The Blue Book on the Syrian disturbances* having only just 
been issued, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe having announced 
for Tuesday next his interpellation respecting the Syrian af- 
fairs,°*! I delay entering on this momentous subject, and would 
only warn your readers to not be carried away by the sentimental 
declamations of the Decembrist press, the feelings of horror at the 
atrocious outrages of wild tribes, and the natural sympathy felt for 
the sufferers. But there are a few points which ought steadily to 
be fixed upon. In the first instance, the Russian Empire, 
consequent upon the internal collisions that have arisen out of the 
serf emancipation movement and the dilapidated state of finances, 
finds itself in a fix out of which the present Government knows 
not how to get itself safe by a war on a grand scale. War appears 
to them the only means of shifting off the impending revolution 
so confidentially predicted in Prince Dolgoroukow’s La vérité sur la 
Russie. Consequently, it is about three months since Prince 
Gorchakoff tried to reopen the Oriental question by issuing his 
circular* on the grievances of the Christians in Turkey, but his 
appeal, reechoed only by a solitary voice from the Tuileries, fell 
flat on the ears of Europe. 

No. 23690, August 4, 1860.— Ed. 

¢ Gorchakov’s circular of May 20, 1860 to Russian Embassies in foreign 
countries, Russky Invalid, No. 111, May 26, 1860, pp. 447-48.— Ed. 

Even from that time Russian and French agents were bestirring 
themselves to bring about a politico-religious row—the former on 
the Dalmatian, the latter on the Syrian coast—both movements 
supporting each other, since the troubles in Montenegro and the 
Herzegovina compelled the Porte to withdraw almost the whole 
Turkish army stationed in Syria, so as to leave the arena open to 
the high-pitched antagonism of the barbarous clans of the 
Lebanon. The Emperor of the French found himself placed in the 
same necessity as the orthodox Czar,’ of looking out for some 
fresh and thrilling crusade, to plunge his Empire again into the 
Lethe of war-hallucinations. The Italian movement, slipping out of 
his leading-strings, and taking a course contrary to the direction 
he wanted to impart to it, had, as was delicately hinted in the 
Constitutionnel,” become a bore in the opinion of Paris. His 
attempts at wheedling the Prince Regent of Prussia‘ into a violent 
“consolidation of Germany,” to be paid by a “moral compensa- 
tion” for France in the shape of the Rhenish Provinces, turned out 
a signal failure, and even cast some ridicule on the entrepreneur of 
the emancipation-of-nationalities dodge. The conflict Louis 
Napoleon found himself involved in with the Pope *’” damaged the 
prop on which his sway over the peasantry rests—the Catholic 
clergy of France. 

The Imperial exchequer was reduced for some time to, and 
continues in a state of, exhaustion, which it was vainly tried to 
cure by throwing out the hint of the expediency of an emprunt de 
la paix (a peace-loan). This was too much even for Decembrist 
France. To eke out one loan contracted on the pretext of war by a 
subsequent loan contracted on the pretext of peace, was a 
presumption abhorrent even to the Paris stock-jobbers. Some faint 
voice in the emasculated Paris press dared to insinuate that the 
blessings of the second Empire were as great as expensive, the 
nation having bought them by an increase to the amount of fifty 
per cent of the public debt. The project of a peace loan of 
500,000,000f. was consequently dropped, a retreat that only 
encouraged Mr. Favre to descant in the Corps Législatif on the 
impending “financial crash,” and to tear to pieces the flowery 
gauze which the Imperial Budgetmonger had thrown over the 
State chest. The strictures in the Corps Législatif among the “chiens 
savants” (the learned dogs) of the mock representation, hazarded 

by Mr. Favre and Mr. Olivier,* on the characteristic features of the 
Decembrist régime, as well as the furious onslaught on the 
intrigues of the “old parties,” with which the official, the 
semi-official, and officious press of Paris teems, coincided in 
bearing witness to the stern fact, that the rebellious spirit of Gaul 
is rekindling from its cinders, and that the continuance of the 
usurper’s rule again depends on the enactment of a grand 
war-spectacle, as it did two years after the coup d'état, and again 
two years after the conclusion of the Crimean episode. It is 
evident that the Autocrat of France and the Autocrat of Russia, 
laboring both under the same urgent necessity of sounding the 
war-trumpet, act in common concert. While Bonapartist semi- 
official pamphlets offered to the Prince Regent of Prussia‘ 
“German Union,” backed by a “moral compensation” for France, 
the Emperor Alexander, as has just been publicly stated, without a 
denial on the part of the Berlin governmental press, in the 
publications of the German “National Association,” *'’ openly 
proposed to his uncle? the annexation to Prussia of the whole of 
Northern Germany up to the main, on the condition of a cession 
to France of the Rhenish Provinces, and of connivance at the 
progress of Russia on the Danube. It is this fact simultaneously 
thrown out by both the Autocrats that has brought about the 
rendezvous at Teplitz between the Emperor of Austria and the 
Prince Regent.*”? The conspirators of Petersburg and Paris had, 
however, in case their temptations of Prussia should fail, kept im 
reserve the thrilling incident of the Syrian massacres, to be 
followed by a French intervention which. as it would not do to 
enter through the main gate, would open the back door of a 
general European war. In respect to England I will only add, that, 
in 1841, Lord Palmerston furnished the Druses with the arms they 
kept ever since, and that, in 1846, by a convention with the Czar 
Nicholas, he abolished, in point of fact, the Turkish sway that 
curbed the wild tribes of the Lebanon, and stipulated for them a 
quasi-independence**' which, in the run of time, and under the 

universel, No. 180, June 28, 1860.— Ed. 

proper management of foreign plotters, could only beget a harvest 
of blood. 

You are aware that the present Parliamentary session stands 
unrivalled by a startling succession of Government failures. Apart 
from Mr. Gladstone’s abortion of protective duties, not one single 
important measure has been carried. But while the Government 
were withdrawing bill after bill, they had contrived to smuggle 
through the second reading a little resolution,* consisting of one 
single little clause, which, if carried, would have brought about the 
greatest constitutional change witnessed in England ever since 
1689.°" That resolution simply proposed the abolition of the local 
English army in India, its absorption into the British army, and 
consequently the transfer of its supreme command from the 
Governor-General at Calcutta to the London Horse Guards, alias 
the Duke of Cambridge. Quite apart from the other serious 
consequences such a change must be fraught with, it would put 
part of the army out of the control of Parliament, and, on the 
grandest scale, add to the Royal patronage. It seems that some 
members of the Indian Council, who unanimously objected to the 
Government project, but, by virtue of the Indian Act of 1858,°” 
can occupy no seats in the House of Commons, whispered their 
protests into the ears of some M.P.s, and so it came that when the 
Government already considered their dodge to be safe, a sudden 
Parliamentary émeute,” led by Mr. Horsman,‘ broke through their 
intrigue in the very nick of time. It is a truly ludicrous spectacle, 
this perplexity of a Cabinet unexpectedly found out, and the 
bewilderment of a House of Commons fretting at the snares laid 
to its own profound ignorance. 

The declared value of the exports for last month shows the 
progress of the downward movement of British commerce. I have 
singled out in a previous letter? [that], compared with the exports of 
June, 1859, there is a falling off of nearly a million and a half 
sterling for June, 1860. 

The returns for the month of June in the last three years are as 
follows °: 

4 Moved in the House of Commons on June 12, 1860, Hansard’s Parliamentary 

¢ Edward Horsman’s speech in the House of Commons on July 26, 1860, The 
Times, No. 23683, July 27, 1860.— Ed. 

Returns”, The Economist, No. 883, July 28, 1860.— Ed. 

1858. 1859. 1860. 
£10,241,433 £10,665,891 £9,236,454 

For the half year ending with the 30th June, the declared value 
of the exports is less by a million than in the same six months of 
last year: 

1858. 1859. 1860. 
£53,467 ,804 £63,003,159 £62,019,989 

The falling off of the last month is distributed over the cotton, 
cotton yarn, linen, hardware, and cutlery, iron and worsted trade. 
Even in the exports of manufactured woolen goods, the trade in 
which has hitherto shown.a steadily increasing prosperity, this 
month excepted, “woolen and worsted yarn” shows a decline. The 
export of cotton goods for the six months to British India has 
declined from £6,094,430, in the first half of 1859, to £4,738,440 
in the first half of 1860, or by [about] £1,360,000 worth of goods.* 

With regard to the imports the most striking feature is the huge 
bulk of the cotton arrivals. In June, 1860, 2,102,048 cwts. have 
been received, as against 1,655,306 cwts. in the June of last year, 
and 1,339,108 cwts. in June, 1858.> The increase for the six 
months is no less than three millions of hundredweights; so that 
the half year receipts are greater by more than 60 per cent. 
The cotton imported in the month of May, 1860, is worth more by 
£1,800,000 than the import in 1859. No less than six millions and 
a half sterling have been spent in raw cotton in the first five 
months of 1860, beyond what was so spent in the same period of 
the previous year. 

If the rapid decrease in the export of cotton goods and yarns be 
compared with the still more decided increase in the cotton 
imports, it will be understood that some cotton crisis is approach- 
ing, the more so since the new arrivals of the raw material fall 
upon unusually replete cotton stores.