27 AUGUST 1870, Page 3

A correspondent of Tuesday's Times, after giving a minute account

of the attempts of France to inveigle Austria into an alliance, in which, as the writer asserts, France had very nearly succeeded, having really committed Von Beust so far that it was very difficult to get out of the affair with honour,—and of Prussia to inveigle Italy into alliance, neither scheme having, however, aucceeded, and the latter not having apparently come to anything at all,—goes on to moralize on the sins of diplomacy, and the narrow escapes diplomatists have of involving their country in needless wars, when they escape it at all. We don't quite see the moral. Because diplomatists have, like other men, narrow escapes -of making great blunders, and sometimes make them, could we -do without diplomatists ? Would Governments be less liable to -quarrel if they had no organized mode of ascertaining each other's -views? There is a great deal of mere verbal eloquence wasted .against diplomacy.