NEWS OF TIIE WEEK.

WE may, we believe, announce with some confidence the main features of Sir Charles Trevelyan's forthcoming Indian Budget. He has a surplus of two millions, which he will use to sweep away almost all existing Indian customs duties, replacing them by a uniform rate of five per cent. ad valorem. The exceptions are spirits, which will remain as they are, the tariffed piece goods, which will not be changed, and the duty on beer, which will be reduced to an anna (three half- pence) a gallon. The income-tax will not be touched, Sir Charles Trevelyan believing that with these changes he will be able next year to abolish it altogether.

The Church-rate question is retrograding. On Wednesday Sir S. Trelawny's Bill for their abolition was thrown out by a majority of ten (285 to 275),—by far the greatest triumph the Church party have gained in the House of Commons. The opposition was led by Mr. Hardy in an able and tem- perate speech, which was penetrated, however, by the false impression that, with the loss of compelling power to enforce the rate the rate would be a dead letter. We believe Mr. Bright's proposed compromise to omit the compelling power, and leave all the rest of the machinery untouched, would be the best practicable solution, and in most parishes would take away the invidiousness of the rate without at all diminishing its fruitfulness,—a view which was apparently maintained by Lord A. Churchill. The announcement of the unlooked-for majority excited tumultuous sensation in the House. It will be a joy for ever to the hearts of numberless clergymen, and scarcely a mortification to any one, as the Dissenters would miss the grievance even more than the Church would miss the victory.

The House of Lords have again thrown out the Qualifi- cation for Office Oaths Abolition Bill—that is, have refused the redress of a trumpery little grievance which they admit to be absolutely no protection to the Church, simply and avowedly because they wish the Dissenters to feel that Church- men have a right to impose humiliating conditions on the admission of Dissenters to office. Lord Russell made a manly and convincing speech for any one who intended to be con- vinced, which few of his opponents did. The opposition to the measure may be compressed into one sentence :—` It is of no use, and is irritating; but it is the only mark of the lower caste of a Dissenter we have left. On the repeal of the Test Act, the Church was promised some such sign of her birth- right, and you may be well content if the nasty medicine is only forced down the throats of a few Dissenting mayors and aldermen who thus do penance for the whole body.' For this noble intellectual and moral position all the six bishops present voted, including, we grieve and wonder to report, the Bishop of London. The bill was lost by a majority of 17 ; 52 for to 67 against.

General Hooker is asserted to be on his march to Richmond. His advanced guard, under General Stoneman, has crossed the Rappahannock, and occupied Gordonsville. General Hooker has with him about 100,000 men ; but the mud is still deep, and the Confederates have still a considerable army under General Lee. Mr. Davis, in an address to the Southern people, expresses full confidence, but vehemently calls upon the people to plant wheat, as the armies have been for some time past upon half rations.

The Bishop of Exeter has taken, as he generally does a line of his own on the Colenso question. In reply to the address of his clergy, he withholds his own judgment, on the ground that the appeal from the Bishop of Cape- town will lie to a Court in which the Archbishop and some Bishops of the province of Canterbury must sit as judges, and that no possible judge should prejudge a legal question. At the same time the Bishop inhibits Dr. Colenso from preaching within his diocese, which gives some reason to think that he has prejudged the question. Perhaps this predicament only shows more clearly that Bishops are not capable of a judicial state of mind. The Bishop of Exeter would have made a fair advocate and an admirable attorney, but certainly not a judge—his notion of impartiality consisting not even in withholding the expression of his prepossession, but only in substituting a gesture of distrust for an articu- lated condemnation.

It is evident that Mr. Gladstone's proposal to remove the exemption of Public Charities from income-tax, which is now so perplexing to the collectors of the tax, will be bitterly opposed when it comes on for discussion on Monday. The Charities are till up in arms, and it is sup- posed that the Clubs, which are not Charities, will avenge their wrongs by trying to defeat the Government on the former head. We shall much regret it, if it should be so- No principle can be clearer than that it is unwise and unjust to vote money from the public purse for any purpose over which the Government exercises no control. And this is exactly what we are doing by taxing general incomes more heavily in order to exempt the expenditure of charitable corporations from taxation. No doubt they will have less to spend, but the public will have more,—and may, if they will, spend the sum so saved in charity. It is an abuse of argument to say that even now incomes under a certain sum are not to be taxed at all ;—certainly not, when they are incomes independently owned; but every man who supports a pensioner out of his superfluities pays the full tax on the sum so expended. What is practically effected by the present law is this, that every taxpayer is compelled to con- tribute, besides his poor-rate, something more towards the charities of the country, without any interest or control over their character or management. If we give back this sum, we may, in fact, still gain it for the charities in many cases, but in a better form ; and in still more spare it to those who are far less able to afford it than the poor who benefit by these Charities.

The new Archbishop of Paris has published his lettre pastorale, which delights the progressive Catholic clergy, and is almost passed over in silence by the ultra-clerical papers. Monsigneur of Paris declares that he is " a man of his time and of his country," and boldly proclaims that " Catholicism ought not to be looked upon as hostile to what we must call civiliz- ation and progress." He states, "Si l'Eglise est immuable, elle n'est pas immobile" (if the Church is immutable she is not stationary), and continues, " We do not despise the great and beautiful things which men know how to accomplish in taking hold of conquered nature, to make it subservient to their wants, and impressing on it the seal of their genius." The 171tramontanes are especially angry at the words "called by the choice of the Emperor and the canonical institution of the Sovereign Pontiff," which mean to imply, what certainly is the case, that the Archbishop has to thank Napoleon III. more than Pius IX. for his appointment. It is, altogether, an eloquent address, and speaks in a tone to which episcopal manelements have not accustomed the French.

The Foreign Office published on Thursday an important collection of papers upon the Polish affair. They show that the Western Powers have pressed " conciliation" on Russia with almost peremptory firmness, Earl Russell warning Baron Brunnow that, although his note was pacific, events might change. We have analyzed the correspondence in another place, and need here only remark that the Blue-book contains very few references to France, and that Napo- leon always appears as a half seen but terrible specta- tor in the background. Information from Sweden, too, is obviously suppressed, and there are exceedingly few specu- lations. For the rest, the correspondence is dangerously frank, Colonel Stanton, for one, being placed in a most un- pleasant position. e obviously knew nothing about the insurgents, and hated them hard accordingly. The reader will remark, too, some odd references to the influence of Mazzini. He seems to be Lord Russell's general Bogey, and the word "Mazzinians" is employed as if it were equivalent to "the Reds." That is hard, when Mazzini is the only Red who has justified the use of the dagger?

The Polish revolt lags a little. Every day brings its com- bat, but, as the Russians always claim a victory, and the insurgents always deny a defeat, the history of these skir- mishes is, perhaps, a little obscure. It may be noted, how- ever, that the peasants, irritated by Russian excesses, are in places joining the movement, and that the correspondent of the Times adheres to his statement that Lithuania is in open revolt. A statement is circulated in Scharf's correspondence that the Russian secret society is about to land 6,000 men in Courland; but this must be an invention. That society might possibly have that number at their disposal in Finland, but how are they to be embarked in the province ?

Perhaps the most remarkable statement in the new corre- spondence on Poland is one made by Mr. Mounsey. This gentleman, in a careful and official report, repeats, and apparently believes, the assertion that orders have been issued by the Archduke to the soldiery to obey only their non-commissioned officers. The higher officers are all sus- pected. If this statement be true—and we fully believe it— it accounts for the sudden absence of discipline in the Rus- sian army, and must lead in the end to inevitable defeat. It would be safer to remove the officers than suffer them to be questioned in the field by their own men.

The Federal Admiral Dupont, with nine iron-clads, com- menced the attack on Charleston on 7th April. The vessels advanced at half-past 12, and by half-past 2 found them- selves brought up by an arrangement of cables, buoys, and tall piles. Thus stopped, they were exposed to a pitiless concentric fire from the batteries which lined the shores of the creek, at the head of which Charleston stands. In half an hour one vessel was hulled, and another unable to move, a third useless from the closing of her port, a fourth disabled by inability to move her turret, and a fifth riddled with balls. Admiral Dupont accordingly gave the order to retreat, and next day returned to Port Royal. The defeat is said in America to be due to the use of Whitworth guns ; but the plates of the iron -clads, which vary from four inches to fifteen, are none of them solid. They are all one-inch plates clamped together. The disaster has not apparently created much ex- citement in the North, the general remark being that the lesson will improve the iron-clads.

A special telegram to the Times announces that Cardinal Antonelli's resignation has been accepted, and that he will be succeeded by Cardinal de Angelis. The statement has not been confirmed.

The latest accounts fr‘in Mexico are more favourable to the French. On the 24th March General Forey was before Puebla, which he proposes to take, it would seem, by regular siege. There seems a strange want of dash in his movements, but he may have received some severe lessons as to the danger of despising an enemy who fights well behind earthen walls. The rumour of the capture of Mexico has been revived, but is inconsistent with the known facts.

The armaments recently called for by the Government of California are at last explained. We are informed that the harbour defences are intended against the French, and the levy to strengthen the hands of the internal government. The officials are faithful to the Union, but there is a powerful party in the State which believes that California, Oregon, Wash ton Territory, and Utah, would be better off as a separ Republic of the Pacific. Such ideas are just now dangero , and a sudden movement, headed by the party which organized the Vigilance Committee, might be dangerous to the Union. Hence the preparations which have so greatly alarmed British Columbia.

We call attention to a striking letter from the Rev. F. D. Maurice in another page, giving his powerful support to Dr. Stanley's argument against subscription. We are persuaded that a very large body of the English clergy of very various theological leanings would be willing to combine in an effort to sweep away subscriptions, if effected without altering in any way the theological standards of doctrine in the Church.

Mr. Villiers, on Tuesday, announced the Government plan for the relief of Lancashire. It is to employ the people upon_ municipal works, and reclaiming waste land. The Boards of Health have powers for the improvement of the cotton cities which they have never used, and which, with this abundant supply of labour, they must use at once. They can employ 70,000 labourers, and thus release the cotton hands from the demoralization consequent on relief. The plan is an excellent one, provided the Boards of Health are willing to raise the loans ; but how if they are not ? The fear of disturbances will, perhaps, quicken their sense of smell—a sense which we affirm to be weak in the majority of Lancashire men—and they may embrace eagerly the grand opportunity placed in their hands. If they will not, Parliament must either coerce or bribe them, and the usual English rule is to adopt the second alternative. The decision is to be made in three weeks, and a capable agent has already been despatched from the Central Board of Health with very large powers.

Somebody has some money left in spite of the American war and the Lancashire distress. The amount realized for the Bicknell collection of pictures, criticized in our last issue, was 58,6001., and some of the prices given for indi- vidual pictures were exorbitant. Three pictures by Sir E. Landseer, one of them, the " Prize Calf," perhaps the poorest picture he ever painted, obtained an average price of 2,2151. each, the lowest, the "Prize Calf," selling for 1,8001. Turner's " Antwerp—Van Goyeu looking for a Subject," fetched 2,5101.; and " Helvoetsluys," 1,6001. One picture by Callcott also went high—an English landscape with cattle, which produced 2,950/. ; but the cattle were "finished" by Sir Edwin Landseer. Leslie's " The Heiress " also reached 1,3231., and Stanfield's " Pic du Midi in the Pyrenees," 2,6771. Most of the nominal buyers were dealers.

The House of Commons, in its character of a first-class club, considers itself badly fed. A Select Committee ap- pointed to consider the question, has decided that the kitchen department is not so good as it ought to be, and gives the keeper of the refreshment rooms till July to reform, under penalty of being superseded. The pre- sent purveyor, who has been ten years in office, says it is not his fault. Members cannot order their dinners, because they cannot tell when they will want them, and after a great speech scores of legislators rush out all screaming for food at once. The office is not greatly sought, and it would almost seem as if the House wanted to secure the comforts of a club, at the rates of a club, without enforcing .club rules. As they only sit half the year they must raise the rates, as hotel- keepers do in towns where the rash is for the " season."

The Duke of Newcastle has abolished the great anomaly in the Government of New Zealand. He has placed all native affairs under the control of the Colonial Parliament. The objection to this course has always been that the settlers ought not to govern the natives ; but as a matter of fact they always have governed them, and the only change introduced is to impose on the Governors responsibility for their govern- ment. The natives are still protected, the Governor being ordered to veto all acts specially directed against them. With the new power comes the new task of providing for the ex- penses of war, and the colonists talk with dread of raising an army of their own. The best plan for the colonists would be to form themselves into a Volunteer army, and induce some one tribe of natives to become regular -troops. They might be just as good as the Sikhs.

Father Passaglia introduced his long promised bill into the Italian Parliament on the 28rd ultimo. He is, he says, con- vinced that Rome and. Italy must be reconciled, and that the deadly hostility of the 180 Italian Bishops must be overcome. He, therefore, proposes that every priest should bo compelled g- Ike an oath of allegiance to King and Constitution, that 4" no Priest should be ordained without some years' instruction in a secular lyceum, and that the bishops should be compelled to indemnify all priests whom they may suspend for political

• reasons. We have commented on the bill in another place ; it was received with loud cheers.

The following paragraph gives a short and curious sum- mary of the colonial empire of Great Britain :—" The colonies of Great Britain comprise altogether 3,350,000 square miles, and cost us for management 3,350,0001. per annum, or just about a pound a mile. They have an aggregate revenue of 11,000,0001., and owe among them 27,000,000/., or just two years and a half's income. They import goods to the amount of 60,000,0001. yearly—half from ourselves, and half from all the rest of the world. They export produce to the value of 50,000,000/., of which three-fifths come to this kingdom ; and all this is done by a population which is under 10,000,000 in the aggregate, and of which only 5,000,000 are whites." Add to these figures 900,000 square miles for India, and 200,000,000 of people, with a trade of 71,000,000/., and we have as a result that the Queen reigns over nearly one-third of the land of the earth, and nearly a fourth of its population. If a British Vizier under the Emperor should, as seems pro- bable, rule China, Englishmen will directly control more than half the human race.

General Niel Dow reports from New Orleans that he has a battalion of negroes in his division as artillerists who, in every respect, are equal to the whites. " Almost all were marked more or less, and some were covered with scars from head to foot. The escaped slaves from one plantation were all branded on. the forehead in letters one and a half inches long, occupying the whole front with tle initials of their master's name, W. M.' Some had iron collars rivetted round their necks; some had shackles, and some had been handcuffed." It is the emancipation Of these, and such as these, that Mr. Horsman considers,—if it endangers, however little, a white man's life,—" the most atrocious crime against the laws of civilization and humanity the world has ever seen." Mr. Horsman has a gift for paradox.

It is satisfactory to see that Sir Fowell Buxton (whom a contemporary confounds with his uncle, Mr. T. F. Buxton) is anxious to vindicate the hereditary right of his family to lead English opinion on the greatest social question which any age has ever raised. At a meeting held yesterday week, too late for our last impression, to collect help for the new freed men in the United States, Sir Fowell Buxton took the chair, and spoke with manly earnestness of the great cause then working for itself a solution. " Whatever was the original intention of the Emancipation proclamation," said Sir F. Buxton, " its result has been most happy." He spoke with strong approbation of the slave regiments raised by the North, and expressed his belief that " when once the black troops have fought shoulder to shoulder with the white troops, and when the negroes have obtained the knowledge of arms it will be impossible again to reduce them to bondage." It was shown that many thousands are now escaping from the South every day to avoid being tied together and trooped off into the interior, and that in spite of the generous efforts of the free coloured population, of the Quakers, and of the Govern- ment, it is not a very easy task to provide them at first with the means of living in countries desolated by war. Mr. Thomas Hughes made an eloquent Abolition speech, and Mr. -Charles Buxton, the member for Maidstone, while avowing that he had looked with great dread on the Emancipation policy, spoke sanguinely of the result, and showed how easy -would now be the transition to free labour in the South, where the masters could be persuaded to acquiesce in it.

Another large meeting, more exclusively political, and in- -tended to strengthen the hands of the Government in car- rying out stringently the Foreign Enlistment Act, was held in Glasgow on Tuesday. Professor Nichol, who fills, we believe, the chair of English Literature in the Univer- sity, stated the situation with eloquent impartiality, and urged on an almost unanimous meeting the reasons for holding " that a war at this crisis with the North would be a calamitous, an unnatural—I had almost said a sacri- legious war,"—that it would mean " a fettered trade, blockaded ports, a monstrous debt, heavy taxes, dear food, and blood shed like water ; merchantmen stealing over dan- gerous seas; English cannon in New York harbour, lined- -can cannon in the Clyde ; a long rancour between friends -grown enemies—and to what end ? The humiliation to

America of being hewn by a double-edged sword; the glory to England of having fought so well as to perpetuate the slavery of a race for centuries." Resolutions were moved embodying the spirit of Professor NichoPs speech, and car- ried, after a brief speech in favour of an amendment, by an immense majority. In Glasgow, as in Manchester and Liver- pool, the working classes have no hesitation in choosing their side.

The mail bags of the Peterhoff are to be sent unopened to their destination, but the ship itself is to go into the prize court for adjudication. This is a very satisfactory solution. "Historicus" has shown this week, in another able letter, that no impression can be more unfounded than the popular notion that, because a ship's papers are made out for a neutral port, the prize court has no right to entertain her case. Lord Stowell's decisions show conclusively that in very many cases indeed, we should never have had adequate evidence of the vessel's guilt, if we had not claimed the power to submit any capture made, even on the slenderest suspicion, to a prize court. Every ship preparing to break a blockade has papers made out as a matter-of-courseprecaution to some neutral port. It is for the prize court to decide. England will never shrink from abiding now, as a neutral, by the laws which her own judges laid down for her procedure when she was a bel- ligerent.

Mr. Price has been returned without opposition for Rad- nor boroughs, in the place vacated by the death of Sir G. Cornewall Lewis.

Mr. Stansfeld has been re-elected cheerfully at Halifax, and his half-apology for entering the Government received without any demur. We do not think it was needed. The Liberals, who call themselves independent, and who generally differ from the Whigs only in feeling a warmer interest in the great working-class, and having direct social and political ties with it, would serve their cause ill indeed if they always refused to- take the only way to gain permanent influence over the Government,—which is by learning how to govern. Mr. Stansfeld, as junior Lord of the Admiralty, will have but an infinitesimal influence over the Navy Estimates ; but a man must occupy the lower offices of trust before he can occupythe higher : and a temporary sacrifice of Parliamentary influence, if it can be made, as in this case, without the slightest insin- cerity, is well invested in obtaining the first condition of future administrative responsibility. Mr. Stansfeld has acted wisely, and we trust his Parliamentary eclipse will be even now only partial, and very temporary.

The superstition as to the manners and customs of the aris- tocracy which is condensed in the phrase "drunk as a lord," seems to linger still. Mr. Henry Bedford, an educated vaga- bond, was last week committed for trial on charges of swind- ling almost grotesque in impudence. On the 1st of May last year he asked lodging at a coffeehouse in Camden Town, on the ground that he was the nephew of the Duke of Beaufort, and obtained it. He then threatened to tear up a cheque for 1001. received from his uncle, because it was so small, and finally borrowed 91. on another cheque for 251. sent him for " his valet's quarter's wages," and disappeared. Last Feb- ruary he tried the same scheme, telling a commercial clerk that he had by inheritance become the Hon. H. R. Bedford Vernon Harcourt, and, therefore, asked a share of his apart- ment and bed. Hence he appears to have fled with all the- clothes in the hall, and next presented -himself in Brompton as Marquis of Ormonde. Here he ran up bills in all directions, and actually, by threatening to whip one of his grooms, in- duced a jobmaster to believe in him, and let him have carriages on hire. Iobmasters are tolerably keen, but who but a Duke's son could threaten a groom with a whip ? The story is a curious evidence at once of British flunkeyism, ignorance, and the change in public opinion as to noblemen's wealth. In 1763 the "Marquisate " would have been a reason why the jobmaster should not give trust, and Henry Bedford would have played the wealthy and gullible cit.

The Reduced and New Three per Cents. are 911 ; India Stock,. 229 231; India Five per Cents., 1091 1091; Rupee Paper, 1071 107/, and 115/ 1161; India Bonds, 18s. to 22s. prem. ; and Exchequer Bills, 5s. to 8s. prem. The Spanish Passives are at 31k Mk ; and Mexican at 351 35k; Greek Bonds, 29/ 291 ; Greek Coupons, 141 14k ; Turkish Consolidds' 481 49k. The Confederate Loan is firm at 1/ 21 prem. ; and Spanish Certificates are an eighth lower, 111 11k. A company has been started to promote the growth of cotton in India, called the Anglo-Indian Cotton Company (Limited), which seems to have been organized by men who understand their business, and the special points at which the Indian ryot needs the assistance of capital.