In endeavouring to form an estimate of the actual losses of the year upon imports, I shall commence with the important article COTTON. We entered upon 1851 with a stock, according to Mr Burn's _Commercial Glance_, of 581,120 bales in the entire kingdom, in the hands of importers, spinners, and speculators, spinners being estimated by Mr Burn to hold 60,000 bales. Messrs G. Holt and Co. of Liverpool, calculate the quantity at 100,000 bales in the hands of _spinners and dealers_. The bulk of this stock had been purchased at the high prices which had ruled during the last four months of 1850; and, in the first week of January, the price of "fair upland," which may be taken as a standard, was 7⅞d. per lb. Such were the rates ruling in the countries of its growth, it could not have been bought there within at least ¼d. per lb. of that price. Although such stock would naturally find its way gradually into the market, and its place be supplied by fresh imports, and as there was a nearly similar one--estimated by Messrs Holt at 594,000 bales--left at the close of the past year, it will simplify the process of calculation, and at the same time be correct as to the general result, if I treat the stock of January 1851 as having borne the fall of the entire year. The price, then, of fair uplands having been, in the last week of December, 4⅞d. to 5d., and other sorts in nearly that proportion, there would be a reduction of from 2⅞d. to 3d. upon those American sorts which form the bulk of the consumption, and 2⅛d. to 2¼d. upon the next in importance. Bearing in mind that the prices on the 1st of January were not remunerative to the importer, I believe I am within the mark in fixing the loss at £5 per bale of 400 lb. average weight, which, upon the stock of 581,120 bales, amounts to the large sum of £2,905,600 sterling. We now come to the imports of the year, which were, of all kinds, into the United Kingdom, 1,903,506 bales. With respect to these, the first striking fact which presents itself, on a comparison of the prices current in this country and the cotton-growing countries, is that, throughout the whole of the year, the foreign purchases of our importing merchants were made at a large advance over the prices which could be realised on their arrival here. I have gone carefully through files of the most authoritative foreign circulars, and, with respect to American cotton particularly, the unvarying result has been to find prices considerably higher than in the British market. Thus, on the 4th of January, I find "middling to fair" cotton from the Atlantic ports, corresponding with our Liverpool classification of "fair upland," quoted in New York at 13⅞ to 14 cents per lb.; on the 15th, at 14 to 14¼ cents on the 22d, the same; and on the 29th, 13⅞ cents. Assume the average of the month to have been 14 cents, and allowing a penny per lb. for freight, commission, landing charges, &c., which I am assured is too little, the