to Switzerland, as
both stand under the one head of Germany and the Rhine. In the Belgian
tables, Switzerland does not enter at all until 1841, therefore they can
afford no materials for the comparison with former years. From the
French tables, more scientifically constructed, correct information may
be gathered, so far as the commerce with and through France. But we are
wanting nearly altogether in materials for estimating the land traffic
of Switzerland with Germany and Italy. Taking the French tables alone,
it may be collected, however, that the commerce of Switzerland has been
considerably on the increase with and through France. In the cotton
trade, for example, the imports of raw cotton in transit through Havre,
for Switzerland, had already augmented from 2,973,159 kilogrammes in
1830, to 6,446,703 kilogrammes in 1836; and again, from the latter term,
to 104,842 metrical quintals in 1840, which declined to 77,534 in 1841.
Our returns do not enable us to state with exactitude whether the whole,
or what portion, of the transit of cotton for the two latter years was
destined for Switzerland, because our French tables do not, as up to
1836, embrace the details of the separate transit trade to each country,
but only the total quantities. The increase of imports by way of France
must not, however, be taken to all the extent as an absolute increase,
nor can we conclude, with any assurance, that it was an increase upon
the whole. For, in consequence of some important reductions in the dues
agreed to by France in order to favour and attract the entire transit
trade of Switzerland through its territory, the cottons formerly passed
to Switzerland through Rotterdam and Antwerp by the Rhine, have been
sent by way of Havre. Thus, on consulting Mr Porter's Tables of Trade,
we find that the twenty-one millions of lbs. of cotton re-exported to
Holland and Belgium in 1837, had decreased, in 1840, to little more than
twelve millions. What proportion of the twenty-one millions was destined
for Switzerland, there are no means of ascertaining, except from the
returns in detail of the Rhine navigation, the existence of which, in
any available shape, may be doubted. Assuming that the whole of the
cotton passing in transit through France was for Switzerland, we find a
quantity equal to about seventeen millions of pounds, in 1841, as
required for the supply of the cotton manufacture; or say, on a rough
average of 1840 and 1841, nineteen and