The pilgrimage to Mecca henceforth assured and facilitated to all Mussulmans; an immense impulse given to steam navigation and to distant voyages; the countries on the coasts of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia, the eastern coast of Africa, India, the kingdom of Siam, Cochin China, Japan, the vast empire of China, with its more than 300,000,000 of inhabitants, the Philippine Islands, Australia and that immense Archipelago, towards which the emigration from old Europe is directed, brought nearer by nearly 3000 leagues to the Mediterranean Sea and the north of Europe: such are the sudden and immediate effects of cutting through the Isthmus of Suez. It has been calculated that the European and American navigation, _viâ_ the Cape of Good Hope and _viâ_ Cape Horn, may carry on a yearly traffic of 6,000,000 tons, and that on the half only of that tonnage the world’s commerce would realize a benefit of 150,000,000 francs annually, by sending the ships _viâ_ the Gulf of Arabia. There is no doubt that the canal of Suez will occasion a considerable increase of tonnage; but in reckoning only upon 3,000,000 tons, there will yet be an annual produce of 30,000,000 francs by collecting dues of ten francs per ton, which might be reduced in proportion to the increase of navigation. After having indicated the financial advantages of the undertaking, let us consider its general political advantages, which we believe to be equally incontestable. Everything that results in contributing to the extension of the commerce, of the industry, and of the navigation of the world, is especially advantageous to England, a power which stands foremost amongst all others from the importance of its navy, from the productions of its manufactories, and from its commercial relations. A deplorable prejudice, based upon the political antagonism which so long and so unhappily existed between France and England, has alone accredited the opinion that the opening of the canal of Suez, so useful for the interests of civilization and of the common weal, could damage those of England. The alliance of the two nations which rank highest in the scale of civilization, an alliance which has already proved the possibility of solutions hitherto reckoned impossible by vulgar tradition, will, amongst its other numerous benefits, allow us to investigate with impartiality this mighty question of the Canal of Suez, to form an exact estimate of its influence upon the prosperity of nations and to consider it heresy to believe, that an undertaking calculated to halve the distance between the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the globe, should not be suitable for Great Britain, the mistress of Gibraltar, Malta, the Ionian Islands, Aden, important stations on the east coast of Africa, India, Singapore, and Australia.