OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING DESPATCH.

The preceding Despatch illustrates the importance of Paris, as a central point of diplomatic information, and shows the advantage which an able diplomatist at that Court possesses in having under his view, at the same moment, the latest intelligence from the Embassies in London, Naples, Rome, Turin, Switzerland, Lisbon, and Madrid.

Our readers will remember the paragraphs which appeared last year in various journals, describing the interest publicly expressed by the Emperor Nicholas, in the establishment of a line of steam packets between Havre and Hamburgh, which diminished the period required for communication between Paris and St. Petersburg to little more than a week.

Universality and simultaneousness of action are two of the leading features of Russian diplomacy, and a main cause of her moral influence; but there is an expression in the preceding Despatch which throws new light on the extent of her diplomatic power. We allude to the fact of the Russian Am

bassador at Paris obtaining a knowledge of the movements of the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean by means of the French telegraph. The inference to be drawn from this circumstance is not unimportant, since it is evident that in the event of a renewal of that collusion between Russia and France which existed from 1815 to 1830, the Emperor may acquire at St. Petersburg a knowledge of the movements of our own ships of war in the Mediterranean, before those movements are even known at the Admiralty in London; and the Russian Ambassadors at Paris and at London may receive such information actually a fortnight before the British Government.

This power, in the event of hostility between Russia and England, would go far to neutralize the advantages we possess in our superior maritime force. But it is only a fraction of the numerous benefits which Russia may derive from diplomatic influence at Paris, to secure the recovery of which she exerts every effort to re-awaken those feelings of national jealousy which she fostered during a quarter of a century of warfare between England and France, and to excite which she unceasingly propagates throughout the world, as a political

axiom, that the two countries are, and must ever remain, natural enemies.

Another point of view worthy of remark in this Despatch is the anti-social spirit displayed by the Russian Ambassador with regard to the affairs of the Spanish Peninsula. If Russian diplomacy had never fanned the flames of antagonistic principles, what meaning could attach to the assertion, that the withdrawal of the British and French troops from Portugal and Spain would be the signal for intestine dissension in those countries?

Does not the very expression imply a knowledge of the elements of those dissensions, and consequently the power of Russia to foment them, whenever it may suit her purpose to make a diversion in the West, in order to veil her projects in the East?

[We sincerely trust that the difference between France and Switzerland may not blind both parties to their own national interests, immediately endangered as they are by the political interests of the Prussian League.]—ED,

ON THE RELATION OF SWITZERLAND

TO THE GERMAN COMMERCIAL LEAGUE.

(Extracted from the Work of Dr. Nebenius on the Customs' Union.)

Switzerland already enjoys, for the introduction of many articles of manufacture into the territory of the Union, advantages proportioned to the quantity of her imports. We can only hope that the relations with this neighbour-country may take a form, which may be favourable to the animation of mutual intercourse. The nature of its exports and its wants makes it, perhaps, more than any other country dependent on the Union. With regard to the transit trade and commission trade, many important interests exist in common, which, however, are not cultivated with as much care by the Cantons as on the German territory.

The disadvantageous consequences weigh heavier on the transit trade of Switzerland, since there is an active competition between the southern seaports, in the same manner as between the northern ports; and every thing which burdens or facilitates the carriage on the roads leading from the one seaport, favours or renders difficult, under otherwise similar circumstances, the competition proceeding from another seaport. If much has been done of late to facilitate communications, we still remain far behind other states. We particularly allude to those facilities which are not obstructed by any kind of hindrances, namely, duties of different kinds, which increase the cost of transport.

A glance at the proportion of the freights for the transmission of goods from the harbours of the Adriatic through the Tyrol, from Marseilles through France, and from Genoa through Switzerland, to Kehl or Strasburg, shows the peculiar advantage to Switzerland of a diminution of the cost of carriage on the latter route. We find the usual freight on the road from Genoa to Strasburg, and from Strasburg to Genoa, for fifty kilograms, including the transit duties and road-tolls, 8 fl. to 8 fl. 30 kr.; on the road from Trieste to Strasburg, and thence to Trieste, 6 fl., 6 fl. 30 kr. to 7 fl. The freight on the former, therefore, is from 1 fl. 30 kr. to 2 fl. higher. *

The ordinary freight by land from Marseilles to Strasburg is from 4 fl. 12 kr. to 5 fl. 19 kr.; from Strasburg to Marseilles it is only 3 fl. 41 kr. A difference, therefore, exists of 3 fl. 20 kr. to 5 fl. 19 kr., for 50 kilograms; whilst the transmission from Genoa to Marseilles (without the insurance, which, late in the year, rises from to per cent., but is lower in summer) costs only 1 fl. 10 kr. to 1 fl. 17 kr.† These proportions of freight are of great importance at certain periods for Switzerland in her commerce with southern fruits and Levant goods, as well as for the goods which form the commission trade as for the transit trade, which is connected with it, since the smallest saving of cost decides on the route to the market where the goods are to be disposed of.

The freight for 50 kilograms for the transmission by the steam-boat from Marseilles to Genoa is given in the price lists themselves at only 1 franc 60 cents, or about 44 kr.