The Express.
London, England, 1855-01-11 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 11,

I occurred only six mouthsbefore the end of Mr. Fill-
; more's term. Mr. Fillmore went out of officewith
I the universal respect of the nation, and it was a
memof general regret throughout the country that
be was not re-nominated, for he would doubtless
have been sustained by the people. Bach are the
characters and antecedents of these three men; and
if they were chosen, they would bear with them the
whole dignity of the republic. But their appointment
would involve the total abandonment of the Pierce
policy. There has been nothing done yet, io a broad
and liberal spirit, b 7 this administration, but the
President and his cabinet would most likely be com-
, pelted to yield to the force of public opinion in this
I case, if the proposed mediation should meet with
general favour in both Houses of Congress.
If these three men, however, should be pained by,
the country would probably be satisfied with the
appointment of Mr. Van Buren Mr. Everett, our
former minister to England, and General CASs, the
veteran senator. It is certain that the country would
net be satisfied to have any of our present represen-
tatives abroad, clothed with authority for this busi-
ness, with the single exception, perhaps, of Mr.
Buchanan. One of the most serious embarrassments
we are labouring under as a nation, we encounter at
the very threahhold of this proposed mediation—the
imbecility and unpopularity of the President and his
cabinet. Their course towards Europe has added
nothing to the weight of the republic in any Euro-
pean question. It would be necessary to take new
men in this business, and men who had in no way
incurred odium by any connexion with the present
regind.

THE COMMERCIAL PANIC IN THE UNITED

STATES.
The Special Correspondent of the Daily News
at New York writes as follows under date of the
27th ult.:

The stringency in our money market, which has
been gradually increasing, during the last twelve
Months, has now risen into a panic; and we are wit-
nessing a spectacle which is humiliating in the
highest degree to every enlightened and intelligent,
man. From our origin as a nation we have never
been in a state of such universal and florid prosperity.
Our resources and our wealth in all departments and
in all. directions have long been augmented. We have
never before had so vast en amount of specie in the
country—we have never before bed such machinery
—we have never before had such means of rapid in-
tercourse between different sections of the country—
the wages of labour have never before been so high,
nor the materials and means of public and private
wealth been so great as within the past year; and
yet money is worth 2 or 3 per cent. a month in Wall-
street this morning. Banks and bankers are crashing
in all directions—the savings banks are being
run to the verge of ruin—capitalists are hoarding
up their money—merchants are failing—labourers
by the ten thousand are thrown out of employment—
and assembling in tumultuous meetings in the parks;
our manufactures, of almost every grade and descrip-
tion, are being closed, and a general paralysis bee
spread over the world of business—in a word, we are
suffering a commercial panic.

It has been brought about by the newspapers.
There is no other cause that can be assigned for it;
nor will any other cause ever be discovered. Con.
fideoce has been destroyed, by the " hue and cry"
that has been raised by men who look no deeper than
the surface, and who transfer to journalism nothing
but the lights and shadows that play upon the top of
every passing wave of opinion.

There is now a general up•rising of public feeling
and public sentiment against this state of things.
The press of the United States is in the hands of the
people, as every free press is, and always will be, in
the hands of its readers. A large number of men
have, for a long time, felt that it is disgraceful to the
country to allow our public tranquillity and prosperity
to be disturbed by such incidents of the hour as the
siege of Sebastopol, the number of spindles running
in Manchester, the closing Gl* cutlery establishments
in Sheffield, and the price of consols in London. The
conductors of the American press will have to make a
declaration of independence shortly to remedy this
evil, as our fathers once made one to remedy other
evils in 1776. The old chestnut woman in the street
announces to us—with just as much gravity as the
Governor of the Bank of England does to a depira-
tion from Downing-street—that " by the last arrivals
the important information has been received that the
chestnutcrop is short in Italy,and the south of France,"
consequently foreign chestnuts are no longer seen in
the market, and Yankee chestnuts have manifested
most alarming symptoms of insubordination, particu-
larly if you roast them without cutting a hole in
their shells. It is a lamentable fact that we have
allowed ourselves to be "drifted about by every
wind of doctrine," sent out from our newspapers ;
and the money market of the United States is suffer-
ing to-day, thiough sheer panic, all the worst symp-
toms of the Asiatic cholera ; or, to reverse the image,
the unmixed horrors of a hopeless constipation. A
moment's reflection will satisfy any intelligent man
that the present state of Europe, so far from being a
sufficient came to disturb our pecuniary affairs,
ought directly to inspire an increased degree
of confidence and prosperity. The British go-
vernment finding itself unable to get at
home all its supplies in this Eastern emergency
sends over to Massachusetts large orders for Yankee
shoes, and to the North American Gutta Percha
Company of New York similar orders for soldiers'
blankets. In a large number of departments of sup-
ply the contractors and commissioners of Great Bri-
tain are sending orders by every steamer to the
United States. Not an American ship has yet been
interrupted for an hour in any foreign voyage, the
march of our commerce, and the progress of our in-
tercourse with foreign nations, have not been sub-
jected to the slightest impediment; and yet the
American newspapers keep the public mind in con-
stout suspense, waiting for "the fall of Sebastopol."
These gentlemen must take broad and comprehensive
views of public affairs.
In the foregoing paragraphs I have merely deli-
neated to you a state of feeling which hardly yet
exists, but it will be apparent enough in a few weeks
that the American people are determined to settle
this question once for all, and ascertain whether they
are to have their business disturbed at home and all
their vast resources paralysed by this two-cent. panic.
The newspapers have gone on this tack long
enough, and they will be obliged to take another.
In a short time you need not be astonished
if you learn that we have suddenly shot the
gulf, and struck upon solid ground—that we an
enjoying an unprecedented degree of pecuniary
prosperity. I have insisted in my correspondesse
hitherto to the Daily News that there was no suilH
cient reason for the monetary apprehensions whidr
have been felt by our capitalists. I have pointedomt
the causes which have been laid hold of to inflame,
the public apprehension ; the short crop, which has
not been short enough to do any actual harm,
although the necessaries of life are now at famine
prices ; the prevalence almost everywhere during the
past summer and autumn of disease and contagion ;
the extensive and desolating conflagrations that have
visited so many American cities ; the afflictions
which have rained down upon our merchant gale
that were whitening the seas. But it will not be
forgotten that I have from the beginning insisted,
upon the fact that no serious apprehension ought to
be entertained or could be entertained by intelligent'
men in regard to the future. It was due to that vise
body of Englishmen who hold American securities
to state this fact. It was due to our own people to have
it known that Western Railroad securities, which were
selling for 40 cents. on the dollar in Wall-street, and
that could not be given away in London, have all
come up with their dividends of from 8 to 20 per cent.
per annum during these last six months of confisgra-
dons, cholera, yellow fever, panic, alarm, and two
cent. a month interest on money. With common

/7.! 7/ (I

PP:3: '0:".4

ties. Suck is the difference between journalism and
business as they should be and as they are.
The Californian steamer is in with a million and a
half of gold on freight, and half a million in the
bands of passengers. The shipments of specie abroad
have ceased, and our mines were
more bountiful returns than now. Prosperity is dif-
fusing itscorencopeian blessings over the length and
breadth of the land. We are suffering only under a
newspaper panic.