The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-22 00:00:00

lortign Cforrtsgonbtutt.

FRANKFORT, March 19.
THE instalment of Prussia at the table of the Con-
ferences has given great satisfaction to the Germans
of every shade of opinion. Although the " parti de
la Croix" claims the credit for this mark of respect,
and alleges it as a proof of increasing ascendancy
over the antagonists of Gotha, yet it is not disowned
that the latter, by their steady efforts to uphold Ger-
manic unity and to keep Prussia at the head of the
movement, have mainly contributed to the influence
of the country throughout the Confederation. To a
certain extent the " parti de la Croix " has lost by
this apparent gain, for every augmentation of im-
portance, purely national and Germanic, weakens the
present predominance of Russia. It must be well un-
derstood that the instruments of St. Petersburg work at
a consolidation of interest exclusively Prussian, as dis
tinct from German; since, on crossing the higher Elbe,
that same party—de la Croix—becomes opposed to the
substantiality of German unity, " Divide et impera"
being the principle of the dictation to which it con
sents to yield. This is the real cause of contention
betwixt the "de la Croix" and Gotha factions. The
former maintain themselves to be the servants of the
King only ; the latter give a ready obedience to the
Constitution, with the King as its chief magistrate
and exponent. It can be well imagined, therefore,
with what enthusiasm the speech of Mr. Disraeli on
Friday last has been received throughout constitu-
tional Germany. It was taken as the embodiment
of a principle, the declaration of a fact, contended
for by the Gotha party with honourable perseverance
for years. It was affirmed in plain terms, that, the
preliminaries of peace having been settled, Prussia
had a right to a voice in the discussion of European
affairs, and that her value at the conferential assem-
bly was twofold—from integral position, and from
being considered to represent German interests by
the Germans themselves. To this Germanic repre-
sentation Mr. Disraeli asserted that Austria could
not pretend—that the elements of that country were
gregarious, impossible of amalgamation, and difficult
of restraint—and that the slender archiducal territory,
according the privilege of the Dietic station, could
not bestow that Germanic nationality with which
Prussia was directly endowed. It is barely possible
to have condensed in a few words principles of graver
importance to Central Europe. The effect in Ger-
many has been instantaneous as that of an electric
current upon the hopes and spirits of a constitu-
tional party that demands respect for the integrity of
its objects, and for the sobriety with which just claims
are respectfully but firmly advocated. The speech is ac-
counted to be an acknowledgment of German unity as
a fact; and the trite expressions, simple, yet charged
with augury, bear evidence of a thorough intimacy with
those mainsprings of German polity of which the
majority of English journals seem to have an im-
perfect cognisance. Against extraneous influence,
especially Austrian, the Gotha partisans have laboured
to concentrate national hostility. They have suc-
ceeded. But any one, in the smallest degree in
stracted in the " mocks operandi," will not gainsay

that the centre of the movement, and the guiding
spirits possessed of party confidence, have had a
Prussian location and a Prussian origin. Without
Prussian agency, the unity of Germany would have
no inherent attraction—would be devoid of political
gravity. Had the recognition of this national
"status" been enunciated by an ordinary member of
Parliament, it must always have commanded atten-
tion. In emanating, however, from the leader of the
English Conservatives, from one who will probably
soon occupy a foremost position in the coun-
cils and Government of England, it acquires a
solidity, of which the value has been gratefully
recognised by all favorable to German nationality.
The birth of the Imperial Prince of France has
been regarded with a feeling more allied to gratified
curiosity and expectation than to a deeper motive.
There is no German interest that can be attached to
tLe event beyond an additional pledge for the forth-
coming of peace, and the opportunity that a return
to commercial order will give to unlimited specula-
tion. The higher commercial enterprises of Ger-
many revolve upon principles held in high honour at
the Hombourg Kursaal.
The discomfiture of Austria on the subject of the
Bessarabian frontier will not be lessened by the suc-
cess of the Kustendjie canal. This project, now cer-
tain of fulfilment, will in great measure decrease the
value of the Delta cession, and Ismail, with the
fortresses and islands at the mouth of the Danube,
will be stripped of their former guardianship of the
river commerce. The Danube, after a course of
1,547 miles, enters the Black Sea through five
channels—Kilia, Sulina, Kedrillo, Portessa, and
Istowa Bogsi ; and the volume of water, charged with
alluvial matter, moving forward in an unbroken mass,
is plainly discernible at a distance of forty miles
from the shore. Avowedly the navigation of the
river is free, according to the stipulations of the
Congress of Vienna, but the liberty of egress and
ingress was essentially demolished by the treaty of
Adrianople. Previous to that arrangement the
Pruth was the absolute limit to the Ottoman and
Russian empires, and &tits junction with the Danube
the Russian boundary continued on the left bank of
the fortresses of Ismail and Kilia and the upper
mouths of the stream. Subsequently, and according
to the provisions of that treaty, the line of demarca-
tion crossed the Danube at the confluence of the
Pruth, and rested on the right bank to the mouth of
the Canal of St. George. By this cession, styled by
the Russian negotiators to be " a mere correction of
the frontiers," all the islands formed by the Delta
or branches of the Danube were declared to belong
to Russia. Former treaties had provided that the
accumulation of sand at the mouths of the Kilia,
Sulina, and St. George's channels, brought down by
the partial floods and freshets, were to be constantly
removed, and tolls for that purpose and for the
repairs of the Phanar and coast-forts were duly
levied. After the treaty of Adrianople the channels
were neglected by the Russians—sandbars were
formed, impediments such as sunken vessels and
timber rafts were purposely contrived, and thus the
navigation of the river was seriously, if not alto•
gether, obstructed. The stagnation of this Danu-
bian trade immediately benefitted the port of
Odessa, and the supplies of corn from the rish
Moldavian and Wallaehian districts were suppressed
to secure a monopoly to the Odessian and Bessara-
bian markets. But the remedy of the riverain ob-
structions, so cunningly devised, is of easy
appliance.
At Rassova, a Bulgarian village thirty miles below
Silistria, the Danube bends from east to due north,
as far as Galatz, and then turns again to its northern
direction by Ismail and Kilia to the Black Sea.
This coarse, from Rassova to the Phanar or light-
house at the Sulina mouth, is 180 miles. But at
Rassova the distance from the point of the river to
Kustendjie, on the Black Sea, barely exceeds forty
miles. A canal, therefore taking tnat line would be
a saving of 140 miles of difficult and uncertain navi-
gation, would supersede the constant and heavy ex-
penses falling upon the trade by tolls to provide
against the dangers of the passage at the Tchatal
point near Ismail, and the shifting sandbars at the
Sulina mouth, and would, at all times and seasons,
insure a ready access for the merchandise of the
Danube to the waters of the Black Sea. The line of
the canal has been surveyed and reported to be easy
of construction, and the cost of the undertaking,
estimated at something less than a million sterling,
is to be borne by England, France, and Austria, in
shores of 325,0001. each. By this canal the supply
of grain from Moldavia and Wallachia, where corn is
used as fuel for want of purchasers, would abun-
dantly furnish the English markets, would attract
colonisation for labour, which is deficient, fertilise
the uncultivated steppes of Moldavia, enrich the im-
poverished exchequers of the principalities, and, by
the reciprocal advantages of commerce, would enable
the shivering labourer to exchange his ragged
garment of skins for the warmer broadcloths of
England. It would also give to England and
France a vested interest in those localities, whisk

270

neither the one nor the other would be slow to im-
prove. J. E. L.

BRUSSELS, March 20.
No sympathy exists between Belgium and France,
more especially the France of the Empire. When
the telegraphic despatch conveyed the news of the
birth of Prince Napoleon Eugene, no cordial wel-
come hailed the announcement, and for once the
ultramontane Jesuit, the Nonconformist, and adhe-
rent of the Dutch dynasty, the pseudo hero of
1830, the Bourbon Royalist, and the Orleanist pre-
tender, one and all, fraternised on this subject with
the Red Republican and Socialist. A great blow has
been dealt to the " Absolutist" and Red Rapublican
parties, and the future of Belgium is not judged to
be made more agreeable by the advent of the Impe-
rial Prince, by this accession of strength to the
foundation of the Napoleonic dynasty. But politics
are one thing ; the outpouring of malevolence
is another. The first may be respected, notwith-
standing the extravagance of opinion ; whereas the
other can never be advanced on public or other
grounds, as a basis of action, with any plea of justi-
fication or of right. In the dislike, amounting to a
far stronger term, which the higher orders in Bel-
gium express openly, and on all occasions, for the
person of the Imperial mother, there is something
marvellously akin tl the insanity of folly. No cause
of offence can have been given. A beautiful woman,
even divested of the splendour of a crown, claims an
allegiance from " les braves," and receives the uni-
versal and noble assurances of fealty by the law of
social order and of nature. These canons of civili-
sation have in this instance been disobeyed, and the
revolt against the better nature of man is little
creditable, and still less chivalrous.

But the child is born, and that Imperial infant
permits the beautiful and Imperial mother to re-
spond to Belgian discourtesies with the beaming
smile of happiness and contentment. The anti-Gallic
ebullitions, characteristically Belgic, are fearfully
unwise, and perhaps, in a future sense, may prove
lamentably prejudicial.

E. R.

Inept an Colonial 3nttiligtut.

FR INCE.
BIRTH OF AN IMPERIAL PRINCE.

The accouchement of the Empress of the French
took place at a quarter past three o'clock on last
Sunday morning, when she was safely delivered of a
Prince.

The first pains of labour were felt as early as six
o'clock on Saturday morning. From that moment
till the hour of her delivery she suffered, and at times
severely. On Saturday afternoon, during a remis-
sion of pain, the Empress arose and walked about her
apartment, leaning on the Emperor's arm. Many per-
sons of the crowds in the gardens of the Tuileries,
it is said, saw her through the windows of the apart-
ment. During the afternoon and evening of Satur-
day, so violent were the pains that the accoucheurs
thought the moment of birth was at hand. For
twelve hours more, and twenty-two hours in all,
her sufferings continued, till at length, a little
before three o'clock on Sunday morning, birth
was pronounced to be imminent, and the
great dignitaries of State were immediately ushered
into the chamber. The sight of so many persons
alarmed the Empress, and checked the action of
nature. In a few minutes the Empress was safely
delivered of a fine boy ; the child was imme-
diately presented to the Emperor, who in turn
presented it to the great officers of State. The
prods verbal of its birth was then registered, and
the officers of State retired.

So serious was the effect of these strangers sud-
denly crowding into the Empress's room, and so cri-
tical to the safety of the child, that, according to the
Indipendance Beige, the birth alive of the Imperial
Prince was owing
solely to those extreme resources which Science confides
in such cases to the hands of her representatives. Tne
roeps has left on the face of the Imperial Prince a few
plight traces, which will speedily disappear.
A vast number of presents were sent up from
the provinces to the Empress, and among them
were some singular things. One was an encrmous
jar of honey for the child, while another, from an old
woman, consisted of a well worn and not over clean
girdle, with a letter from the donor, stating that she
had worn it for eleven successive confinements, and
had been safely delivered of a boy on each occasion,
so that she thought the Empress might wish to
have it for good luck.

The Imperial infant is described as rosy, plump,
well made, fully devel3ped, and with a surprising
abundance of chestnut-coloured hair, resembling his
father's. So undeniable is the size of the young