again available for transport through a fertile country as far as Bammakoo, a distance of nearly 1,000 miles. An influential company offered to embark £30,000 in steamers and trading stations to carry out these oporations, stipulating for a subsidy of £6,000 per annum for five years, which they considered would be equivalent to sharing the loss on the first two or three years equally between the Government and the company. I regret to say, that although t is offer was approved by Lord Palmerston, and recommended for a loption by Lord Russell at the Foreign Office, in which department the matter originated the scheme was vetoed at the Treasury. I trust I may be excused for dwelling so long on the Niger enterprises, because it is impossible to overestimate the importance of that majestic river as the only available highway to the Mahomed in countries of the Soudan-populous, productive, and semi-civilized—the key to the regeneration of Africa. In concluson, I may be allowed to express a hope that the success which has at length crowned our efforts for the suppression of the slave trade on the west coast, may not lead to a premature withdrawal of the squadron and the relaxation of our vigilance-but rather that the same system may be extended to the east coast, so that a flourishing trade may be established there as it has been on the west-that we may press for inore strin gent treaties with Persia and Turkey, Egypt and Muscat, so that the seaborne slave trade may be stamped out wheresoever it may be foundand that although we cannot directly reach the inland slave trade it may be as effectually extinguished by the encouragement of steam navigation on the Niger. By these means it may be that the gloom which has for long ages settled upon this great continent, will, in our time, be lifted up, and the dawn of commerce, civilization, and Christianity be hailed througout the length and breadth of Africa. APPENDIX. 1.-RETURN OF THE NUMBER OF SLAVES EXPORTED FROM THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA II-TRADE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM WITH THE WEST COAST OF Africa. Ivory. Gold and silver in ported to United King om. given 8 par 2,000 {ately be ore 1858 114,000 1,558,000 1,0 0 101,000 1862 1 559,000 1,10 80 000 1,626,000 1,000 1,603,000 1,275, 00 1,000 Note-Average of ivory for ten years, from 1830 to 1840, 2,151 cwt. III.-PALM OIL IMPORTED INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM FROM THE WEST OOAST or AFRICA SINCE THE YEAR 1790. —SUMMARY OF THE TRADE WITH THE COLORED RACES OF AFRICA, INCLUDING BUL LION AND SPECIE. [Sams in this table given in round numbers,] Imports into Africa £1,373,000 767,0:0 8,00 Expor s f om A rica. 1,053,000 Memoranda. Ave of 8 years end'd 1866 4 1864 25,000 66 1866 Spain........ ..... 4,000 2000 66 4 Portugal. Holland............. Germany. Two opposite opinions are held in regard to the prospects of the money market in the immediate future. The more hopeful view is, that the spasms we have had during March, April, and June have inspired the business community with so much caution, and have tended so strongly to "prevent the inordinate inflation of credits, that there is more soundness and strength among the timbers and girders and buttresses of our financial edifice, and therefore less probability of any untoward catastrophe. The opposite opinion is, that the profits of business have for a long time been small and precarious, while the whole of our credit system is in a feverish, excitable condition, the money market, like a patient with depressed vitality, has suffered so much from recent shocks as to have less strength and elastic vigor to recuperate. The inference is that there cannot be much improvement for the present, and that we may have some great financial convulsive crash. Probably the most notable aspect of these various phases of public opinion in regard to the money market is the uncertainty which every one feels as to his conclusions. Never since the close of the war has such an anomalous state of things prevailed. Very few persons can be found who can give any reasonable connected explanation of the reasons why, contrary to all precedent and in defiance of the usual laws which are supposed to govern monetary affairs, the very season of the year when we usually have the easiest money market has witnessed a spasm so severe as that of the last week. Failing to explain the past, it is obvious that our business men are at fault in regard to what is to come, and when they attempt to forecast the events of the future they show a restless anxiety and an uncomfortable want of confidence which are equally paralyzing to industrial enterprise and adverse to commercial activity. * Items which have been estimated. Between the two opposing views to which we have just referred there is a third and more prevalent opinion, which, though less gloomy than the one and less hopeful than the other, is, perhaps, more free from errors and more broad in its analysis of the phenomena of the financial outlook. Thisopinion rests on the fact that the trouble in the money market does not arise from any great catastrophe which has impoverished the nation. or impaired any considerable part of its productive powers. It is impoɛsible to traverse any part of the United States, in the North or in the South, without the conviction that in all the elements of material wealth there is a gratifying and rapid advance. Railroads are being extended, new manufactories, residences, and other buildings are rising up around us, and wherever we go in agricultural districts or in manufacturing centres there is offered to the eye the same evidence of investment of capital in productive enterprises. In fact it is this very conversion of floating capital into fixed capital, to which we have again and again pointed as one of the dangers of the financial situation. M n hs ago we predicted that trouble would come from this cause, and we appealed to history and to experience to show that, both in England and in this cour.❤ try, seasons of rapid conversion of floating capital into fixed forms never fail to disturb the loan market and to deplete that reservoir of loanable floating capital, from which the banks and lending institutions supply tle wants of commercial borrowers. 1 The second point insisted on is connected, not with capital, but with the currency, by means of which the movements of capital between lender and borrower are kept lively and elastic. It is a law of finance that when too much currency is afloat the movements of capital are too active and lead to inflation and speculative mischiefs, and pave the way for subsequent depression, just as inordinate excitement and fever in the huma organism brings on languor, depression and weakness. When, on the other hand, the volume of currency is too small, the active energies of business are paralysed, and spasms and convulsions of greater or less extent seldom fail to supervene. Now, it is for this reason that contraction of the currency produces so much harm, except it be done at the right time and in the right way. And there are three facts which in this connection should be steadily kept in view. The first is, that in consequence of the great number of small farmers who are producing the Southern crops, a more ample volume of currency is needed to move these crops. Sixty millions of currency went South during the early months of this year, one-half of which has not returned, and perhaps will never make its appearance here again, except as worn-out notes, to be replaced by new currency. Such a heavy depletion of the circulating current could not possibly take place without producing trouble. Second y, we have had the further absorbtion of currency into the Sub-Treasury, which was perhaps unavoidable for reasons to which we adverted last week; and thirdly, we find that the banks of this city are unusually poor in currency reserve. They hold no more than $49 612,000 in greenbacks and greenback certificates, while the Treasury itself has but nineteen millions of currency in all its depositories throughout the country. Last June the Treasury held thirty millions and ur city banks seventy-two milions. Thus we see the aggregate is now less than that of last year by the vast sum of thirty-four millions of dollars. We need offer no farther evidence of the vast extent to which the circulating medium has been absorbed. Now, what is the practical inference from all this? The most impor tant conclusion undoubtedly is, that our monetary troubles d n arise from our growing poorer. We are growing richer as a nation; and the present troes and spasms which convulse the money market now an hen are premonitory, not of weakness and dec: dence, lut, like the morbid troubles and temporary maladies incident to infancy and youth, they give the promise of a healthy growth and a more vigorous prosperity when they shall have passed away. They remind us that we are a vigorous, young nation, and are suffering some of the troubles of youth. It is clear that the monetary derangement which troubles us is due rather to superficial defects in our financial machinery than to any fatal mischiefs which Jurk deep in the vitals of the body politic and threaten its growth, its permanence or its progress. If, then, we scarcely dare to hope for quite as swift a recuperation as the more hopeful observers predict, we are quite sure that the croakers will now, as heretofore, turn out to be false prophets THE BANK CONVENTION. On Wednesday the National Banks held a convention at the St. Nicholas II tel, in this city, and delegates were present from almost every State in the Union. The object of this meeting was to organiz a voluntary as-ociation comprehending all the National Bunks in the United States for the purpose of enabling these institutions to act together as a unit in matters of common concern. The organization has been du'y made and the association, for good or for evil, is now in full operation. Some of the leading bankers in New York and other financial centres have long been of the opinion that to promote the internal efficiency of the banks all over the country, there should be between them some closer bonds, some more inti nate union, than is established by the National Currency law, and by the Banking Bureau at Washington. To carr ot this purpose several meetings have been convened, and notwithstanding ta |