As an offset against the deficit, the State possesses nineteen steamers and forty steel barges of the value of £100,000; Government establishments, which we may estimate at £500,000; arms, ammunition, goods, coal, and lumber, at £100,000; investments in the railway, telegraph, and commercial societies, and plantations, to the value of about £400,000—the whole of which aggregate £1,100,000. To these, which may be rightly taken as assets of the State, should be added the increment of the land which at present in some places sells at £80 the hectare, for factories and commercial purposes at £4 the hectare, and for agriculture at 8s. the hectare. If the State were offered for sale the value of the land made accessible to market by railway and steam communication would have to be considered. Beyond what has been specified as the State assets, consideration must be given to the now assured growth of the revenue. To-day, exclusive of the subsidies, it amounts to £470,602. When the State reaps the results of its generous aid to the planters of coffee, tea, cocoa, etc., to the railway, now completed, and to the commercial companies, who are now not restricted in their transport of goods and produce, there must necessarily be a material increase each year in the revenue. From all of which summary it does not appear to me that the position of the State is financially unsound; indeed, I am inclined to think it to be otherwise. His Majesty’s policy has been to start the State on lines that must end in prosperity, without regard to personal labour or personal cost, and by his munificent pecuniary advances to the railway, commercial societies, planters, timber merchants, and agriculturists, the result has been that capital to the amount of several millions sterling has gravitated to the Congo. Personally, he may never recover a penny of the £900,000 he devoted to the creation of the State, but to that he is indifferent. Whatever surplus the revenue may furnish will certainly be devoted to assist new enterprises, new railways, increase of shipping, telegraph lines—to anything, in short, that promises expansion of the resources of the State, and enhances the value of the legacy he proposes to bequeath to the people of whom he is King and loyal servant. An honourable friend of mine has lately delivered a lecture before the Statistical Society with a view to prove that the Congo State was financially a failure. It would be useless, in this place, to do more than present the balance sheet of four African territories, and ask him and those who agree with him to give it a fair consideration.