The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-27 00:00:00

CLIFTON SUSPENSION BRIDGE,

The directors in their report congratulated the
proprietors on the state of the works, and that
the bridge would be ready for public traffic
during the present autumn. The small balance
of capital which was deficient at the last half-
yearly meeting had been provided, and the direc•
tors were, consequently, enabled to avail themselves
of the borrowing powers of the company. The di-
rectors expressed their sense of the energy, skill,
and promptitude of the contractors, Messrs. Coch-
rane and Co., and the unwearied attention of the
resident engineer, Mr Airey. The report of the en-
gineers, Messrs. Hawkshaw and Barlow, stated
that sines the last:report the main chains, with the
suspension rods, longitudinal girders, and roadway
girders, had been completed. The flooring of the
roadway and the hand railing were in a forward
state, the building of the tollhouses had been com•
menced, and there was every reason to expect that
the bridge would be ready for traffic in the month
of October next.

Railway Traffic Returns for the Week.
Miles Opened. Receipts.
Railways. „......_.......-_,„..-...-...,
18e4. 1863. 1864. 1863.
X 4
Belfast and N. Counties.. ,„ 136 136 2,746 2.353
Belfast and County Down 49 49 783 735
Blyth and Tyne 2B 28 2,446 2,110
Bristol and Exeter
Caledonian ..... 252 241 20,014 17,8?0
Cambrian .. . -•.. ... ....... 01 84 2,101 1,688
Cockerpouilal -Work-ngton.. B+lB4 312 376
Cork and Bandon . 2O 20 357 371
Cork, Blackrock, & Passage... 64 61 263 261
Cork and Youghal „,...., 324 324 580 513
Cornwall 654 534 2,027 1.639
Deeside l7 17 552 413
Dublin & Belfast Junction 63 63 2,044 1.4-1
Dublin and Drogheda 75 75 2,284 1,897
Dublin and Meath
Dub. & Wicklow and Wextd 9ll 484 3,751 2,015
Furness, &c 5O So 3,416 2,810
Glasgow & South-Western
Gt. Eastern,Nrik.,&E.Union
Great Northern 353 363 32,709 31,871
Great North of Scotland 5B 58 1,797 2,328
Lit..Nortiin. & Westn. (Irel.) 714 714 465 46
9t.Southn. & Westn.(lrind.) 3874 3,511 8,356 9,874
Great Western 10564 10564 70,519 63,927
Hull and Ilornsea l3 - 227 -
Inverness & Aberdeen June 1064 86i 1,988 2,025
Inverness & Perth Junction 1194 - 3,030 -
Irish North-Western 145 145 1,698 1,777
Kent Coast 27 10 3,850 135
Lancashire & Yorkshire 403 3954 46,818 40,250
Limerick and Ennis..
Limerick and Foynes 261 261 114 100
Llanelly 461 461 739 780
London & North-Western
London and Blackwall 54 54 2,141 2,198
London & South-Western
Lond. Brighton, &S. Coast 267t 2504 23,876 22,965
London, Chatham, & Dover 721 724 8,391 6 536
Do. Metropolitan Extension 114 104 2,500 1,400
Man.,Shetlield,&Lincolnsh
Manch. S.Jun.&Altrincham 9l 94 1,487 1.307
3laryport and Carlisle
Metropolitan.
-31
34 2,076 1,514
.... _ _... ._ __

Midland (incl. N.-Western).. 641 641 49,574 16,115
l!ctidland Westn. of Irind... 262 2541} 4,732 4,849
Monkland _ 71} 711 1,739 1.565

Monmoutlish. Rail. & Canal.. 44 44 2,708 2,559
North British, }din., Perth
and Dundee
N-Eastern and Stock. & Danl 1095 1079} 65,28 60,049
North London 9 9 3,317 3, 83

North Staffordshire
254 252 8,466 8,676
Rhymney l9l 191 018 915
Scottish Central
Scottish North-Eastern l3B 138 6,695 6,320
Somerset and Dorset 66 391 988 4..9
South Devon
South-Eastern 306 306 28,397 29,631
Taff Vale 57 67 5,527 5,395
Ulster
Vale of C1wyd....... lO 10 289 289
Vale of Neath .
Waterford and Kilkenny 3l 31 412 361
Waterford and Limerick 77 77 3,534 1,359
West Cornwall 274 274 894 856
W.Hartlepool Harbr.&Rail 521 521 4,421 4,155
W'haven,Cleator4 Egrmut lO 7 693 598
Whitehaven Junction l2 12 1,059 762
Whitehaven ei Furness Jun 35 35 98/ 822
FOREIGN AND COLONIAL.

Au -----.strian B2B 828 35,053 32,015
Bahia and San Francisco ... • 7'5 - 120 -
Belgian Eastern J unction 261 2.14 319 277
Bombay, Baroda, & Cen. India 1851 1851 2,638 1,911
Buffalo and Lake Huron l6ll 161} - -
Detroit and Milwaukie lB9 185 4,321 3,031
Dutch Rhenish
Eastern Bengal - -
Eastorn of France...._.. 1135 1302 65,831 58,566
East Indian
Grand Trunk of Canada lO9O 1090 20,557 18,437
Great Central of Belgium lBO - 5,993 -
Great Indian Peninsula 553 435 8,350 6,327
Great Luxembourg 134 131 4,726 1,610
Great Southern of India
Great Western of Canada 345 315 10,032 8,667
Madras.
Madrid, 8 aragos s a SzAlicant . • 650 490 18,620 22,313
Northern of Canada - -
Northern of France 697 697 65,740 62,314
Norwegian Trunk
Ottoman
Paris, Lyons, & Meditcrna lBOl 1713 137, ,90 133,250
Paris and Orleans 1614 1101 71,229 15,902
Pernambuco 771 77. 624 638
Royal Danish 69 69 - -
Scinde..
South Austrian 1527 1484 51,494 50,059
Southern of France ...... 770 680 31,698 30,6; 7
Victorian 196 196 8,:390 7,035
Welland
West Flanders
W. and N.W. of France

Confederate Financial Prospects and Plans,

In the brilliant administration which we predict for the
new Confederate Secretary of the Treasury, it is only j us-
tice to Mr Momminger to remember that the most danger-
ous crisis in the financial situation was actually passed
wheu the reins of office were transferred, and that the
measures to which the Confederacy looks hopefully for
relief were already in successful operation, These measures,
forming in the aggregate a system of unprecedented cone-
prehensivenese, may be classed under two heads. Those
by which, under the double action of compulsory funding
and rigid taxation, the redundant currency is reduced
within manageable dimensions, had already, at the date of
the late secretary's report, commenced to exert their salu-
tary effect, as is proved by the enormous excess of the
appropriations under previous estimates over the actual
expenditure of the different departments of the Govern-
ment. The other class of measures, by which the foreign
commerce of the country is made au arm of the national
defence, have worked with even more rapid efficacy, as is
proved by the vigorous importation of Confederate cotton
into Liverpool and the present quotations of the Confe-
derate foreign loan, which even the news of a naval
defeat off Mobile cannot depress below double the mer-
chantable value of corresponding Federal securities. The
principle which underlies these measures is that the pre.
cious stores of cotton which the world outside is eager to
buy at even five times its price inside the blockade, are so
much sap and life-blood in the body politic, not only not to
be squandered, but to be rendered most efficiently available
for the public good. The Legislature reasoned that block-
ade-running was theoretically and practically a military
operation, and should be subject to the same laws. No one
dreams of supplying a camp or an army upon abstract
theories of political economy, and the Confederate country
is only a vast camp and the Confederate people a vast army.
It was a long time before the statesmen of the South, all edu-
cated in a sect militant of uncompromising free trade, could
bring themselves to acknowledge that there might be excep-
tions to their favourite rule, and that, while poison would
always be poison, it might at times be a necessary, and even
the only, remedy of a morbid frame. The interval of hesita-
tion did much mischief. It bled the confederacy for the ad-
vantage of adventurers who, while pocketing their spoils,
claimed to be public benefactors. It placed the credit of
the Government into the hands of men without credit, and
at the mercy of firms of straw. There is in the throes of
Every national crisis a brief period during which the con-
tractor or fournisseur is a patriotic hero, quickly followed
by a reaction which denounces him with equal vehemence
as a robber. A people which entered upon war of self-de-
fence with the determination that every man's life and
every woman's jewels should be the public property, if
necessary, was not likely to labour long under such a
fatal delusion. Where every one's devotion was exposed
to so crucial a test, sham pretensions to patriotism and
disinterestedness could not long endure. At the same
time the genius of the Southern people is so little prone to
centralisation that they were saved the error of falling into
all opposite extreme, and despising the genuine aid which
private enterprise, and skill, and experience could alone
afford. A middle ground was therefore occupied and
firmly held. The discovery had been made, and was
acted upon, that if private enterprise could probably run
the blockade, a great Government with a Treasury
Department to manage the financial transactions with a
War
Department to superintend transportation and
Storage, with a Navy Department to select vessels and
crews, with an astonishingly solid credit abroad, could at
least, do the same. But, while this discovery was acted
upon, private capital and private enterprise were not dn;-
cetera
ged from the competition, provided only that a reason-
able guarantee was given that for every bale of cotton pri-
vately exported there should be returned an equivalent of
practical utility. The result has been that the Confederate
armies were never better supplied, that the agents of the
Government buy at the lowest cash prices in European
markets what previously was paid at fabulous rates, that
the small foreign loan has been largely diminished by re-
demption, and, it is no secret to add, that a considerable
balance is actually accumulating abroad to the credit of the
Confederate Treasury. Never has the financial condition
of a belligerent country outside its owu boundaries been so
soundly prosperous—and to those who know this condi-
tion the rumours, periodically propagated by the enemy,
of another Confederate foreign war loan appear simply
ridiculeus. Tho only time that such a loan was even
thought of, when actually offered, was that to which Mr
Memmingor refers in his last report, when ho says that
military reverses had rendered it impracticable, for a reason
ho does not state, viz., that the three million loan was then
at a quotation at which the Confederate Government was
unwilling to discount its credit.
These principles of correnerciel legislation, under anoma-
lous cireutastancee, supp ortekt as they era by complete sue-