The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-16 00:00:00

$130,000,000 instead of $80,000,000.

:- • •
This is accounted for in part from the fact that the South
was swept bare of every sort of goods during the war

—its working machines, its railroads and their rolling
stock, its steamboat; &c., were all in good part destroyed,
all that was left to it were its staple crops. But as it is
now proved to possess these in heavy quantities they will
enable it to supply itself with everything else.
The imports of cotton to New York from the South
prior to the 28th of August last averaged twenty thousand
bales a week.

It follows that there must be a corresponding export of

goods and machinery to the South

Business at New

York and throughout the great West, at last date, was

active beyond precedent.

There is little doubt but the exports of the staples of all

sections of the country during the same time will more
than equal in value the imports.
The Debt of Great Britain at the close of the French

war in 1816 was $4,205,000,000, and has only since that
time been reduced $250,000,000, and was a charge of $2lB

20c. per head on her total population, and an encumbrance
on the total wean of the nation of 40 4-10ths per

cent.

Since the battle of Waterloo her wealth has grown at a
slow but steadily-increasing rate, from 20 per cent. in the
first to 41 per cent. in the last ten years, thereby reducing
the burden of the debt from 40 4-10ths per cent. on the
national wealth to but 12 per cent. now.
The census of 1860 shows the wealth of the loyal
States at $10,766,000,000, and the products of the

year at $2,780,000,000, or 26 1-Bth per cent. of the

capital

The wealth of tho loyal States increased in ten years
from 1850 to 1860 at the rate of 126 per cent., or 81 per cent
per annum.

Assuming these amounts and .rates as a basis we have
in June, 1865, a wealth of $16,112,000,000, and an annual
product of $4,318,000,000. The increase of the wealth
and production of the States which have been in rebellion
for the same period was even greater than this.
These rates of production and accumulation will perhaps
astound European statisticians, and may challenge the
wonder of those among us who borrow their economic
doctrines and ideas from Trasatlantic authorities, but we
can speak with absolute assurance from our census, and
are fully warranted in taking them as a basis of estimate
of the immediate future.
In 1833 the wealth of Great Britain was estimated at
$17,200,000,000. But our own figures depend in no degree
or respect upon the estimate of exports.
A decennial appraisement of the property and products
of the nation by the Census Bureau give us the facts of
our situation and rate of progress to be relied on.
Taking the results of the Census Bureau for the last
decade the following will bo the results as the national
wealth and resources :

In 1870 the wealth will be .
In 1880 48,236,000,000
In 1881 51,516,000,000
reducing the rate of interest on the $3,000,000,000 to 1
27-100ths per cent. on the national wealth.
The burden of interest upon the public debt is here cal-
culated down to the rate of the increase of wealth in the
last decade immediately before the rebellion commenced.
Is this the measure of advancement for the next 16 years ?

Let us see.
In the last decade nine of our North Western States and
Territories grew upon the valuations of 1850 fully 411 k per
cent. from $452,500,000 to $1,862,000,000. Four new
territories which had not been reported in 1850 were valued
in 1860 at $98,000,000, and the still newer ones, Dakota,
Nevada, Colorado, Arizonia, and Idaho, are not valued at
all.

These last are among the richest in the precious met ils,
and aro rapidly rising into equality of product with Cali-
fornia itself, but have no report in our estimates.
The Government still holds in the Great West and North
West 950,000,000 of acres of land undisposed of, which
are now, at the conclusion of the war, to come rapidly into
market, and what is much more to the purpose, though
worth a thousand millions to the Treasury in purchase
money, will, after the example of those settled and improved
since 1850, rise in taxable value at an average rate of 455
per cent., and in twenty years' increase about thirty times
the cash value of the property of their occupants ; and if
every dollar received from the sales of the public domain
shall be bestowed on these new States by the Federal
Government, in donations to their internal improvements
and educational purposes, the taxable wealth and the result-
ing resources in these new States will be only thereby in-
creased in manifold proportion to the investment.
The United States Government owns an area of about
one million of square miles of territory, literally stocked
with gold, silver, precious stones, marble, gypsum, salt,
iron, quicksilver, asphaltum, coal, copper, and lead, asking
only an amount of labor relatively equal to that expended
on California to yield $400,000,000 per annum in gold and
silver alone, and in other minerals, which will be mined as
soon as transportation is provided, at least half that sum,
and these things are not merely in the possibility of the
future. They are near enough to answer the exigencies of
our condition. A population now of 30 millions which,
during the last half-century has doubled its numbers every
twenty-three and a-half years with all the industrial
energies and apparatus of the age at command, animated
by the spirit of adventure and spurred on by the faith and
hope which works wonders, will be found sufficient for
the achievement of greater things than we shall need or
dare predict.
But, great as the promise is in those exhaustless sources
of natural wealth, our reliance is not alone or even chiefly
in the wilderness of the new world.
The States called the older of the sisterhood did in the

last census decade increase their wealth vastly more in
amount, and but little less in percentage than the compara-
tively now ones.
Ohio first settled 77 years ago, appreciated in ten years
136 per cent., but New Jersey and Connecticut, both for
two centuries under culture, enhanced their wealth in as
great proportion for the same time, and Pennsylvania made
an increase of 96 per cent. upon her large capital of
$722,000,000.
The rebellion being now suppressed it is proper to include
the wealth and income of the States which were in rebel-
lion as a part of the resources of the Union.
Their wealth in 1860, as shown ;ay the Census Bureau,
was $3,467,000,000.
In the five years from 1855 to 1860 they doubled their

products.
Those States can be restored now in less time, and then
advanced upon at the like rate, for they are soon to set
forward in a career of prosperity, unparalleled in past ex-
perience.
The rebellion has disencumbered them of an incubus.
They have at command all that the temperate climate
affords with the semi-tropical added.
They lack nothing but the population, enterprise, and
diversified industry of free institutions, and these are
brought to them by the new order of things.
We say again give us but twenty years to realize the
promise of our money and conditions, and the United
States will stand ready with a population of 60 millions,
and a wealth of not less than 60,000 millions of dollars to
meet the current burden and discharge the total debt of
the nation.
England with half this amount of wealth now feels that
her still larger debt has dwindled from 40 to 15 per
cent. of her property. Ours then would stand at but 5 per
cent. of our capital though undiminished in amount in all
that period.
An additional source of revenue will probably be
created by Congress in the shape of an export duty on
cotton, tobacco, and other staples of the reconstructed
Union, for which we have the command of the world's
market, and can be made to pay from 60 millions dollars
to 100 millions dollars per year, without detriment to our
public interest.
The public debt of the States is held almost entirely
by its own citizens, not over 300 millions being held
abroad.
It is held by all classes, rich and poor, for investment,
by Banks, Life and Fire Insurance Companies, Orphan
Courts, &c., tradesmen, small farmers, mechanics and
laborers, in sums as low as 50 dollars. It is preferred to
any other security. No loan of any other Government is
so universally diffused among its own citizeus.