the minutes of proceedings to the newspapers." " Any member may, after having obtained the authori- zation of the Assembly, cause to be printed and distributed, at his own cost, the speech he may have delivered." The printing or distribution without authorization is an offence punishable by heavy fine.
A question has been mooted in Paris—whether the distributors of Eng- lish papers will not be subjected to the fine, in case the translation of a speech should appear without authorization.
The Moniteur of Thursday contains a decree imposing severe restrictions on the sale of materials for printing. Entries are to be made of the names and addresses of purchasers, and copies of this register sent to the Prefect of Police. No private press, however small, can be possessed without authorization. Printers' licences are in future to be conferred by the Minister of Police.
There has been a reelection at Lyons for a place in the Corps Legislatif, vacant by death. This election has been won against the Government, by Henon, the Socialist candidate.
The Paris correspondent of the Tisncs lately stated that General Cavai- gnac had "all but made up his mind not to avail himself of the position in which he had been placed by the electors of the third district of Paris ; and to decline presenting himself in the Legislative Chamber." The correspondent now writes —
"General Cavaignac was desirous of consulting some of his exiled friends, and particularly Generals Lamoriciere and Bedeau, before definitively making Rhis mind. He accordingly applied for a passport to proceed to Belgium. was informed that the passport was at his disposal whenever he thought proper; but it was at the same time intimated that he would find the frontier 91%0 against him on his return," 13ED:it-tar. —Count crIraussonville and M. Thomas, the exiled French editors of the Bulletin Franvaie, (suppressed in Paris and resuscitated in in-
stance have been tried by the Court of Assize at Brabant, at the n-
stance of the French Government, for writing concerning the decrees of confiscation against the Orleans family in a manner disrespectful to the President of the French Republic ; and they have been acquitted. The defence and the acquittal have made a great sensation both in Belgium and in France. The accused defended themselves, and in their speeches attacked the Usurpation more vehemently than they did in the articles for which they were tried ; denouncing with great 'vigour the perfidy and violence of the coup d'etat of December 2, and the injustice and rapacity of the confiscation decree. M. Thomas urged, that the speech of the Belgian Attorney-General was rather an eulogy of Louis Napoleon than an incrimination of the defendants; and he marked as most extra- ordinary in the mouth of a Belgian, a sentiment expressed by the Attorney-General, that "the Prince President had given tranquillity to Belgium, so that now for the first time since 1848 Belgians dwelt se. curely on their borders." The Jury were in deliberation an hour and a half; and upon their return delivered a verdict of acquittal upon each of the thirty points submitted to them. The presiding judge had previously warned the audience against any expression of feeling in the court, and his wishes were respected ; but on reaching the outside of the building their excitement was expressed in loud vivas. MM. d'Haussonville and Thomas were immediately set at liberty, and the latter departed at once for London.
Ausrrue.—The following extracts from a letter dated Vienna, March 12, appear in the Standard of Thursday.
" Religious toleration in Austria has been further illustrated by a Minis. terial edict forbidding the meetings of the Anabaptists in certain of the Crown lands that are not named. The measure corresponds with those already mentioned, for the suppression of the Scriptures, and the expulsion of the Scotch missionaries from Gallicia and Hungary. . . . . Another seizure has been made of 900 Bibles, the property of the British and Foreign Bible So- ciety, who have two printing-establishments in Hungary—the principal one at Guns. The printing-office has been forcibly closed, and the publication of the sacred volume interdieted.by order of Government The pro- perty belonging to the British and Foreign Bible Society in the different provinces of Austria is estimated somewhere between 30001. and 40001."
TURKEY.—Letters from Constantinople confirm reports received pre- viously, that Reschid Pacha has been restored to the Premiership. It. would appear that the temporary retirement of the Grand Vizier was not under disgrace with the Sultan, but to facilitate some phases of diploma- tic negotiation. But no explanations are given quite intelligible to us- The letters end with this sentence—" The principles of Reschid Pacha are the resumption of national independence, which has of late been seriously compromised."
EGYET.—Letters from Alexandria, of the 7th instant, say that, "it ap- pears certain that the last letter of Abbas Pacha has irritated the Sultan; and that Abdul Medjid sent it back to the Grand Vizier with an annota- tion in the margin, to the effect that he could not, he ought not, and he would not, consent to give up the point relative to the Tanzimat.' " It was in consequence supposed that the next letter to the Viceroy would be of a menacing character. The correspondence adds—" The representa- tions of Sir Stratford Canning are not looked on as serious. The other Legations abstain altogether."
UNITED STATES.—The New York journals describe a naval expedition of considerable magnitude which is about to sail round from the Eastern ports of the Union and across the Pacific, to Japan, to demand satis- faction for divers wrongs which American subjects have been subject to at the hands of the Government and people of that state. Com- modore Perry, the most experienced and famous Admiral of the ser- vice, is to have the command : he will take three great war- steamers—the Susquehanna, Mississippi, and Princeton—together with a frigate, a sloop-of-war, and a store-ship ; and in addition to all the usual naval armament, it is said that he will take with him "light field-guns," and 'whatever military armament may be necessary to compel obedience to the demands made. These demands are to be, firstly, the liberation and indemnity of captive American subjects, and subjects of all other nations who are understood to be immured in dungeons, or even worse, " exhibited in cages," and whose only crime is that they have landed on the Japanese coasts when their vessels have been wrecked;; and secondly, the privilege that ships of all nations in the world shall hereafter be allowed to enter the Japanese harbours, in stress of weather and for necessary repairs. Hitherto the Japanese have rejected inter- national usage in this respect, and have opened the fire of their forts at every vessel that ever approached their shores within a couple of miles.. In their comments on these " moderate demands," the American journals naturally anticipate that the securing of them will be the insertion of the thin edge of the wedge of unlimited intercourse with the remark- able nation against whom the expedition sails.
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