The foreign news of the week is comparatively unimportant. In
France, the Finance Minister of M. Cavaignac's Government has exhibited a wholesome candour, and confessed to a very large deficiency of revenue, where his mystifying predecessor had boasted a surplus : an account bad enough in itself, but implying in its avowal a healthy resolve to deal with reality. M. Thiers has stolen a march on M. Proudhon ; whose scheme of confisca- ting one-third of landed property has been condemned by antici- pation, in a report from the historian-statesman.
Spain is absorbed in a speculation, if not an intrigue, among accoucheurs in the Palace ; while Cabrera's Carlist revolt is by no means in a flourishing state.
The King of Naples has " protested " against the call of the Duke of Genoa to the Sicilian throne ; threatening an invasion of the island : will Naples again help a Bourbon against the children of Etna ? Some lesser victories of the Italians over the Austrians do not favour the retrograde pretensions of the "Lazza- rone infermo."
The German Diet has thrown out hints that it means to snatch Limburg from Holland ! Hostilities are suspended for a while in Schleswig-Holstein.
From India come reports of serious plots at Lahore ; corrobo- rated by the summary hanging of two natives of rank in the ser- vice of the Ranee, for treasonable intrigues.
From the United States, Presidential statistics—the bill for the Mexican war, or part thereof; showing forty-eight million dol- lars of direct military payments, besides very many more mil- lions sunk in other shapes. The Irish in the Union continue to meet, but do not yet come over very freely to depose Queen Victoria and exterminate England.
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