The Express.
London, England, 1857-12-22 00:00:00

irtit eXiOrtfili.

Idwdomedie Monad kr ollie illeNek. I.7didi. Fusty MIK
art lie at ad 011144 10. lowedwideue. W Tv• Mae le de
dip el poilindla

AT/I IA IZ4.
un... tIIIpIIAL MA Mama P 0160.08.1/.
MILTAN FWrg,e.altVitalLtl OarlArgOVM
14.1*Isme&—Aa4 MI MA 017AJIDALVSLIAsurresi

PRINCIIIIIIII.
Lobro.% • CASS 001ISCIANL-4•1
ILICILaIt. Me MOND. Kr. sad lb& 14/SM,Pflea SNI
aws&

Tom WI na-
sal Irsddl.
MO
MY= Mark dam GM

~:'

ZrAI

HIGH WLTIZ AT LIM= 1111111:101.
=malTi= tra

LONDON. TUESDAY. DECEMBER 22.

Trot late mosey crisis in the United States, like
everythigg e Ise in that gigantic and go-ahead Republic.
was on a scale of the most colossal magnitude.
During the intensity of the panic all the ordinary
representatiree of value had for a time disappeared;
paper was worthless, coin was not to be had, and
the Union was reduced to a state of barter. Such a
convulsion happening in the Old World would hare
been felt as a grave national calamity, and years
must have elapsed before commerce renewed its
vigour or credit regained its elasticity. The States,
however, hare not yet outlived the happy immuni-
ties of youth. Nothing can long oppress the exube-
rant buoyancy of their spirits, or daunt the assurance
of their self-confidence. They put • bold face on
ruin and show • brave heart under bankruptcy.
They scramble out of scrapes with the awe reck-
lessness they display in rushing into them; and
while sober observers are bewailing what seems an
irretrievable plunge into catastrophe, they emerge
out of the depths of disaster, trim and active, slick
and smart, ready for another headlong gallop after
dollars, oblivious of the past and careless of the
future.

The last convulsion, however, was so tremendous,
and its occurrence is so recent, that even thc recupe-
rative energy of the most active and fearless people
in the world has not yet been able to shake off the
profound impression it was calculated to produce.
There can be little doubt that few portions of Mr.
IiteIIIANAN.4 Message will have commanded More
general attention across the Atlantic than those
in which he addmeses himself to the causes
and the remedies of the lamentable state of things
which lies produced Inch deep discredit and such
widespread disaster. With regard to the muses
of the late coevulmon, it is impossible that any lan.
gunge can be more precise and unheai'ating than
that of the I'IILSIUDIT. He traces all that has hap-
pened entirely to derangements of capital, credit,
and currency, &tieing from an ill-regulated banking
system. "It is apparent," he says, " that our
"existing misfortunes ham promeded solely from
0 oar estravegent and vicious system of
" paper currency and bank credit, exciting
" people to wild speculation and gambling in
" stocks." The muse causes, if allowed to exist
unchecked, mast la the Parsiorer's opinion inevi-
tably lead to a repetition of the same disasters.
" The.. revulsion. must continua to recur at saxes-
" Mee interim/a as long as the amount of the paper
" carresey, and beak loans and discounts of the
" meaty shall be left to the discretion of 1,4(10
" irresponsible banking institutions, which, from the
" very law of their natant, will consult the interests
" of their stockholders lather than the public wel-
" fare." Mr. 13Cl lIANAX will find a very general I
assent to these view, in the minds of all thought/al
and competently informed men—at all events oa
this ►ide the Atlantic. It is one thing to maintain,
as some have done, that the overissue of convertible
hank notes is the sole cause of monetary coovullons;
it is quite another thing to maintain that it is a
eonnerrent MM. Mr. BITHANAN doe. not put it
higher than this. He does not advert to an excess of
piper currency" as the single producing cause of
the recent catastrophe, but couples with it a contem-
poraneous excess of " bank loans and discounts "
in other words, of all that is generally understood by
banking accommodation.

It has always appeared to us that a rery
transparent fallacy is involved in the celebrated
position that there cannot be a redundant issue
of convertible bank notes. If by this is simply
meant that you cannot keep out in the hands of Ike
public a greater quantity of such notes than the im-
mediate exigencies of the circulation require, the
proposition in question affirms not only a truth, but
• truism. If, on the other hand, it is meant that a
power of issuing bank notes, subject to no
other restriction than convertibility, may not be
abused so u to become a co-operative means of
lending an artificial and dangerous stimulus to spe-
culation and overtrading—in this sense the proposi-
tion is not true. The recent experience of the
United States is conclusive on this point. What has
been the result of the action of these 1,400 banks,
all alike empowered to issue notes, which by law
are convertible into specie ! We take our answer
from the PRESIDENT'S Message. "In a recent re-
" port," sau Mr. BUCHANAN, " made by the Tres-
" sury department on the condition of the banks
" throughout the different States, according to re-
" turn, dated nearest to January, 1867, the eggs*-
" gate amount of actual specie in their vaults is
58,349,,438 dole. ; of their circulation, 214,778,822
" dole.; and of their dep05ita,230,331,332d015. Thus it
"appears that these banks in the aggregate have
" considerably less than i.e. dollar in stares of gold and
" silver compared with theircheulation and deposits."
That such should be the result of American bank
management notwithstanding an influx of gold from
California, amounting in the last eight years to no
less than four hundred millions of dollars, undoebt-
edly points to a mast extravagant extension both of
note irises and bank credits.

It is satisfactory to find that the monetary princL
plea held by the First Magistrate of the United
States are thoroughly rational and sound. He
distinctly annouoees that the first duty which
• beak owes to the public is to keep within its
'realm • sufficient quantity of gold and silver to
innate the convertibility of its notes into coin at all
times and under all circumstances. He declares that
'' no hank ought ever to be chartered without such
" restrictions on its business as to secure this result.
" All other restrictions are comparatively vain.

" This," he mays amphatisedly, " is the only true
" tonchstee•—the auly sill lent regulator el a
" paper carreney--the only eso which eau guard
" the public against over hones and bank
" euspensions." Nothing can be more just than
these principles. Unfortunately, however, it is
more easy to announce principles than to act
upon them ; and it is more difficult than either to
enforce their practical obscrvanoe upon others.
Mr. BLTHANA3I is compelled frankly to admit that
in this matter the Federal Government is all but
powerless. It is not at all clear to the Pannwrxv
that even the creation of a National Bank would
do much towards remedying the evil; but it is
abundantly clear to him that the creation of such •
Bank has become a constitutional impossibility.

Unable to initiate or even to suggest any autlio-
ritative legislation on the 'abject, the chief
magistrate of the Union is reduced to the
humbler province of tendering his advice and
recommendation. lie relies on the patriotism and
wisdom of the separate States for the prevention
and redress of the evil. The practical measures that
he ventures to submit for their consideration are
these:-1. To secure a real specie basis of circulation
by raising the denomination of bank notes, first to
20 dollars, and afterwards to 60. 2. To require of
all banks that they keep on hand one dollar of gold
and silver for every three dollars of circulation and
depoeits. 3. To provide that suspension of specie
paymenth shall always involve bankruptcy. 4. To
compel a weekly publication by every bank of the
true state of its accounts. Of these provisions there
is only one which the PlalliDanT considers it is
within the power of Congress to enforce by federal
Legislation, and that is the rule making it, in
the forcible language of Mr. BUCNANAN, " an irre-
versible organic law of each bank's existence that
" a suspension of speeie payments should produce its
" civil death." It is tolerably clear, however, that
the P RE% I DENT has not much faith in the efficacy of
any positive legislation on this subject which is at all
likely to be put in force. Acknowledging the benefit
and the necessity of • well regulated banking
system, he is at least equally alive to the calamitous
results arising from its abuses, and concludes with a
declaration that if no adequate remedy for those
proved abuses can be found," it would be a lesser evil
" to deprive the existing institutions altogether of
" the power to issue a paper currency, and confine
" them to the function of banks of deposit and
" discount."

Such are the results of Mr. lII:MASA:4' s reflections
on the American banking system. l■ the recent
experience of the States, and in the tone and tenor
of this portion of the PRESIDENTS address, it is
impossible not to find abundant reason for compa-
rative satisfaction with our own currency system
—a system admitting, without doubt, of consider-
able improvement in detail, bat which in its main
principles is beyond all question substantially sound.

A 81N(.1.e trait of daily life often casts more
light on the state of society in a country
than the most elaborate explanations. Here is
one which shows what the chasm is that the
PuestnEsr of the United States proposes to bridge
over with shams and dreams and gossamer cove-
tssies. Most of our readers have probably seen the
print from Senerrea's picture of " Currier the
Consoler ;" but some ha•e not, and for them we will
joist explain that in this most af•cting picture
Comm is enthroned in the centre, and that Ile, on
the one hand, " heals the broken-hearted," and on
the other, affords "deliverance to the captives.'
The group of mourners consists, of the mother
weeping over hoe dead infant ; the woes of genius
personified in Tauao, the Christian epic poet ;
a group of three women, the aged widow,
the young widow (her child unborn), and
the young girl, manifesting the three phases
of trust—faith, resignation, and hope; while the
group of men behind them yield the converse moods
—unbelief, rebellion, and despair, in the characters
of the infidel, the recusant, and the intending sui.
Bide. These are the mourners. (In the other hand
of the Deliverer AM the captives : Mute released
from sin by tears, " because she loved much ;" the
maniac, whose chains drop es sanity awakens in his
countenance ; the safe of various nations, whether
military or industrial, and in the midst, with
chained hands outstretched, the negro slave. la
the corner are the beautiful accessories of the broken
sword and the spent cannon-ball. Such is Saler-
ren's picture. A very beautiful new edition of the
Prayer-book of the Church of England, and Bible to
correspond, is now on sale in the Southern States
of the Union the edition being difficult to
obtain, except by Southern purchaser,, though pub-
lished by J. B. Liereecon and Co., Philadelphia.
The Prayer-book exhibits, at the beck of its title-
page, the authorisation of the well-known Bishop
Dostre, Bishop of New Jersey, as to the precise ac-
cordance of this edition with the standard Book of
Common Prayer. The date of this volume is 1866,
whereas that of the companion Bible is 1864. Both
have a frontispiece, and the frontispiece is the same
in both, vis.,the "CHRIST the Consoler " of SCHEIrrEII
the sere left out ! The artist's name in the
corner is preserved, as if all was right. We knew
before that British literature and European literature,
ancient and modern, was trimmed to suit Southern
convenience, stripped of all allusion to human liber-
ties, before it could be sold in the Slave States. We
were aware th►t a Commission is sitting for the pur-
pose of composing an entirely new set of school
books for the training of future slaveholders, none
of the existing literature of that kind being
wholly clear of the morality of free countries. But
we were not prepared to see CORM denied as the
deliverer of captives cursed with a dark skin, and to
witness the deliberate curtailment of his " glad
tidings" by the mercenary audacity of people who
profess a political gospel of freedom. No doubt,
Bishop DOANE is prepared to say how much ha
knew of this. An appeal has been made to the
Anglican Church about this transaction. There is
no fear of such an act passing away into darkness
''"• ' • - -

uncondemned. Our business with it hero is to con-
triut this sort of Christianity with that which led to
the colonising of New England by Puritan settlers,
who quoted their Bible sa the warrant of their
liberties, from step to step of their immortal career.
The sons of those Pilgrims are the antagonists whom
Mr. BUCHANAN has to meet on the one hand i and
thew clippers and counterfeiters of the gospel are
those whom he ken to offend on the other. Re
sides with the latter, and proposes to reconcile
the two by assuring both—and the world which
looks on—that they will serer quarrel again. As
sure as their Gospel—both religious and political—is
dear to the Bons of the Pilgrim* there will be a feud
between them and the worshippers of GOD and
Mammon united. No true own needs any prophecy
as to where the victory will rest.

MIL NICOLL AT Florre.-05 Friday Mr. Donald
Nirou, tomb., is Pram set We aseelnrsts in the
membly-roas at that beesngh, Kr. Coombe In the their.
Mr. Nicoll Wrested the menterg se emaklenble length, pm
Sib review the swim ineemse he bed taken put Is
daring the Ise seeka. A rriehttien less merged neut.
isy ramming cealldesoe In Mr. Nkell and thanks for
hie pas snips, end eating We attention to the
right et Motors to vele

Ebt Court.

WINDSOR, Die. 21.
The Queen, accompanied by the Princess Royal,
walked in the grounds sdiolning the Castle this morning.

The Priam Consort nent to 13ackin1ttarn Palace, god re-
turned to Windaor in the afternoon.

Punk Khan, the Persian Ambassador, and him Wis. thi
Count and Countess Plante, and the Earl of Clarandsm, ass
especial to arrive this alternoca on a vial.
.....

A deputation !ran the corporation of Margate had ea In-
terview yerterday with the Might Hoa. W. Cowper, M.P.
at the am d de Orinersl Board of Ilealek,Wbboiell, with
eimpeet le the treader of the pewees of the Marva) Lora
Board of Ileahh. The depatatlea eneeisted of klr. George
Yaws Hunter, Mayor, Mr. Caroler, one Mae Town Coax•
&lore , and Mr..l. Harvey Dom the Town Clerk.

Lord Stanley of Aldortey hM lelt Landes for Ids sesrp
Alas* Perk, Cheshire.
Despatch= were mitred at the Coloniel Gas yelleday,
from the Governor of Canada and the Lad High Ccessiev
Wolter of the lonian Islands. Despatches were sat te the
Governor of the Cape of Good Hope.