The nation imagines that Northern Nigeria is costing the Imperial Treasury something like £250,000 to £300,000 per annum. Nothing of the kind. The grants in aid from 1906 to 1909, inclusive, amounted to £1,220,000, or an average of £305,000. But against this must be set the direct profit to the revenues of the United Kingdom derived from the profit which the Mint makes upon the silver coin exported, in ever increasing quantities (and the process will go on extending), to the two Nigerias. The average yearly cost of silver in the last nine years has, I believe, varied between 2_s._ 0¾_d._ and 2_s._ 6⅞_d._ The coin at par value is issued at 5_s._ 6_d._ an ounce, and I am credibly informed that the profit to the Mint is considerably more than half the net import by Nigeria, seeing that half the face value of the coinage is greater than the cost of minting, plus maintenance of gold reserve and provision for remitting. The net export of coinage, virtually the whole of it silver, to the two Nigerias (_i.e._ the total exported _minus_ the coin returned) amounted from 1906 to 1909 to £981,582. If the profit of the Mint is taken at only 50 per cent., it will thus be seen that the nation is making a direct average profit of nearly £125,000 a year out of the two Nigerias, against an average of £305,000 paid to Northern Nigeria by way of a temporary grant in aid. To say, therefore, that Northern Nigeria is costing the British taxpayer a quarter of a million a year or more, is to make a statement which is not in accordance with fact. What the nation advances directly, it recoups itself for directly in part; without counting that these grants are in the nature of a capital investment. Let this grant under amalgamation be cancelled, and let the Imperial Government, on the other hand, foot the bill for the military expenditure (which, as we have seen, amounts to £260,000), looking upon it, say, for the next ten years as Imperial expenditure. Nothing would so alleviate the whole situation, while at the same time simplifying it, and, as has been shown, the actual disbursement of the nation on this item would be considerably less, even now, than what it would appear nominally to be, owing to the profit made by the Mint on the silver coin sent out.