The Express.
London, England, 1860-12-31 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, DEC. 31.

THE year which is slipping away from us to-
day has been one of the most remarkable of the
century. So it appears to us now ; and so it will
appear to everybody when the century is over. In
considering our position and circtunstances, we
must be reasonable about the good we get, and
the progress we make, under the conditions of
public, as of private affairs. In our private
capacity we do not expect to enjoy the benefits of
opposite conditions ; we do not expect "to eat
" our cake and have it ;" and in our national
capacity it would be absurd to complain that we do
not accomplish and enjoy all the benefit& of an
organic social state, while living from day to day
in the excitement which attends political
transition on a grand European, or world-
wide scale. It is one thing, and a good
thing, to live at • time of general
calm and asttledness, when there is nothing to
prevent our carrying on all good projects, and re-
forming all evil habits or institutions ; and it is
another thing, good also in its way, to live at •
time when destruction is overtaking old tyrannies,
and it is necessary to lay in warfare the founda-
tions of future peace and progress. Throughout
its whole course the year 1860 has been complained
of in England as marked by more delay than
achievement of legislative and social reforms, and
as having brought about a remarkable retro-
gression in domestic politics ; but those who repeat
these complaints are in fact grumbling at their lot
in living during the period of that war of opinion
in Europe which has long been anticipated as one
of the most awful and soul-moving spectacles ever
witnessed by any generation of men. Such a
period brings its own discipline, its own instruc-
tion, and its own stimulus to patriotic action and
national advancement ; and if we have too
many Bills left over for sessions to come,
and too many evils still unreformed, we have
got something instead which may be worth the
delay. It will hardly be doubted by anybody that
a warmer and higher national @pint $llllllll6lll 11111
now than a year ago. The people of England
know better than they did what is the worth of
good and of bad governments ; they comprehend
more clearly than ever before in our generation
what are the chief objects, and the best ways and
means of government ; and they are therefore more
sensible of the value of their political birthright,
and more devoted to its support. Uwe have
still to wait for various much-needed measures,
in Parliament and out of it ; and if • large amount
of our wealth has gone to military and naval pur-
poses, while social reforms are wanting support ;
we have, on the other hand, got rid of the cha-
racter of being, in an ignominious sense, a nation
of shopkeepers; we have satisfied ourselves that
our energies have not been injuriously rusted by •
long period of peace ; we have ascertained, by
the Volunteer movement, that the country is
safe in the hands of the citizens; and
we have felt the ties of nationality drawn
closer between the Sovereign, the Government,
and the people, as well as between different orders
of the people themselves. That year is not wasted
which has proved, and elevated, and instructed,
and disciplined us as a nation, though a very large
amount of public business remains undone. It is
another question whether more might not have
been done. Our readers are aware that we think
there might ; and that it is a grave fault that it
was not done : but not the lees do we recognise the
fact that we are living in a great and portentous
time, when free peoples find the central fire of
their national life so kindled and replenished that
they may well hope that the machinery of poli-
tics' and social action will work all the more vigor-
ously and effectually hereafter. We must have all
the reforms and new measures that we want : and
we will not pardon any indolence or minnanage-
ment by which they are delayed : but we do not
count the year lost because it has not produced
them, when it has produced so much else.

Ws can now look back upon the course of the
war in China from its commencement to the re-
turn from Pekin, and compare it as a whole with
its results. What sufficiency, what completeness,
strike us whenever we get a glimpse of
the Army ! At a word it moves with
automatic regularity, and its operations are
marked with mechanical precision. Then it
has been remarkably fortunate. It has not
Men surprised with any unexpected develop-
ment of Tartar skill such as that by which
the disaster of the Tabu Forte last year is ex-
plained. The enemy has proved the same pre-
suming, blustering, and inoompetent foe we have
have so long known in China. But for this rude-
ness of the soldiery of the Celestial Empire the
eminently satisfactory services of our Army might
be called brilliant. All that an army could do
this army has done ; and the chief use of the ex-
pedition is to prove how little that is, and how
absolutely necessary it is that we should at owe
revise the policy we have hitherto pursued in
China. If that lemon is well learned, the ten
millions or so which the Brttish taxpayer will
have to pay for this war will not be thrown away.
When the Government published a telegraphia
despatch announcing that a part of our army
would winter at Pekin, every intelligent and ra.
fleeting person at home saw in a moment the un-
tenabkness of that position. For pointing out
the dangers attending the division of our small