ng an increase of 2,916,000 fr. on
1857-8. The items which show an improvement are: import duty on foreign
sugar, 12,020,000 fr.; duty on potable liquors, 8,439,000 fr.; postage,
3,462,000 fr.; sundry duties and receipts, 2,864,000 fr.; import duty on
sundry merchandize, 2,697,000 fr.; salt duties, 1,496,000 fr.; sale of
tobacco, 1,471,000 fr.; import duty on corn, 577,000 fr.; navigation
dues, 557,000 fr.; stamp duties, 521,000 fr.; customs' export duties,
425,000 fr.; money orders, 185,000 fr.; transit charge on foreign
letters, 26,000 fr. Those which have fallen off are registration duties,
15,036,000 fr.; duty on beetroot sugar, 6,286,000 fr.; sundry customs'
receipts, 1,489,000 fr.; sale of gunpowder, 597,000 fr. The increase of
revenue in 1859, as compared with 1857, was 41,931,000 fr."

These returns were no doubt coloured, as French official reports
generally are; but, if correct, showed that the financial resources of
France were far inferior to those of England.

A variety of irritating topics were got up in France, and continued
to be so discussed in the press, with the connivance of the French
government, that the minds of the people of both countries became
inflamed with anger, and a disposition to adjust differences of
opinion and policy by the sword, eagerly advocated by the French, was
reluctantly adopted by the English. The French emperor, finding that
the English alliance had again become indispensable to him, silenced
the aspersers of his ally, or directed the same journals to uphold the
alliance they had so bitterly and pertinaciously decried. The creation
of a ship-canal across the isthmus of Suez was one of the most popular
themes of French vituperation. A French company desired to carry out
this object, or at all events to gain _grants of territory in Egypt_
for that ostensible purpose. The demands made for territorial concession
upon the pasha would have given the French government in Egypt a hold
upon that country subversive of its independence, and of the rights
of the Porte, most menacing to British rule in India, and dangerous to
Europe. Even if the scheme for the ship-canal were never executed, no
one doubted that France would make use of the territory granted for that
purpose to consolidate power in Egypt, England successfully opposed the
concession to a French company of any portion of the Egyptian territory.
Russia, Austria, and Prussia, from jealousy of England, and especially
of her Ea