The Express.
London, England, 1866-03-13 00:00:00

LATEST IN'TELLIGENCE.

Mum% Tirsoruats4
SPAIN.
XADBID, MAI= 12, Emma.
In reply to Senor Pires Molina, the akinistry
stated to-day in the Congress that the state of
she would be raised this week.

THE CROATIAN DIET.
AGRAM, liAsoa IX

The Croatian Diet will adjourn on the 17th in-
stant notil the Ist of May. The 12 members elected
so represent the Croatian Diet at Peeth will arrive
t►ere shortly after Easter.

THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA MAILS.
LIVEL, NIXIE IS.
The Royal Mail steamship Macgregor Laird, with
the above mails, arrived here this morning. Her
dates are Benin, Jan. 24; Fernando Po, Feb. 26
Cameroon, Jan. 30; Old Calabar, Feb. 1 ; Brass
River, New Calabar, and Bonny, 4th ; Lagos,
Accra, 9th ; Cape Coast Castle, 11th ; Cape Palmas,
13th ; Sierra Leone, 19th ; Bathurst, 23rd ; Tene-
riffe, March 1; and Madeira, 4th.
From Lagos it is announced that some of the
natives were still at war, and had closed the roads.
Peace had been concluded with the Animate's..
Five hundred officers and men of the 3rd West
Indian Regiment had left Sierra Leone or the
West Indies.

THE CONSTrTIITIVIOTORLONALL CRISIS IN

RECALL OF GOVERNOR DARLING.
This morning was issued a batch of despatches
from the Governer of Victoria, respecting the ace-enact.
seat of the Appropriation Act, and treesmittiag various
&amens which narrate and explain the progress of the
dispute between the legislative Council on the one hand
and the governor and assembly on the other. At the end
of
the return are several despatches from the Collosial Mi.
aster. The following is the latest in date. It will be
Pia by it that Sir O. Darling hes been recalled :
" Downing-street, Feb. 26,1866.
" Sir,—l have =sawed to you In smother despatch the
Newer which I have been commended by the Queen to
return to the address, signed by twenty-two members of
the Executive Council of Victoria, which you transmitted
to me in your despatch No. 152 of December 23.
"The complaint of the pstitiosers as you observe,
erected spinet yourself, sod is to the effect that the acts
which the address describes as illegal could not have been
permitted, much lees persisted in, if you had not given to
those sets the sanction of your authority. Is reply to this
somplaint, while referring to the general obligation wader
which you are placed, by her Majesty's instructions, to
as guided in all cues (unless you bays good reason to the
safari) by the advice of your ministers, you further
By that in the particular proceedings of which the
petitioners complain, 'there has been no so-called illegal
on the part of the government, which you would not,
so far se respects the general principles upon which it is
heed, have aimed into effect, if the executive authority
bed been deposited solely in yourself.' And m regards the
lose you add, ' I should have gone much further then my
Ministers counselled me to do, for I should have perecopto-
Ay withheld from those banks which refused to =gist the
government by loam. any further deposits of the public
avenue.' I have alreedy, in my despatch No. 107 of the
27th November, bonneted you that some of the son of your
government to which you gave your sanction were illegal,
sad have directed you to retrace your steps. But your
present despatch imposers upon me new obligations. I
shell therefore briefly review the circumstances under
which this address hem been adopted by the petitioners.
"The muss punned is the assembly with respect to the
Tariff and Appropriation Bills was net warrestel by the
practice of the Entail House of Commons, to which, by
the Coestitation Act, it was intended that the eassnably of
Victoria should generally conform. Here, not only is a bill
Introduced on the very day on which resolutions fee the
alteration of customs duties are agreed to, for the purpose
*teeing effect to those resolutions, but every exertion is
mode to pass the bill with as little delay as possible.
Apia, no pretties is more carefully observed them that
Ink& avoids whet is called tacking, or the combinational say
Ohm seachnents with the Bill of Appropriation. But stall, in
cheeses which hes occurred under your government, the
delay of the Tariff Bill, and its union with the Appropria.
the Bill, were exposed to the earns checks to which the
lace proceedings, if resorted to, would be exposed in this
austry. The Supreme Court was able to vindicate the
algid of any subject who might compels that duties were
Wird from him illegally, and the Legislative Connell was
abbe to maintain its own privileges by laying aside the
eompeend bill. Ido not think it would have been desir-
able for you to interfere in any such manner as to with-
draw these mitten from their ordinary sphere, and so
give to the dispute a character, which did not naturally
belong to it, of a conflict between the assembly of Victoria
and the representative of the crown. I am
not able to my that, in the actual circumstance= of
the cue, you had it is your power to influence of
astral the course of affairs without incurring the risk of
seek sconarepuenes. Bat you ought to have interposed, with
ell the weight of your authority, when your ministers mull.
sued to levy the duties notwithstanding the adverse decl-
ared the court. Still more evidently was it your duty to
withhold your personal co-operation from the sober= of
borrowing money in • manner unauthorised by law. I say
unauthorised by law, because the loan itself had not been
stactioued by the legislature of Victoria, and because the
Niemen which enabled you to repay that loan, having
been obtained as it was, can be regarded only as a foe=
ender colour of which the substance of the law
was evaded. By these proceedings the Supreme
Court and the Legislative Connell were praoti-
ally deprived of the power with which the oonstitu-
ties intended to invest them. This coeduot on your part
Involved a grave responsibility; and it hes led, by natural
consequence, to the address whisk I have now to consider.
I understand, indeed. that before you received that address
TOW government had in some degree retraced their steps
The Tariff Bill had been finally rejected by the Council, and
the Customs department ceased to levy the higher duties
imposed by the bill, sad repaid to each individual the
sums which he had paid. I infer also,though itis not clearly
Mated in your despatches, that they have recommenced
Ilas collection of those higher duties which the law
Imposes on the import of tea and other articles, and
ca the export of gold. Bat I also gather that for some
meths the full amount of the higher duties wan not levied,
and that for part of that time the customs' department
had ceased to demand any bonds or other security for the
payment of the uncollected balance. You do not suggest,
sad I cannot imagine that for this proceeding there was
even any pretext on which it could have been oentenled to
be legal. As a c,ossequenoe of these proceedings, the
emembly ban been dissolved without an Appropriation Act,
and the borrowing from the bank hes been continued.
" Coder these circumstances it cannot, I think, be denied
that any subject in the colony was entitled respectfully to
approach his Sovereign, and complain that in the one case
by the wrongful concurrence, and in the other by the per-
sonal co-operation of the Queen's representative, be had
been deprived for • time of the benefit of the remedy
which the constitution of Victoria provided against
ineifuler eats of power on the part of the executive govern.
meat. Ido not see in the language of the address any.
thing disrespectful to her Majesty, or otherwise worthy of
iseunre ; and I cannot but acknowledge that the complaints
of the petitioners are just. I am thus compelled to
approach, and I do so with the deepest regret,
the closing paragraphs of your despatch, in which you
describe the address in terms of the strongest coademna-
liso, and express your opinion that a vindication of public
morality calls for the forfeiture of the commission sod
office of the petitioners ; informing me that, if it had
not been that under existing cimunurtsuces, and at the
Period of a general election, when many of these gentlemen
me candidates fora seat in the Legislative Assembly, the
abject of such action oe your part would have been liable
to great misapprehension, you would have suspended them
all from otbee until her Majesty's pleasure were known.'
It is evident that each a course on your part could ony
ban been justifiable if they had been clearly wrong, and
that in a very aggravated degree, and in this sod n former
despatches I have stated how little I consider that this has
hems actually the ease. But while you thus snip •
!swot/ temporary resent for not having taken a bourse
=doh would on the merits have been unjactifiable, you
Maim in the following words en appeal to me, to which I
Ills obliged to return • clear and decided answer.