The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-17 00:00:00

which have been presented for their improvement
through a continuous series of yearn, and with
an expanding market here for their consump-
tion, it has for some time past been in a condition
of decline and depression, both as to its internal
prosperity and its external trade. Now, although New
Holland is the country of phenomena, this interruption
to the onward career of New South Wales is a moral
phenomenon greater than any of the natural wonders
with which either that section of it or the great insular
continent itself can exhibit. Her flocks have immea-
surably increased ; the quality of her wool, and the
manner and condition in which it is shipped for
European markets prodigiously improved; the price ob-
tained for it (although less at present than it has been
at some former periods), enormously enhanced ;
and the consumption, vast as it is, with few occasional
interruptions, annually extending. The culture of the
vine in some districts has been pursued with so much
success that wine, like wool, may one day become an
Australian staple. The enls.rged aggregate shown by
the returns of horned cattle is every way satisfactory,
both as an evidence of the extensive supplies which the
colonists can now reckon on for their own sub-
sistence, and as giving further development to the
lucrative trade they have commenced, and if not
interfered with, will certainly carry on in tallow
and in hides. Then their production of grain,
especially of wheat, has been such as to leave in most
years a large excess or surplus for exportation. How
then, it may well be asked with that astonishment which
so generally prevails here upon the subject—how does it
happen that New South Wales is not a paying colony?
That she is in a condition of embarrassment, whilst sur-
rounded by so many sources from whence capital
should be so easily realised ? That she complains of
panics and want of confidence and decay of trade,
of unemployed shipping and unsold stock, who pos-
sesses these abundant means of commanding a
profitable foreign trade with every quarter of the globe ?
That she should suddenly be struck with a species of
paralysis and helplessness, whose career from infancy to
adolescence has hitherto been the astonishment and ad-
miration of old-established nations ? The problem is to
be solved by the same conditions as those which ex-
plain the anomaly of New Zealand's useless fertility.
This latter possession produces a superabundance of
corn, the mother country a superabundance of legisla-
tion, which will not admit the product to be imported
here, except at a rate of duty ruinous to the New
Zealand grower. New South Wales, in like manner
(the evil aggravated in the ratio of her greater remot-
ness from the mother country), is afflicted by the triple
malady of English home monopoly, domestic law making,
and British Colonial Department imbecility. If the
first two of these types of colonial misfortune are, for
the present, irremediable, the third surely admits of easy
remedy. Its virulence is derived from the misinforma-
tion, prejudice, obstinacy, and haughty refusal to acknow-
ledge demonstrated errors of judgment, which are esta-
blished in Downing-street, and only with their expul-
sion from Downing-street, we are every day more firmly
convinced, the revived prosperity and permanent improve
ment of the colonies will be coincident.

Madrid papers of the 9th inst. have been received, but
they are without interest. In the Chamber of Deputies
the report of the Committee on the new electoral law
was read, which entirely accorded with the Government
scheme. A good deal of business was transacted ou the
Bourse.

In the Three per Cents. 102 millions were done, and
90 millions in the Five per Cents. The former closed
at 35 cash, and 35i at 60 days, and the latter at 251
cash, and 261 at 60 days. Coupons are quoted at 28i
for the 25th of May. Passive Debt, 84, at 60 days.
Vales Reales, 101 cash at 60 days.

A religious discussion took place in the French
Chamber of Peers on Monday, relative to a petition
presented from ninety-three inhabitants of Marseilles
against certain doctrines professed in the College of
France against the Catholic religion. The debate was
conducted with much more acrimony than that which is
going on in the House of Commons; and it is singular
enough, that the object for which the religionists in the
two countries contend is of the most opposite character.
En France, the Catholic Church is considered in danger,
and Count MONTALEMBERT, said " M. QUINET, one of
the teachers, had published a work in contradiction with
history, the Catholic religion, and real Christian phi•
losophy, and when such doctrines were used, was it to be
wonderel at it the heads of families got alarmed for
the instruction of their children ?" and another Peer
accused the Government of being the cause of the scan-
dals on religion. After some remarks by the Minister
of Public Instruction, disapproving of the course pursued
by certain of the professors, the Chamber rejected the
petition, and proceeded to the order of the day. The
Chamber of Deputies, on Tuesday, was occupied with
the Savings' Banks Bill, to which much opposition is
made. The chief clauses are, to diminish the amount of
weekly deposit ; to lower the maximum that any one
depositor could hold ; and to enlarge the time of notice
of withdrawal. The latter clause is proposed with a view
to prevent any derangement of the finances by a sudden
withdrawal of deposits in case of a money panic.

We have accounts from Zurich to the 11th inst., but
we find nothing in them of fresh interest. Long discus•
iions had taken place, but, with the exception of recom.
mending a general amnesty, nothing had been decided.