Lastly, the large purchases of cereals for exportation necessitate the sending of an unusual amount of specie into the provinces ; and much of this is in gold, which has to be bought in Constantinople, or imported from abroad. Caimés are only needed for operations in the capital and its neighbourhood, whilst specie is required for the whole of the great commercial transactions throughout the empire.

At the present time, according to the scheme promulgated in April, only 180 millions of additional of caimé have been the sum on the market; but within the next six months the balance of 820 millions has to be issued, besides that representing the forced loan; and of this, at least 180 millions will be added to those circulating in the capital. In the face of this, how can we hope for a fall in the price of gold? The government has, in fact, begun at the wrong end. The new caimés are to be redeemable from revenues specially hypothecated to the Commission ; but it is notorious that no surplus revenue exists for the purpose, but has to be created. That should have been, therefore, the first step. The publication of a budget would have shown the public that such surplus revenue really did exist. As it is, the treasury is at the mercy of every speculator who chooses to spread reports of fabulous issues of caimé; and these reports find but too ready credence. The issue of numbered and dated notes, an easy process, and those to be issued through the commission, would have been a partial check to such rumours; but this simple step was not adopted, so that everything is in favour of depreciation, and it becomes more and more difficult to check the downward tendency. Of this we are certain, that it is only by the adoption of measures to strengthen its credit-measures which we have indicated above, and of which we spoke in detail last week-that the further rise in the price of gold can be checked. No tampering with the market can produce any further effect than that of increasing the distrust, and of expending, uselessly, funds which the government should husband with the greatest care.

DOUBTFUL STATE OF AMERICAN FINANCE.

THE resumption of gold remittances to the United States is a singular but wholly unimportant fact. The certainty is just as strong as ever that if the war continues not merely shall we witness a drain of specie from that country, but a suspension of cash payments. The government expenditure is at the rate of a hundred millions sterling per annum, to say nothing of the augmented outlay of each individual State, or of the cost sustained by the Confederates, while 700,000 at least of the able-bodied population of the country are withdrawn from manufactures and agriculture, and have become consumers instead of producers. With an expenditure of only about £15,000,000 per annum, and with all their people engaged to the utmost in industrial pursuits, the United States were not usually found year by year to accumulate any exceptional stock of the precious metals; and the idea that under their changed circumstances, and with forty millions sterling, or nearly one-half of their usual exports, cut off by the cotton blockade, they may now, for the first time, begin to fill their coffers

and to draw away the supplies of other regions, would appear the most extraordinary assumption that could be entertained. If the United States can show that the way to attract the precious metals is by quadrupling their expenditure, withholding 50 per cent. of their ordinary exportable produce, and calling an eighth part of their adult population from the plough and the loom to the barrack, we shall soon have every country in the world plunging into war in order to enjoy the excitement, profusion, and idleness that are thus to prove the most rapid causes of national wealth. Yet the American journals have some dreams of the kind, for they are predicting continuous arrivals of gold from this country, and, while they have an acute sense of the horrors we are to sustain during the winter from the want of cotton, they can see nothing but a plethora of resources at home, which should induce all people to subscribe as fast as possible to each twomonthly issue of an additional ten millions of Federal stock. The amount of sovereigns now being sent from Liverpool by each steamer will, of course, be cited as a confirmation of the new theory, and will stimulate all the classes who are revelling in the national funds to entertain anticipations even still more wild of the continuance of this splendid example of inexhaustible means, which, in fact, increase in proportion as they are drawn upon. Meanwhile, however, the less ardent European would prefer to watch the experiment to the end. The French demand for grain and flour will soon diminish, and in the course of a few weeks the exportation of those articles will also be reduced by the closing of the canals. Even if the whole crop could be sent forward it would not be easy to see how a total worth forty or fifty millious could suffice not only to meet an expenditure of two or three times that amount, but to create a balance against Europe that must be remitted in gold; and yet beyond breadstuffs there is little else we can look for. The inference, therefore, must be, that the present financial felicitations at New York are like those of a spendthrift who, having been momentarily put in funds by a sudden realization of his best assets, wholly loses sight of the fact that these receipts have not borne any relation to the actual yearly course either of his income or liabilities.

SUPPLY OF INDIAN COTTON.

THE future supply of cotton, now that the importations from America have for a time at all events been so materially curtailed, is a question which is absorbing almost universal attention. The following remarks on the cultivation of that staple, and the probable quantity that may be produced in India, from the Calcutta Englishman of the 23rd of September, are of importance at the present moment :—

"Our reports from all parts of the country continue to predict favourably of the expected cotton crop of this year; indeed, we gather from all sides that an area considerably in excess of previous years is already under cotton cultivation: great efforts are being made in the cotton-growing districts of the Madras and Bombay Presidencies particularly, to enable them to meet any call that may be made upon them for their staple. Tinnevelly has perhaps done more in this respect than any other district, with the exception of Dharwar. The cotton-growing districts bordering in the Godavery River are also reported to have considerably increased the area usually devoted to the cultivation; and the facilities offered by the river for transporting it to the coast will render any increase from this quarter highly desirable, not only as offering a prospect of large returns

for money invested, from the cheapness of water carriage to the coast, but from the early date at which it will be available for the same reason. In Tinnevelly great and successful efforts have been made not only to improve the staple derived from indigenous seed (to which much attention has been paid in recent years) but to introduce foreign varieties. The experiments which have been tried of late in nearly every cotton-growing district of India have generally tended to prove that provided the seed be obtained by the grower early in the year, or as shortly as possible after it has been taken from the parent plant, there is no variety which will not thrive and yield a plentiful crop. In Central India the varieties which appear to promise best are those raised from Egyptian and New Orleans seed, while in the coast districts Sea Island seed is mostly preferred. Doubtless the success attending on the cultivation of this description of cotton in Dharwar has had much to do with the favour it now obtains in other maritime localities. In the north-west provinces a trial has been given, chiefly by European zemindars, to all the varieties of foreign cotton seed; and where attention to the cultivation and a knowledge of requirements of the plant have been brought to bear, success has universally resulted, except in some few cases, when the seed obtained has from age or other causes been deficient in germinating power. Unfortunately, from ignorance and inattention on the part of some who have been supplied with seed, failure has attended on the attempt to introduce foreign seed, and, as the natives are always averse to innovation, they not unnaturally ignore the success attendant on the efforts of some, and adopt as proof of the unfitness of the climate and soil for the cultivation of foreign varieties the failure of others. It must not, however, be overlooked, that in the north-west provinces there are many zemindars, planters, and ryots yet living who remember the days in which screw and cleaning houses existed in those districts, and when a flourishing trade in cotton was carried on with England, and the ruin which the introduction into that country of American slave grown cotton entailed on all concerned in its cultivation and production. It is not unnatural, therefore, that men who have once suffered so severely, and whose tales of losses they have met with have been listened to by those about them, should not only hesitate themselves, but cause others to do so, in re-entering on the cultivation of a staple, for the permanent demand for which they have no guarantee. To successfully carry on a trade in cotton no inconsiderable outlay is requisite. Gins and screw-houses must be established, and large advances made. And when, before this can be accomplished, the present fatricidal war now waging in America may be terminated, and American slave-grown cotton again find its way to English markets, to the exclusion, as before, of all Indian-grown staple, it becomes a grave question as to whether the possible return is likely to counterbalance the possible loss.

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This is a question more for Manchester than for India to decide. If she is willing to invest a portion of the millions she says she is prepared to spend on Indian cotton, in the establishment of screw houses, and agencies for the purchase of the staple, and will show herself thoroughly in earnest, she will obtain as much cotton as she can require, That she will do so, even without this, we believe; but the burnt child dreads the fire, and the former cotton growers and exporters of the north-west will be chary on entering again the furnace that has once already nigh destroyed them, We are led to believe that Oude will not be behindhand in the cultivation of cotton, and we may fairly expect a good return from that important province. From the report of the administration of this province for the year 1860-61, we gather that two large zemindars of Oude,

Rajah Roostum Sah and Maharajah Man Singh have entered con amore on the cultivation of cotton from foreign seed. The latter has this year obtained a large supply of seed from Calcutta, for the reception of which he has caused land to be carefully prepared. Last year Rajah Roostum Sah, notwithstanding the very late receipt of seed from Calcutta, which was the cause of its meeting with very limited use, produced from the seed he obtained a very fair specimen of cotton. Thus encouraged, we may confidently look for a vigorous prosecution of the undertaking entered on, and for a good supply from this province of cotton raised from foreign seed. "Meanwhile our advices from up-country assure us that one reason that so little confidence is felt in the cotton-growing districts of the north-west in the manifesto published by Manchester and the agents of her Cotton Supply Association (all of which call on India to supply her with cotton she can no longer obtain from America) is, that while agents are travelling throughout the country calling on the cultivators to grow cotton, there are at the present time, in the depôts on the Ganges, upwards of 50,000 bales, for which the holders can find no purchasers. A large portion of this cotton comes no doubt from Nagpore, but nevertheless there must be enough of it the property of persons in the north-west to make them very doubtful of the real existence of the urgent demand so loudly trumpeted forth, when they see these 50,000 bales of the required commodity allowed to rot in the warehouses which contain them."

TRADING EMBARRASSMENTS AT MONTEVIDEO.

THE failure of the firm of Cruzel y Fernandez, with liabilities exceeding a million and a quarter of dollars, it is said, in a private letter thence, has produced quite a consternation and general distrust. Their assets are variously stated to yield from 20 per cent. down to 5 per cent. The unprivileged creditors are probably more likely to receive the latter than the former dividend. The principal sufferers are, the Bank of Maua and Co., $90,000; Commercial Bank, $120,000; F. Gomez, $30,000; Etchegarey, $90,000; Civils, $40,000; Despouy and Co., $35,000; and creditors in London, upwards of £20,000 sterling. The privileged debts amount to about £50,000. The bankrupts were salerderistas, and transacted by far the largest business of that kind in Montevideo; but they were also exporters on a large scale, and importers of Havannah produce. The losses sustained by many of the exporters of hides and jerked beef from the River Plate for a considerable time past must have been large, and a great want of confidence prevails. It is to be hoped the trade will be carried on in future on more correct principles than for some time past. Eager speculation has been the rule, and the facility granted by the large London houses to men of limited means has been no inconsiderable element in producing this deplorable state of things. We have just received news of the fall of heavy rains in the country, which has tended much to relieve our serious fears of a severe seca. It is to be hoped the rains will have extended to Buenos Ayres, where they have for some time past been suffering to a severer extent than ourselves.

THE IMPORTATIONS OF WHEAT AND FLOUR.

THE returns of our importations of wheat and flour for the eight months ending the 31st of August, show that their total value must have been little short of twenty millions sterling, against seven millions in the corresponding period of 1860, and about eight millions in 1859. The proportions derived from the respective sources of supply were as follows:

As regards wheat, it thus appears that the greatest fluctuations occur in the imports respectively from France and the United States. In 1859 the position of the two countries as contributors to our wants was exactly opposite to that which they now occupy. In 1859 France supplied more than a third of our whole requirements, while the amount from America was merely nominal. America has now supplied 36 per cent., and France only 3 per cent. Of our supplies of flour the following have been the

Here, again, the command of the trade has fluctuated chiefly between France and America, France having supplied in 1859, 91 per cent. of our whole importations, and America only 1 per cent., while this year America has sent us 61 per cent., and France only 9 per cent.

Of other grain-namely, barley, oats, pease, beans, and Indian corn, our importations this year have been of a value little short of ten millions, while last year they were under eight millions, and in 1859 under five millions. It is from the abundance and superiority of these crops in the harvest just secured that we shall especially experience a diminution of the necessity for payments to foreign countries during the next twelve months.