The Express.
London, England, 1848-02-03 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 3, 1848,

Newry contains too clear and comprehensive a de-
claration of adherence to greet principles, and too
hearty an acknowledgment of their practical good
fruits, to be pined over silently.

1. Resolved—That we feel deeply grateful to the oom
missioners of national edam** for laving resolved on build-
lag their Ant distil st need Mad in Newry ; and we hail
the cordial Amnia* Wilk width ministers and members of
every religious dseendeatiou have this day met to celebrate
this event, Si in itself one of the beat results of the establish-
ment of the national system, and as affording the best proof
that it is the only one which has been as yet devised calcu-
lated to prove acceptable to persons of all parties and deno-
minations in Ireland.
The resolution was seconded by the Rev. A. REMIT,
a presbyterian minister, in • strain of reasoning
founded on experience, and appealing irresistibly to
the uninflamod and unprejudiced judgments of men.
Truly, there is a well-spring of life and hope in assem-
blages like this.

LORD lisnmscn has been enabled, by his own
talents and good fortune, to make a noble valedictory
address to the people of Calcutta. He tells them
that "British ascendancy reigns undisturbed, and act-
uated by treaty, from the Khyber Pase to Cape
Comorin," and that " future triumphs in India must
be those of peace." This forms, indeed, an en for
Hindostan. The soldier takes his leave with the re-
mark that war is over, and that the next campaign
must be that of the schoolmaster. The. civilian suc-
ceeds, with the express purpose of applying to India
those principles of economy, and of alleviating the
burdens of the lower classes, which are uncontro-
verted at home.
The chief news looked to from India was, however,
some account of how the commercial world of Calcutta
bore the disastrous tidings of bankruptcies and em-
barrassments. The arrival of the European despatches
of the 24th of October had very naturally been the
signal for a suspension of no small part of the ordi-
nary business of the exchange and the bazaar. So
terrible and indiscriminate a destruction of es-
tablishments which had survived many former
periods of disaster, produced the natural re-
sult, which we find chronicled in the accustomed
phraseology. Money became tight, not because the
banks were poor, but because their customers had
become suspected. Prices fell, not certaialy from any
sudden revolution in the relations of supply and
demand, but because the holder was haunted with the
apprehension that the next steamer might deprive
him utterly even of his present beggarly chance of
realisation; and because the merchants, full of means
and full of caution, who somehow or other always
rise up in these seasons of great bargains,
too well understood their own power and interest
to be anything but reluctant customers.
It would seem, however, that even during the
thirteen days which had intervened between the
former mail and the present, the darkest part of this
critical path had been passed over. Indigo and
sugar were still cheap, but they were no longer un-
saleable, andcottons and hardware were again regarded
as descriptions of property at least worth preserving.
In the midst of all these difficulties, it is either a
good or a bad sign that only two additional firms have
gone down, and these will neither of them leave a
wide gap behind.
Commercial distress does not, however, absorb the
India press. The journals, indeed, seem to have
lost their stock subjects of war and of government
policy. There is little to record or to complain of.
Minor subjects occupy the places of the great de-
ones the quarrels of Indian officials with
Eriglidsh judges the astonishment of the commu-
nity at the report of six new bishops being sent out to
them, when they are so sadly in want of working
clergy—the efforts of most sects to further education,
and of the Roman catholic' to prevent it; these, with
roads and improvements, especially in the l'unjaub,
form the items of those " Indian mails" which Lon-
don newspapers so lately disputed the honour of pre-
senting first to English readers, but which any
reader may read now or a week hence, without find-
ing the least advantage in early knowledge, or incon-
venience in late. The triumphs of peace are not
those which furnish wings to MERCURY.