my sooner acknowledging the receipt of your valued favor of the 17th inst.

If the intervention of Congress is to be sought to regulate interState freight traffic, your suggestion, that a conference be had between the representatives of the various roads and the commercial bodies in the several seaboard cities, is a very wise and proper one. It will give me great pleasure to take part in such conference.

It is certainly desirable that the rail-roads should be in harmony with the people and with the various commercial organizations of the country. Their success undoubtedly depends upon that of the business interests which they serve. I believe that it would be found, upon a careful and impartial inquiry, that much of the discrimination in favor of through traffic, now charged against the rail-roads, proceeds from the great anxiety on the part of such companies to protect the commercial interests with which they are more immediately identified. I hope, whatever may be done, may prove satisfactory to the public, as well as protective of the interests of the roads.

Mr. SMITH moved that the above correspondence be entered in full on the minutes of the Chamber.

Mr. ELLIOTT F. SHEPARD seconded the motion and said:

That during his recent visit to Europe he had learned something of the charges for handling and storing grain in England and France, and the Chamber might feel great satisfaction in having it called to their attention, that the rates for the same services were very much less in this port than in those countries. The storage and handling of grain in Liverpool is a monopoly, in the control of the Mersey Docks and Harbor Board, who have expended the enormous sum of several millions sterling in preparation for the business, which sum hangs as a cloud of debt over the city, the interest thereon being a city liability, although the net income of the Board is applied towards its payment. There the charges are tucked on at every conceivable turn, and require a book of some 78 pages for their elucidation.

I was shown a statement of the cost of receiving, elevating, storing for seven days, banding, weighing, examining and delivering grain at Liverpool, and the aggregate is 48. 1d., or $1 per ton of 2,240 lbs. The charge in this port by the rail-road companies for equivalent services is the remarkably low figure of c. per bushel of 60 lbs., or 94c. per ton of 2,240 lbs., with 10 days storage; and the cost of the elevators is not a city debt, and the interest thereon is not a city liability. So by the liberal and wise policy of the railroads, our farmers and grain merchants receive prompt and ample business facilities at about one-eleventh of the charge in the principal grain port of Great Britain. If we turn to France, we find

that in Havre, her principal grain port, the cost of grain is increased to what would here be considered a fabulous figure between the ship's side and the consumer. The grain is bagged, tied, hoisted, transported on donkeys or in carts, dumped, stored, re-donkeyed or re-carted, slowly, whimsically, and expensively, until there is no telling what is the total rate of charges, except in a general way, that they surpass the original cost of the article. If Havre is ever delivered from that state of things she will owe it to American enterprise, which, under the fostering encouragement of our Consul, General BRIDGLAND, has recently projected the establishment of an elevator like those of the New-York Central and Hudson River Rail-Road here.

The motion of Mr. SMITH was unanimously adopted.

Mr. CHARLES H. MARSHALL, Chairman of the Council of the Nautical School, called attention to the proposition of the Navy Department to substitute the ship "Supply" for the "St. Mary's," now in use by the School, and offered the following preamble and resolutions:

Whereas, This Chamber is credibly informed that it is contemplated by the Navy Department to make a change in the vessel on which the Nautical School of the Port of New-York is established, substituting the "Supply" for the "St. Mary's ;" and

Whereas, It is the opinion of this Chamber, that such change cannot but be detrimental to the efficiency of the School, and may even imperil its existence for the following reasons :

First. That the "St. Mary's" has, after a trial of some five years, been found in every way suitable for the wants of a Nautical School.

Second. That if a change is made it will entail an expenditure of several thousands of dollars to make available, in a proper way, any vessel that may be substituted. The cost of fitting out the "St. Mary's," when she was turned over to the Board of Education, was some $13,000, for which a special appropriation was made by the Legislature. It is not probable that this appropriation can again be secured.

Third. That the "Supply" is entirely unfitted for the work to be performed. She is a smaller ship, and has but one lower deck. It will be impossible to provide for the accommodation of the boys, their clothes, equipments, mess tables, implements of study, &c., in such a limited space, not to speak of the galley and cooking apparatus, which must be on a scale sufficient to meet the wants of one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty boys and twenty men composing the crew, say, in all, one hundred and seventy souls. The ventilation and light on the "Supply" are also defective, from the fact that her lowest deck is only intended for carrying cargo.

Fourth. The system of education on the "St. Mary's" being entirely different from that given to U. S. naval apprentices, a different vessel is needed; and while the Supply" might be adapted to meet purposes of instruction looking to the mere handling of a vessel, (for which it is understood she has been used with a limited number of boys,) she would be quite useless as a School in which young men are instructed to become practical seamen, and in which the regular course before graduation extends over a period of two years. Be it, therefore,

Resolved, That the Chamber of Commerce do, for these and other strong and sufficient reasons, respectfully request the Honorable the Secretary of the Navy to continue, to the Board of Education of this city, the use of the vessel at present occupied by the Nautical School, an institution in which the Chamber has a deep interest and an actual voice in the management, through the Council appointed by this body; and further be it

Resolved, That it is the opinion of the Chamber that the School is, in its education of young men for the merchant service, an advantage to the commercial interests of the entire country, and that no change should be made which is liable to impair its efficiency.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the Honorable the Secretary of the Navy.

The preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted.

Mr. MARSHALL stated that the Annual Examination of the Nautical School would be held on Friday, October 17th, at 2 o'clock, P. M., on the Schoolship "St. Mary's," and invited the members of the Chamber to be present.

The President submitted a communication he had received from H. D. JENCKEN, Esq., Honorary General Secretary of the Association for the Reform and Codification of the Laws of Nations, dated London, June 20, 1879, inviting him to attend the Annual Conference of the Association, to be held in that city, beginning on the 11th August.

Mr. BABCOCK said that business engagements had prevented his attendance, and he had invited Mr. SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, then in London, to represent the Chamber on the occasion.

Mr. RUGGLES thereupon made a verbal report of the business transacted by the Conference, and the part taken by him in behalf of the Chamber in support of the various measures had under consideration by the Association.

RESOLUTIONS.

Mr. RUGGLES offered the following preamble and resolution, which, on motion, were referred to the Committee on Foreign Commerce and the Revenue Laws for report :

Whereas, In view of the general desire of the nations of Europe and America to use the metrical system of weights and measures, as far as may be convenient, it is encouraging to add, that the recent International Conference in London of the "Association for Securing Reform in the Laws of Nations," after careful examination by a Special Committee, unanimously recommended the adoption of the cental of one hundred pounds as a measure of weight, and not of capacity, with the very important condition that its pounds should be made equiponderant with the half kilogram of the metrical system, thereby increasing the weight of the existing pound avoirdupois one-tenth, but affording, in that single decimal, a very easy mode of computation; therefore,

Resolved, That this Chamber concur in the recommendation of the Association for the adoption of the cental of one hundred half kilograms of the metrical system in all transactions where the same may be applicable.

On motion of Mr. WILLIAM IRWIN MARTIN, the thanks of the Chamber were unanimously tendered to Mr. RUGGLES for the efficient manner in which he had represented it at the Annual Conference of the Association.

Mr. SHEPARD offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the Executive Committee be authorized to invite the Hon. ERASTUS C. BENEDICT. to repeat before the Chamber his address on Admiralty Law and Collisions at Sea, delivered by him at a recent meeting of the Association for the Reform and Čodification of the Laws of Nations.

The Chamber then adjourned.

Monthly Meeting, Thursday, November 6, 1879.

A regular monthly meeting of the Chamber of Commerce was held this day, at one o'clock, P. M., at the Rooms of the Chamber, No. 63 William-street.

PRESENT.

SAMUEL D. BABCOCK, President.

JAMES M. BROWN, First Vice-President.
GEORGE W. LANE, Second Vice-President.
GEORGE WILSON, Secretary.

And a quorum of members.

The minutes of the last regular meeting, held October 2, were read and approved.

The regular order of business was then suspended, and the President announced the presence of Mr. THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER, member of the British Parliament, and Mr. WILLIAM B. FORWOOD, President of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce.

REMARKS OF MR. BABCOCK.

The President, on introducing Mr. POTTER to the Chamber, said:

GENTLEMEN: I have great pleasure in announcing to the Chamber, that we are favored to-day with the presence of two distinguished English gentlemen, who are making a brief visit to our country. One of them, Mr. THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER, is well known to this community and to the people at large, for the confidence and sympathy which he exhibited towards us during our civil war; he has proved a worthy successor in Parliament of RICHARD COBDEN, whose portrait adorns our walls. Nothing I could say would afford so fitting an introduction as Mr. POTTER'S own words, uttered sixteen years ago, at a reception given by citizens of Manchester to the Commander and officers of the American ship "George Griswold," which vessel, you will recollect, conveyed to a suffering community a cargo of provisions, sent through the instrumentality of this Chamber. I quote from Mr. POTTER'S address on that occasion:

"Be assured that we are not unaffected observers of the momen"tous struggle in your great country. Our sympathies are entirely "and unalterably with the friends of freedom, and we earnestly de"sire the maintenance of the Union, on the basis of emancipation "and Constitutional liberty for all men of every creed, color and

race.

"We mourn with you over the graves of your gallant dead, slain "in the sacred cause of freedom and patriotism; devoutly do we "pray that a safe and enduring peace may speedily be achieved; "and that your brave and magnanimous people may long con"tinue one great, free, educated, civilized and Christian nation, "with the virus and stigma of slavery for ever removed from your "midst."