Freights have also advanced in favor of steamship interests, which,
with higher prices in England for coal, have also caused an advance in
the price of coal at this port, to the benefit of the coal merchants
and others interested in this important trade. At present the ruling
price for steam coal is 24s. per ton, deliverable from alongside of
coal hulks moored in the bay. As near as I have been able to
ascertain, the quantity of coal sold in this market during the past
year for supplying merchant steam vessels has amounted to about
508,000 tons, which is an increase of about 20,000 tons over the year
1887.

Notwithstanding that plans have already been submitted to the British
government for the construction of a dry dock in Gibraltar, the matter
remains somewhat in suspense, since it meets with some opposition on
the part of the British government, which, in face of the European
fever for general arming, seems more inclined to utilize in another
form the expense which such a work would entail upon the imperial
government, by replacing the obsolete ordnance recently removed from
this fortress and substituting new defenses and guns of the most
approved patterns, a matter which has evidently been receiving, for
some time past, the special attention of the British military
authorities, not doubting that the recent visit to the fortress of the
Duke of Cambridge has had some connection with it. In fact, it is
reported that the duke has already expressed the opinion that this
fortress requires a larger number of artillerymen than are quartered
here at present to man its batteries, and it would seem that this
recommendation is likely to be carried out.

It is yet somewhat too early to venture an opinion regarding the