The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-21 00:00:00

E=IR. 4D. STAMPED 5D

:,

THE • R sszti .1v SETT LEYTE NTS IN TI E
NORZI-1 PACIFIC.

The L 11o17ing leqers (signed "F. R. G. S.")
have been ac Ldressed to the editor of the Times :
Si r, —l-110 ,AV ever just your remarks may he on the negli-
gence of our.commanders in the race to Petropaulovski,
of which y( ,u spoke in your article the day before yes-
terday, both )artier had not an equal chance.
Petronau lo vski may he in direct distance from St.
Petershurg, .600, from London 4,640 miles ; but while
the distance 1 a be tr4velled would not, in the one case,
be more than 7,500 miles, or about 100 days, in the ,Aber
the distance o votild. be increased to 17,500, and the time,
though not ioa proporti )n, yet very consideraLlY—say 130
days. More, wet, steamers do not make long voyages
with much advantage over sailing clippers, as trials
from Austr: sufficient's' prove. But why is it that
Great Britain has no statien for naval rendezvous on
the north-, rest coast of America? As 'Sir George
Simpson b tests, Great Britain and Russia gird the
globe, why slaould the orders of our Government
have to t ravel four times the direct - distance,
while we have facilities for direct transit which
they have t co t, nature having given us a ready-made
road by we ter for all but 1,260 miles ? Nor had they a
priority in pc dot of time. The English flag had traced
the north-wes t coast of America, and an English colony
been projet.tt4xl there—nay, English trade established
there before the Russians had set foot on the coast.
Our first estriblishment on HUson's Bay dates from the
time of Charlies 11. RuFsia, was struggling for the pos-
session of Wevtern Siberia at the beginning of the 17th
century. We have had no opponents ; they have Lad to
conteA the pTo'and with the Tartars, Chinese, and even
the Yaketski.. yet Russia has established large towns,
fisheries, and. internal communication throughout the
whole of North Asia, has her steamers on Lake
and at Okhotsk, Petropaulovski' the Anoor, and Sitka.
We have not one steamer on Lake Superior, nor any
materiel esta'alishinent from Lake Huron to the Pacific ;
yet from L ake. Superior to the Pacific is only 1.260
miles, with water communication, to the base of the
.Rocky Mounta.ins from Lake Winnipeg. while from To-
helsk to Oklootsk is 2,210, Lake Baikal only intervening.
A century ago the importance of ,a naval station, sod,
indeed, of a colony, on the north-west coast of America
was admitted. What has been done since ? Nothing.
Our vessels rendezvous at the Sandwich Islands or San
Francisco. Our Pacific Admiral's wife has her tempo-
rary home in. South America., some 8,000 miles from the
scene of actin;), which therefore have to be traversed by
the flag-ship, as your correspondent informs us, whose
action has been prevented by the more business-like
arrangements of our enemy ; yet on that coast the finest
spars and wood of all kinds may be had for cutting, coal
for digging, and there are hundreds of harbours, any one
of which is made to land for naval uses. Our ships,
whether saVling or steam, if they want repair, must re-
turn home, or at best go to some distant foreign port.
The Russian can he repaired or refitted in their own
ports by their own workmen. The magnitude of these
operations and the insignificance or, in this case, nullity
of ours may be estimated by the fact that they have four
naval stations—Sitka., Petropaulovski, Okhotsk, and the
mouth of the Amor, distant respectively. say. 2,000,
700, and 500 miles, dominating over the North Pacific
—while the greatest maritime nation in the world has
not one.

Sir,—The allusions which of late have been made to
that part of the Russian territory, and the anomalous
reports on some agreement made between the so-called
Russian Fur Company and the Hudson's Bay Company
—the important question, in fine, whether Sitka be
"merely a trading port" or a Government establish-
ment, induce me to address you the following observa-
tions. They are communicated to me by a professional
gentleman, who performed a voyage on board one of
the Russian men-of-war which annually go between
Cronstadt, Sitka, Petropaulovski, and back. The Rus-
sian establishments on the north-west coast of America
were founded in 1797, and it was State-Councillor Bara-
noff who, being a man of great penetration and enter-
prise, laid the germ of their future greatness. The Rus-
sian-American Company may in some way he compared
to the English East India Company ; and it is well
known that even the latter is under the complete con-
trol of the English Government. It is obvious that this
must be still more the case with an absolute Govern-
ment like Russia, where everything of a public character
is centralised within the pale of autocratic power. The
Governor of Sitka and all its various employes are Rus-
sian officials, &c.

The organisation and system of the north-west Ame-
rican colony is curious and interesting. It is in Sitka
and Petropaulovski where all the cosily furs obtained in
that vast territory are collected. The communication
between Sitka and Cronstadt (or rather St. Petersburg)
can, as a matter of course, only be kert up by sea ; but
even Petropaulovski could not communicate with the
latter places hut by an expensive and lengthy land tran-
sport. For the sake of obviating this, and also for re-
taining the management of such costly goods within
their own grasp, the Russian-American Company de-
spatch every year, or thereabouts, a man-of-war, which
performs the following tour :—From Cronstadt it goes
first to Rio de Janeiro, the only port on the east coast
of America where a Russiam Ambassador of high rank
resides. Thence it proceeds to Sydney, partly for
taking in fresh supplies as well as for espying the con-
dition of this important colony. From Sydney ths
Russian man-of-war performs the difficult passage
through the South Sea Islands to Sitka. The approach
of this place is so difficult at certain seasons of
the year that no accurate astronomical observations
can be made, but when the ship has arrived within
the approximate latitude it cruises, firing guns
at short intervals, which, when they are heard at Sitke,
are responded to and a pilot sent, &c, At Sitka a part
of the cargo of the vessel (being generally a frigate of
1,000 tons burden) is discharged. It consists of mili-
tary and naval stores, ammunition, accoutrements,
medicines, &c. The space of the vessels thus emptied
is filled with the cases containing the costly furs collected
since the last vessel sailed. From Sitka, the Russian
man-of-war proceeds to Petropaulovski, where the same
process of unloading and loading is gone through.
Having thus filled her hold with a cargo which is gene-
rally valued at 1,000,000 silver roubles, the vessel begins
her homeward passage, and, rounding Cape Horn, pro-
ceeds direct to Rio de Janeiro. As the natural sciences
are much esteemed in Russia, vast botanical collections
of living plants, &c,, are taken in at that Brazilian port.
Returning to Cronstadt, the furs are shipped for St.
Petersburg, and it is with these American and Asiatic
furs that great part of the commerce of Kiachta with
the Chinese is carried on.

Although the Russian-American Company possesses a
small naval establishment, the vessels alluded to are offi-
cered and manned by the Imperial navy and carry the
Imperial flag. It is worthy of a passing notice that
Captain Khromshenko, commander of one of these ves-
sels, during a stay at Sitka learned from the natives (the
Kaloshes) that the adjacent territory of California was
rich in gold, and it was in his journal, published at St.
Petersburg about 1832, that these riches were first men-
tioned. Returning, however, to our main subject, it is
clear that Sitka, the chief place of such a vast territory,
the seat of a Russian governor, a place well defended by
fortifications, and possessing an arsenal and a garrison,
can, indeed, not be called a mere trading port, any more
than Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay, and that there must
be something which does " not meet the eye, " which
underlays the late diplomatic transactions—an affair the
elucidation of which I leave to other hands.

Sir,—Your other correspondents who have written
about Sitka have, as I hoped would be the case, let in
some light on the north-west coast of America.
I admit the fact stated by the one, that Sitka is not a
Sebastopol ; in my first note I wrote of its ships, not its
fortifications ; but I adhere to the statement confirmed
by the other, that it is an important Government station,
and not merely a trading port.
The former has no doubt authority in nautical mat-
ters. The latter, to whom for his information I, for
oue, am much indebted, has evidently accurate know-
ledge of that respecting which he writes—viz., the tran-
sit of furs by sea to St. Petersburg; and his account
shows the value of the merchandise which might have
been intercepted but for the " peculiar policy" of the two
companies to which the other alludes.

There are, however, other things—two more especi-
ally—which he does not tell ns, but which should be
known. One is that Sitka may be called the Odessa of
the North Pacific. It is there that stores of provisions,
&c., are collected and transmitted to the other stations,
not, indeed, from Russian America, but from British
America—i. e., the stations of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, California, and the Sandwich Islands. It is on this
account that I wish it not, indeed, destroyed, but occu-
pied. The ships and sailors of the United States in the
Pacific have been and are, no doubt, well employed in
doing what Russians and Russian vessels cannot
now do. The other fact is, that furs are carried
overland from Okhotsk to St. Petersburg ; and this
will not appear strange when the price of a fur cloak
is quoted in Russia at 3001. Sir G. Simpson, who may
be taken as an authority in this matter, notwithstand-
ing the objections made to his evidence, records that he
left Okhotsk with a caravan of 600 horses, carrying mer-
chandise for Mr. Shiloff, a rich merchant of that place,
and met another caravan of 500 coming in from
Yakutsk. There are roads and constant traffic through
Siberia, and rich merchants resident in so dreary a place
as Okhotsk, but we may look in vain for them in our
own beautiful and fertile possessions on the north-west
coast of America ; nor are there roads from it to Canada.
Yet Canadians first established trading ports on that
coast, and, though the five weeks allowed by yoar cor-
respondent from St. Petersburg to Okhotsk seem little,
I think, but for the cold shade of monopoly, that time
might be a fair allowance from Montreal to Vancouver's
Island • and it should be noted that though the com-
rades Of Cook opened the fur trade with China, which
then attracted even British merchants in India, and
which all Europe and the United States strove to
secure, that trade has been in the hands of Russia since
the establishment of Sitka. I should be sorry to think
that our sailors needed the stimulus of prize-money to
induce them to do their duty ; but I conceive it possible
that duty may be done with more alacrity and despatch
when a rich booty is anticipated than when it is known
that a !‘ peculiar policy" has aln§dy
PAM it out of

reach. A think it it bar .our or> ".
pr.,fits o o Rus;i;ln fir tr: esliou!d be lie '
as I dot-0n our merchant- that a trade le,'
to all should be monopolised. Year corri
_
coniparing the Russian Fur Company with ttl
Company forgot that the latter has no lon
lv of trade. 11,-, might more ju.tly, with
yon that the English company is not, like
der the direction or control of Government, have z;
pared it with the Hudson's Bay Company, now the: of
commercial monopoly remaining in this country.

THE FOOD QUESTION IN FRANCE.

(Front the Illoniteur.)

The Government very properly continues to beglow
its attention 'on the question of the supply of food, which
is always a fit sulject of concern. This is the third
time withi❑ these three years that the high price of corn
has imposed great sacrifices on the country. In this
difficult emergency the Government will not fail to do
Let us examine the state of the case.

France produces annually, on an average, 82 million.
Lectolittes'of wheat. Let us suppose that this year the-
harvest, has only yielded 75 ; there would be a deficit.
of 7 million hectolitres. Now, so long as these 7
million ,hectolitres shall not have been replaced in
Fra7;ce by foreign produce, there exists no human
Means of fiducing the price. The great concern,
therefSre, is' to have this amount of wheat brought
as rapidly and economically as possible from abroad.
Once hial-tilt, it is necessary to have it diffused as
easily as possible throughontall parts of the empire, so that
it may not leave them again. That once accomplished,
prices will go down by the natural course of things.
What then is the best mode of procuring these seven
million hectolitres ? Is it, as some propose, by reducing
the price artificially ? Is it by compelling the holders
to sell in a certain manner, in certain places, at a certain.
rate ? Is it by giving a bounty on importation ? We
do net think so. If by an active mode government.
81'""111 be so imprudent as to wish to lower the averagato
prices of grain by causing wheat to be sold at a love-
price ; should the government wish to take inquisitorial
measures against the holders, these resolutions would
occasion a result directly the reverse of what it wishes ;
fear would seize upon all who hold cern ;it would disap-
pear from the marke s ; people would rather hide it than
sell it, and the reduosd prier, being merely artificial,
could not be long maintained ; foreign corn obtainine.
cneoaselontogerentitesr
France,o:fitnt d
iwne sohnoru ldm abrek eitns eva bu moldy
overtaken by scarcity, seeing that it is just as
impossible to impose by force a price upon pro-
visions in general as to prevent water from finding its
level. The famous law of the maximum, of inauspi-
cious memOry, was an evident proof of the mischief that
-Ipay be done by ignerai se in respect of political
economy. Confidence and freedom in all transactions
are the unchangeable bases of prosperity in trade, and
consequently the causes of abundance.
As for giving a bounty en the importation of corn
into France, some persons imagine that the price of corn
would be reduced by the amount of the bounty. The,
experiment was tried in 1816, and did not succeed. In
fact, were the Government to declare that it gives a
bounty on the importation of corn, at the end of a very
short time the foreign producers and dealers would raise
the price to the full amount of this bounty, and the mea-
sure would merely end with enriching foreigners to the
detriment of French producers and consumers.

What then, is to be done ? It is, according to the
decree of the Sth of Sept. last, to open for more than
another year our frontiers to all the alimentary supplies
of foreign countries ; to prohibit the exportation of
them from France ; to facilitate the conveyance along
railways and canals by rendering it less expensive,
so as to equalise as much as possible the prices
of corn over the entire territory ; to encourage,
excite, and second purchases abroad ; to leave the
most perfect freedom to every transaction, vigorously
prepared to put the law in force against any culpable
tricks having for their object the cresting of an artificial
rise by means of coalition ; to stimulate public and pri-
vate charity at the moment when bread is dearest ;
lastly to give rise by every means to work in the land,
fer if we succeed in creating a greater demand for work,
and consequently in rendering it dearer, the • rorkmen
will obtain a remunerative price that will to << certain
point be a set-off to the high prices of food. We may
as well say here, that the low price of articles of food is
not always the proof of prosperity. There are countries
where corn for instance is worth very little, and where
the inhabitants fur all that are in the deepest distress,
because from the absence of industrial and trading ac-
tivity they cannot buy in eufficient quantity food of the
first necessity, even at the trivial price it is offered for
sale.

Besides, it is an incontestable truth that the rise in
the price of corn alone enables the deficit to be made
good, for beyond a doubt foreign
,producers and mer-
chants will not bring corn to our markets, unless they
find there a reasonable profit and complete security for
their transactions.

This is so true that the rise in corn has already very
opportunely roused commerce. It has occasioned nume-
rous orders and important purchases abroad ; and not
merely the arrivals that will he the consequence of them
will naturally tend to lower the prices, but the simple
knowledge of this fact will concur to the same end, so
soon as it shall be known by the French producers.
Let the country then be reassured ; the government
watches, and engaged especially about the welfare of
the moat numerous class it will know how to take the
most prudent and efficacious measures, at the same time
that' it will resist all unreasonable demands with the
strength that love of the right and the feeling of duty
confer.

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ROMAL CREMORNE.
'Admission, is.

THE GRAND COMMEMORATIVE FETES,

for the Benefit of the Wido•.rs and Orphans of the brave Soldiers

who fell at the
CAPTURE OF SEBASTOPOL,
will continue throughout the week.

To the general Amusements and Exhibitions, which will be ren-
dered more than usually interesting by valuable professional services
gratuitously rendered, will be added vivid representations of the
Capture of the Malakhoft, the Roden,* and Sebastopol. while the
Illuminative Devices and Pyrotechnic Brilliancies will be on a scale
of splendour alike worthy of the impartant victories achieved and
of the objects for which they are given.

ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE.
Leisee, Mr, J. H. Anderson, 18, Norfolk-street, Strand.

TIIIS EVENING,

Will be presented, with entirely New am! Magnificent Appoint-
ments, MAGIC and MYSTERY, in twelve acts, arranged in two
parts, by Prof,mor Anderson.

Prices of admission:—Private 'Boxes, 1/. lls. 6d. and U. ls. ;
Ornestra Stalls, 45.: Dress Boxes, 35.; Upper Boxes, 23. ; Pit,
is. ; Geer", 6J. No Half-price. Box-office open from 11 to 5

D3Drs op.-2n at Half-pant Seven. Commence at Eight.
Iran,' At() ninz Performanne on Saturday Next at Two o'Clock.
Doors upon at If-past One.

ROYAL OPERA, DRURY-LANE.
Lessee, Mr. E. T.rSmith.
THIS EVENING,
W3I be p:rrormed Handers Serenata ACIS AND GALATEA.
Chsra -demi hy Messrs. E:liot Baler, and H. Braham; and Miss F.
Hal 'art aul Lary Escott.
To be followed by tho 2e:ond and third. acts of MASANIELLO.
Prices of admission:—To the two galleries. 63.; second circle of
b lam end pit, Is.; dress circle, 25.9. 6d• ; stalls, 45.; private boxes to
aimit two nersons, Pis. 6d.; four persons, one guinea. Box-office
Cl,ers trom 10 to G daily.

THEATRE: ROYAL HAYMARRET.
Under the management of Mr. Baokekons;
THIS EVENING.
Win be perfor:ned THE MAN OF MANY FRIENDS.
A 1;11101, TILE PItErTY GIPSEY AND THE BULL-
To 1,„1 followed by THE SULTAN.
To wLlell win be added ONLY A HALFPENNY.
After wh!ch, THE SPANISH DANCERS.
To conclude with JOHN JONES.

'MLA,' TIM ROYAL ADELPHL
Prop.:let:oa Mr. B. Webster.—Directress, Madame Celeste.
THIS EVENING,

, ‘.7111 be performed VICTORINE. Characters by Messrs. L. 3lur-
rtv, f S.3toy, P. ilecitbrd, Wright, Parselle, &c.;
L. :hurray, &c. Miss Woolgar,
Alter which, 'IOW'S YOUR UNCLE ?
To conclude with SEEING WRIGHT.

EOYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Under the direction of Mr; Payne.

THIS EVENING,
Mil be performed FOUNDED ON FACTS.
With a New Ballet.
Followed by SALLY SMART; or, The Clockmaker'e Hat.
ANT which, a National Dance.
To whicli wld be added STAGE STRUCK.
Polllwed by a Spanish Ballet.
To conclude wltii TUREE PAIR OF LOVERS.