The Express.
London, England, 1866-06-05 00:00:00

THE BOMBAY MAIL

By the arrival of the above mail we have advices
irom Bombay to May 13, and from Calcutta to
May 7.
The state of the cotton market still continued to
cause much anxiety is Bombay, and it was feared
that serious financial disasters would occur. " For
the present, merchants and their creditors are both
in a state of most anxious suspense," says the
Times of Indio, and it adds :
It is clear that nearly all who have shipped cotton
(luring the last three or four months are exposed
to enormous losses, but until the cotton is sold, or the
English market has firmly settled down and the
deficiencies are ascertained, no proceedings conse-
quent on those losses can be taken, and as yet no
failures are announced. There are some merchants, how-
ever, who shipped early in the year, and subsequently, to
an enormous extent, who find their local engagements
maturing, and one of the largest of these has required the
combined assistance of the banks. This has been granted
as a measure necessary for the protection of the mercantile
community from a general panic. New export business
has almost ceased, though large quantities of cotton are
being shipped in completion of former arrangements ; but
prices in Bombay have not fallen in proportion to the
present low prices in Liverpool, and there is a disposi-
tion on the part of cotton holders to store their hales in
the hope of better prices after the monsoon. A larger pro-
portion of the cotton crop of Western India has already
been shipped than at a similar period in any former year.
This is owing mainly to the attraction of high prices,
but also in great measure to improved railway, facilities.
The fact of so large a proportion of the crop having been
already brought from the Mofussil has been overlooked by
the buyers in Bombay and the native shippers. They have
competed with each other for the produce—indeed it is
said a combination to keep up the price has existed—so
that the shipments of the last three months have generally
been made at prices which could only pay if the Liverpool
market had remained steady at its highest point. As more
then half a million bales have been shipped from Bombay
since 180, the aggregate loss for the city is very serious,
but the cultivators will have reaped some advantage owing
to the speculative temper under whichthe merchants made
their purchases in the Kofnasil.
The Bombay Gazette says that the chief sting of
the suffering will be felt by a few great firms who
shipped very largely at the end of the last and be-
ginning of the present year, under the expectation
that the price of cotton would continue to rise till
it reached or exceeded 20d. per lb. Shippers must
now, it adds, prepare to sustain a loss of 3d., 4d., or
sd. a lb., according to their respective advantages
or disadvantages in purchasing. The quantity of
cotton cleared from the port of Bombay in Ja-
nuary was 171,000 bales ; in February, 123,000
bales ; in March, 138,000 bales ; and in April,
150,000 bales, figures large enough to indicate the
magnitude of the losses which must be met by
Bombay houses. "Linder the pressure of the
panic (continues the Gazette) the best shares in the
market have suffered an enormous depreciation.
In July of last year the share market was utterly
prostrated, but since, under an active trade in
cotton, stocks recovered much of their buoyancy ;
but they have again sunk, some of them below
the prices of July. The Bank of Bombay shares
have touched 2 per cent. discount, and have been
fluctuating for some time between that and par ;
the leviathan Back Bay Reclamation scheme, whose
shares at the beginning of 1865 were selling at
3,5001. premium, are now quoted at 2001. or 3001.
below par."
It is stated that the cultivation of cotton in
Central India wiU be very extensive during next
season, and in the Southern Mahratta country
more land will be planted with this staple than
there has been for the last three years.
Most heart-rending accounts continue to be re-
ceived of the famine in Orissa. One man is re-
ported to have destroyed his own family and
those of his two brothers, to save them from dying
of hunger ; and it is even said that cases of canni-
balism have occurred. An urgent appeal has been
made on behalf of the fund for relieving the famine
which prevails in these districts.
The latest date received in Bombay from Great
'Britain by the Indo-European Telegraph was the
7th May. " The working of the line is gradually
declining in efficiency" (says the Times of India),
and it is feared that it may return to that unsatis-
factory state which resulted in so many complaints
. being made during 1865."
the

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THE RRTURN or SIR H. STORKS TO MALTA.—
Our Malta correspondent, writing on the list nit., says
"The anxiety for the return to Malta cf his Excellency
Sir H. Storks appears to be so great, that one of the lona
papers has just proposed that an address should be for-
warded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies request-
ing him to recall Sir Henry from Jamaica without delay
to re-assume the government Of these islands."