The Express.
London, England, 1858-12-31 00:00:00

the chareho in a language of thoughts, words, and '
feelint, which they can understand. This rare
ability is arn yet to any great extent forthsoming
and till it is, the movement may turn out a mere
fashion, and certainly will not retrieve tho lowest
order of our neighbourhoods. At wont, how-
ever, it is an interesting and favourable sign of the
times.

The year will be for ever distinguished by being
the date of the first telegraphic message between
Europe and America. The first sensation and
second thoughts produced by the fact were
perhaps privilege enough for ono year; and
another may immortalise itself by establishing
a secure communication. It should also bring

us within speaking distance of India.
Among domestic incidents, the movements and ex-
perkiness of the Royal Family have always been par-
ticularly interesting ; and certainly never more so
than this year. The young generation are out-
growing childhood, and they are now moving to-
wards their places in life in quick succession. First,
we saw the Princess Royal married; and then the
Prince of Wales settled in an establishment of his
own. A few months more, and the elder Prince
was a colonel in the army, with the real intention,
it is understood, of studying and practising his pro-
fession ; while Prince Alfred has fairly entered on
his navel career ea a midshipman on board the
EuryaltuL The Queen has visited her daughter at
Berlin ; and been seen, with strong sympathy,
entering on new relations in life as the friend of
her self-acting children. Her other visits—to Cher-
bourg, to Aston, and to Leeds—excited a different
kind, but hardly a lower degree, of interest.
The anxious punctilio and forced spirits at Cher-
bourg, the exhilaration and happy freedom at Aston
and Leeds, were all sympathised in to the echo ; for
the relation between her and her people is that of
the sincerest friendship.
Reverting to the event' of the East, the conciliation
of China claims a prominent place. Lord Elgin's pa-
tience, devotedness, and patriotic fortitude in the early
days of his mission were worthy forerunners of hisulti-
m►te moons ; for it is a @nooses which owes nothing
to luck. He had to overcome a host of obstacles,
before which moat men would have thrown up their
task, or left it half done. As it is, no one will say
that more could have been effected or gained, while
no rational man expected nearly so much. When
he sets root on English ground again we shall have
to thank him for bringing a culpable and vexatious
enterprise to a far better lane than we have de-
served. The abettor. of the original strife for-
sook Lord Elgin from the moment when the
Chinese business could do them no more good :
other parties had no heart towards the con-
clusion of an affair which their moral sense
had condemned at the outset ; and thus Lord Elgin
had reason to complain of the desertion of some and
the indifference of others of the nation whom he
was serving under every kind of disadvantage. He
is not a complaining man, however : that is evident.
He has conquered—just as thoroughly as if every-
thing had been in his favour. The nation must re-
member this while enjoying the fruit, and glorying
in the opening of Japan. We shall have a splendid
permanent trade with China and Japan if we set
about it wisely--establishing stations between India

and China, for male, telegraphic centres, and har-
bours draw, sod for refitting, and consulting the
needs and capacities of the countries we trade with.
On the opposite shore of the Pacific, we are now to
have a rich and organised colony, accessible here-
after from Canada as well as from Asiatic
' seem. One of the events of this year has been the
organising of the colony of British Colombia, and it
must be a oonspicnous work of the next to settle the
destinies of the Hudson's Bay Company, with a view
to the ultimate policy of oar collective North
American provinces.

Our Colonies have been, on the whole, very
flourishing : and, as the year closes, we hope to hear
of such results from Lord Clyde's winter campaign
in Onde as may leave little fighting, and mush cavil
business to be done in the ensuing months. We
have followed with pride the gallant achievements
of ear soldiers in India, and have been more and
more comforted by the evidences that the troops are
abetter housed and clothed than they ever were be-
fore, though a good deal in this direction still
remains to be done. On the whole, and under
a strong oonsciousnus of our ignorance of what
is really the state of mind of our Indian fellow-
subjects, we are looking forward with hope to the
settlement of our troubles in the East, amidst condi-

Lions of temper on both sides which must leave it
long doubtful whether the men of the East and the
West can again lire together in peace and security.
The condition of Barope is Mars sod more threat-
ening to the peace of the world, and thereby more
admonitory to us to be ready for whatever may hap-
pen. It is mere common prudence to have set dili-
gently about manning our Navy, and ecoomnising
and recruiting oar Army. We have no more desire
than Ravels has to go to war ; and there is good
reason for hope that both may keep out of it, if the
next conflict takes place on the Italian question.
But our testimony to the right meet be always ready,
even if it should involve an assertion by arms; and
the uneasiness which pervades the notice as to what
has been really said and dime in ~name in the
Tagus and at Naples shows that we are not disposed
to preserve a so-oalled peace at the 'Lepanto of good
faith, or of the principles of liberty. It was trackling
to a despotic ally which overthrew the Palmerston
Ministry at the beginning d lefit 1 end any discovery
of more trcekling will overthrow the Derby Maim-
try early in Iss. There it no pellet, tee believe, on
whish the people of !garbled are more determined
than that of refusing to follow, at any moral
sacrifice, the fortunes of oar ally, the Emperor
of the French. As he has kept faith with us so
have we with him : bat when be makes aggressions
on others no British Minister meat co-operate with
him. Not only do ear principles revues this, but
oar interests ; for the year has a/mended in people of

the unsettled data of the Emperor's mind, and ths
precariousness of his action. The year has presented
a long series of blunders each ea solltarf despots
aloes commit. Before its opening month wes at an
end he had risked a deadly quarrel with as, sad was

obliged to recede from his attempted encroachment :
and now, at its close, he stands belled by his
own most eminent 'object, aad the laws of hie own
Empire, in • case which ranges all the best minds of
Europe against him, and betrays his own ormosisee-
noes of the precariousness of Ws rein Ia the in-
terval be bee most mainly othecied the comma
sense and basset holing of wide socialises& groups
of nations by the lawienewe of his actin, and the
unierapalonnese of hi denies In his aorressiou
on Peeing he bee give. warnig to all Europe
that iaternational rights are in dregs: from him ;
and in his persistence in hie special Slave Trade,
protracted, we tsar, to this nomad, in spite of an
appamnt pain, af inquiry, be hes dsAed the con.
whose sad the policy of all his best allies, and of
the whole civilised world. It is true this year has
proved that he au needs, es& that he sea be
Infant t end thus du the supentities best
his abarisei impunity is diedpated, aad • the
Jambes of his rale is se tect Mehl,* Wilk as the
ether hand, the iseerel, sesse:eiriTs inilibesesa in
the bands d hie Amex hi Wad= La his own