The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-16 00:00:00

The Paris Exaibitich.

ITS INFLUENCE ON EMIG-11.kTION AND THE PUBLIC

CREDIT.
NEW YORK, February 7, 1867.
To the Hon. 0. 11. Browning, Secretary of the

Interior.

Sir,—ln a recent interview I had the honour
present verbally to your consideration the import-
ance of strengthening the Commissioners of the
United States to the " Universal Exposition" at
Paris, by such documents, official statements, and
maps, duly authenticated by the Department of the
Interior, as might fully exhibit the magnitude and
extent of our physical resources.
Pursuant to your request to reduce to written
form the views then expressed, I now respectfully
claim, in behalf of myself and my colleagues in the

Commission-
1. That the due exhibition to the nations of the
civilised world of the principal material elements of
our national wealth and strength must inevitably
elevate our national credit. Among those elements
stands pre-eminent our cereal and our mineral
products. Other elements of much importance
exist in our diversified machinery, mechanical in-
ventions, and manufacturing industry, and will be
represented at Paris to a fair extent ; but it may
be safely claimed that the food and the minerals
of the American Union are the very foundation,
the imperishable and constantly widening basis of
its national power.
Impressed with this conviction, the Commis-
sioners have actively exerted themselves, in the
brief period which has elapsed incp,: their appoint-
ment in August last, to collect, by appeals to the
American people, adequate evidence in proper visible
specimens of these two cardinal elements of our
national strength. Even with the scanty aid fur-
nished by Congress, these efforts have met with
gratifying success, but they may be materially aided
by the timely co-operation of the department of the
interior, in furnishing official information, autho-
ritatively showing the abundance and variety of
these elements, and especially their widespread
geographical distribution.
In the comparison' which will be made in the
coming concourse of nal ions of the cereal and metal-
lic strength of the different portions of the world
the United States can be placed in the foremost
rank. the
With such a pre-eminence clearly established,
question must immediately present itself to Europe,
why should the United States, possessing material
resources so abundant and unexampled, pay from
eight to nine per cent. for money while smaller and
feebler nations readily borrow at five and even four
per cent. ?
In the coming Exhibition we can show to Europe
lve
iai
nynelcia
rr
el yd cue.,
millions
01. produs
()fu cbtu alreadysl els, v :i2ccfieede d igannd tswe
te
motion by a yearly product of goldnsatnidnesdilvtenr,lanrgeow
little short of $100,000,000, and d
me the mining
and rapid increase ontlie
nnect
cnonmpletio. of the. great
interior railways, directly
districts with the overflowing granaries in the 'Mis-
sissippi Valley. As derivatives from these two great
sources of national strength, we can further show
not only our multiform agricultural machines, equi-
valent in power to millions of men, and busily em.
ployel from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but our
whole apparatus, natural and artificial, of inland
and ocean transportation, instinct with the highest
elements of national life, and oversprearling the
land and the sea. Must not such an exhibition,
made palpable to the vision of assembled Europe,
inevitably enhance the market value of the bonds,
which we must shortly negotiate, to meet or lessen
our national indebtedness? With the inventory of
our assets thus unrolled, will London, or Paris, or
Amsterdam, or Frankfort hesitate to trust us ?
Will not the sagacious capitalists of the older world,
so worn out by age, prefer to lend their money to a
nation of the newer world, so young, so vigorous,
so rapidly growing...
We reduce these. general views to a specific pro-
position, in affirming-that the proposed Exhibition
at Paris, if duly Strengthen:6d; as above suggested,
by the Department of the Interior, will add at least
five per cent. to the market value of our public
stock. If it be necessary to negotiate our bonds for
fifteen hundred millions_ of dollars (and we shall

and just to lighten the burden of our debt on the
present generation, by negotiating a twenty-year
loan of fifteen hundred millions (which could be
effected by a proper exhibition of our resources), at
five per cent, yearly, instead of six, the fifteen mil-
lions in interest annually saved to our people would
amount, in the twenty years, to three hundred mil-
lions of dollars.

It is to secure great national results lik these
that the Commissioners now g) out to Paris. Their
stay and their usefulness in that expensive capital
may- be injuriously al‘ridgetl by the omission of
Cougress to provide for their actual and necessary
expenses ; but they will hoin at least while there,
to be strengthened and encouraged by the official

statmet..t; 'Aire requested from the Department of

e bitt,rior.

2. But there is a higher and more permanently
portant re-nit to be obtained by the proposed

Exhibition.

These visible evidqnes of our food

and mineral wealth, officially shown to be scattered

broadcast through the Contiuent—the corn of Illi-
nois and the central portion of the Mississippi
Valley standing front twelve to sixteen feet in

height—the wheat of the young North-west just
beginning to grow by the side of the cereals of the
older Sta'es, bat ere long to be counted by hun-

dreds of millions of bushels—the gold and silver so

piovidentially laid up for the use of the Republic,

and now richly outpouring from the metalliferous
ranges and valleys of our great interior, needinc, for
• _

their full development only the means of railway
access soon to be provided—not to mention our
iron, lead, copper, zinc, and quicksilver, and above

all our cod, with its almost incalculable power--
will all be kept for seven months, prominent and
co*spienons " Pa1ae,3,12-8.3 living witnesses to
to be daily examined by the European world.
The story they will tell will be repeated from
mouth to mouth, from the Atlantic to the Volga.
Penetrating the inmost recesses of Europe, can the
intelligence fail to reach and to animate the over-
worked, under-fed, labouring millions longing for a
country offering such a refuge from penury and
want? Who will undertake to measure the pecu-
niary and political effects of such an exhibition, in
swelling that vast and " solemn stream" of emi-
gration, which has been flowing for the last forty
years in such ample volume from the Old World to
the New ?

The present population of Europe is about
290,000,000, having slowly but steadily increased.
since the general peace of 1815. The yearly rate of
increase in France has been little more than one-
half of one per cent. ; in Prussia (before the recent
conquests), between one and two per cent. The
annual increase in the whole of Europe may there-
fore be assumed to be from one-half of one per cent.
to one per cent., or, in round numbers, on the
existing population of 290,000,090, about 2,000,000
annually. From this number Europe can readily
spare, and the American Union can easily take, at
least 500,000 yearly.
In the forty years from 1820 to 1860 we took
from Europe 4,512,171 emigrants. The num-
ber in the year 1866, just closed, falls a little
short of 275,000, a majority of whom were
Germans. At the present rate we shall re-
ceive 5,500,000 in the next twenty years. It
surely is among the gravest of the political
problems of the present century, and should be
among the highest aims of American statesmanship
to accelerate and yet regulate, within wise limits,
and by proper and efficient agencies, this mighty
movement of the population of Europe into our
broad continental Republic.
In the solution of such a problem can any moral
element be imagined of moreimportauce than a full
and accurate knowledge, by the whole people of

nrope, of the immensity and accessibility of our

two great national resources--our food and our pre-
cious metals—and the certainty that wealth, with
all its comforts and powers, is fully within the reach
of every European emigrant to this country,
bringing with him habits of ecanomy and in-
dustry,

We venture to assert thnt the one magnificent
specimen of the silver ore of Idaho, taken from the

inmost heart of our broad interior, and lately exhi-
bited to the Committee of Congress at Washington,
whai carried out to Paris for the examination and
wonder of Europe, will suffice, of itself, when shown
to the working multitudes, to set in motion west-
ward, across the Atlantic, from ten to twenty thou-
sand emigrants yearly.
It has been statistically ascertained, by the actual
experience of the twenty years from 1840 to 1860, as
disclosed by the census, that the average money
value of every European emigrant reaching this
country, irrespective of any property-he may bring
with him, is $1,030, varying somewhat with the
productive power of the locality he may select. A
still higher average would be found for skilled
labourers, and that, too, apart from the diffusible
value of the skill itself. An increased emigration
of only a single ten thousand would, at the rate of
$l,OOO each, add to the wealth of the United States
$10,000,Q00, a sum nearly forty-fold the amount
required for the perfect 'exhibition at Paris of all
the products of the industry and art of the United
States, is every department, and also for the care-
ful study, by competent, scientific assistants, not
only of the products, but of the processes of all
other nations.
If the more perfect knowledge of our country,
spread in various languages through Europe by the
efforts of the Commissioners, should add, as it well
may, 50,000 to the average yearly number of emi-
grants for the next 20 years—increasing by only a
million, the :pre-existing rate, exceeding 4,000,000
for the last 20 years—the money otoohat
million to the country would be $l, ,
ages to come.
value
eoooof
to the Ameri-
can to speak of the geometrically increasing value
of the descendants of the million for
The incessant accumulation of wealth
importing population by the million, affords a basis
can Union, resulting from this giant process of
for its public credit not enjoyed by any nation on
the globe.
This immense but peaceful exodus of civilised
men. already operating on a scale so vast, and so
far transcending any past example in human his-
tory, furnishes, in truth, a cardinal, if not .the
dominant fact, for estimating not only our pro-
spective growth, but the future c:)mparative rank
of the taro worlds —bringing within the reach of
mathematical demonstration the epoch when the
power of the Western Continent, fiscal and
political, must fully equal that of the Eastern.
The coming concourse at Paris of the civilised
nations from both hemispheres will furnish an op-
portunity not soon again to be enjoyed for the
proper comprehension and discussion of such a
question. On the pert of the United States it can-
not be adequately presented without full and accu-
rate maps of our unoccupied territory now open to
the European world, embracing nearly two millions
of square miles, accompanied by official statements
of the natural products iu the different portions,
with documents authentically showing the progress
and present condition of our continental railways
and other means of interchange between the grand
divisions of the Republic from ocean to ocean.
For this official information, duly certified, the
undersigned, in behalf of himself and his col-
leagues, noar respectfully applies to the enlightened
head of Department of the Interior,
and to th&
various bureaus under his direction, as being
specially charged with the care of the public
domain and the material statistics of the United
States. With high reapest, your obedient servant,
SAMUEL. B. RUGGLES,
Commissioner of the United States for the Paris
Exposition, for himself and colleagues.

••••••
„
ARIS EXHIBITION, 1867.—It has been definitely
decid,cl by the Imperial Commission to open the Paris
Exhibition on the let of April without any state ceremonial
FARMS-WAGES IN CANADA..—Thp official reports
of the GNlBinment agents in various parts of the provinces
to the Bureau of Agriculture and Emigration givo the fol-
lowing rates of Wakes for farm labour : —ln the counties
Kingston, $l4 to $l5 ; Ottawa. Sl3 to $l5 ;
near Hamilton, $l4 to $l6 per month ; Toronto, Sl5 to
$2O ; and
Montreal, sit to $l5, in all cases with board and lodging.
11:i rvest labourers received during the season of 1866 front
$ll to $2 per day. A Canadian dollar is in all oases 4s. 2d.
sterling.

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Lists of Prices with rules for Self-measurement and
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• are Ready-made,
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COUNTRY BRANCH—Bradford, Yorkshire.

AAPOPULAR HISTORY of LONDON from
. the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Present time
Part the Second—From 1066 to 1867.

E. Moses and Son, corner of Minories and Aldgate ;
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SWANSEA VALE and NEATH and BRECON
JUNCTION RAILWAY CNIPANY.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That the ORDI-
NARY HALF-YEARLY GENERAL MEETING of
the above Company will be held at their offices, 1, West
minster Chambers, Victoria-street, Westminster, S.W.,
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precisely, for the transaction of the general business of
the Company.
And notice is also hereby given, that the Transfer Books
of the Company will be closed on the 18th inst., and will
remain so closed until the termination of the above
meeting.

W. L. BANKS, Chairman.

D. HOWELL MORGAN, Secretary.
1, Westminster Chambers, Victoria-streot, Westminster,
S.W., March 15, 1867.

NEATH DCOMBPARNEYC ON RAILWAY
Ii"OTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That the ORDINARY
..X-YEARLY GENERAL MEETING of the above
Company will be held at their offices, 1, Westminster
Chambers, Victoria-street, Westminster, S.W., on SA-
TURDAY, the 30th inst., at. Two o'Clock, precisely,
for the general business of the Company.
And notice is hereby given, That the Transfer Books
of the Company will be closed from the 18th iuSt., and
will remain so closed until the termination of the said
mooting.

W. L. BANKS, Chairman.

D. HOWELL MORGAN, Secretary.
1, Westminster Chambers, Victoria-streot, Westminster,
S.W., March 15, 1867.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

THIS DAY. —Morning, 10h. 22m.—Afternoon, 11h. 6m.
ro-Monßow.-Morning, 11h. 48m.—Afternoon, h. m.

I iit jorei-'': f -1-` 1 ;t'
9'"%
' ',IA". .......,,,,....,."111

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1867.

According to the accounts received of the Minis-

terial project of Reform, as explained by Lord
DERBY to his supporters yesterday afternoon, there
is good reason to hope that we may at last obtain

a comprehensive, liberal, and constitutional mea-

sure. The Government, it would seem, intend to

propose a household suffrage for boroughs, which
will thus place the franchise on a definite and per-

inanent basis.

A savings banks franchise and an educa-
tional franchise are also to be added, thus giving

representation to those members of the pro-

,ression who are not otherwise qualified. There

is some talk, -besides, of a tax-paying
qualification, which Radicals ought to accept cor-
dially, since they are fond of asserting the principle

that there should be no taxation without representa-
tion. We need not enter at large into the further
details of the scheme, which will be of course fully

explained to the public on Monday night, though
we may congratulate the country on the prospect of
obtaining from Lord DERBY a bill which, especially
after its passage through committee, will be likely

to satisfy the wants of the people and fulfil the

conditions of the Constitution.
In the brief interval which remains before the
disclosures of Monday evening, it is worth while to
examine some among the many projects which have
been recently put forward to assist the Government
in their deliberations. We need not look too closely

nto the logic of Mr. JOHN Scorr, who, in addresa-
ng " every class and creed in society," unfolds a

scheme in which " perfect human freedom" is at-

tained under a Government whose duty it is "to
prevent vice, crime, disease, and premature death,''
to furnish "productive, remunerative employment''

for every one who wants it, and limit the time ex-
pended in all forms of human labour to eight hours
per diem, besides such trifling obligations as the
prevention of accidents in railways, vessels, and

coal-mines. We fear neither Lord DERBY nor
Lord RUSSELL are as yet fully qualified for the
head of such an administration, and must therefore
wait till Mr. JOHN SCOTT 15 himself prepared to
form a cabinet.

The claim of Englishwomen to the franchise is
another point, which is not likely to be mooted just
now in any scheme of Parliamentary Reform,
though we are not surprised that its advocates
should have been eager to reprint the very
able and temperate essay on the subject in
the current number of the Westminster Review.
One of the most able and laborious of these various

proposals is that put forward many years ago by

Sir JOHN EARDLEY WILMOT, Recorder of Warwick,
and now again put in circulation,* as appropriate
to the time. Sir JoHN is not contented with a mere
proposal for reduction of the suffrage, but aims at

;he reform of our whole political system. His ex.

perience as a revising barrister has convinced him
of the absolute necessity for removing, if possible,
the elements of corruption from our electoral bodies,

and as a member of a Royal Commission of inquiry
into a case of bribery, he had full opportunity of

examining what he calls the machinery of corrup-
tion. Sir JouN's pamphlet was written so far back
as 1854, when no one dreamt of the possibility of
Parliamentary Reform standing over for thirteen
years, but his observations are just as applicable to
the present time. We may mentally substitute
Totnes and Great Yarmouth for Sudbury and St.
Alban's ; ,but the main features of the case are
identical, and the remedies he proposes are as well
calculated for the England of to-day as they
were for the England of the Crimean war.
His aim, as we have said, is not merely to
increase of the number of voters, but " the re-
distribution, extension, and purification of the Elec-
tive Franchise." As is perhaps natural with his
professional experience, he attaches more import-

ante to the redistribution of seats than to the reduc-
tion of the franchise. In this respect he would make
several important changes. Disfranchising twelve
boroughs, in which the inhabited houses fall short
of 1,000 ; to take one member from 31 boroughs '
with less than 2,000 houses now sending two mem-
bers each. Altogether he would gain M seats,
which hc would thus distribute to nine large boroughs;
such as Salford, Gateshead, and Wakefield, he would
give an additional member ; to eleven unrepresented
boroughs, including Birkenhead, Gravesend, and
Doncaster ho would•allow one representative. To
the southern division of Lancashire and the West
Riding of York he proposes giving two additional
members each ; to the counties of Cambridge,
Oxford, Dorset, and Berks, one member each. Two
Scotch boroughs and one Welsh borough would
have an additional member; two members would
be allotted to the Metropolitan district of Chelsea,
Kensington, and Hammersmith,—a very commend-
able and sensible measure—and no less than four-
teen seats to representatives of a kind of educational
franchise. Eight members are to be given to universi-
ties, including the London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh,
four to the profession of medicine, and two to that
of law. We do not suppose that these proposals are
likely to be accepted by the House of Commons,
though some of them, as we have said, are very just
and sensible. The proposal for a new metropolitan
district, which has often been discussed, is one
which deserves attention, and the University seats
are likely to find favour. More especially would
they be well bestowed on the Scotch Univer-
sities, since Scotland has good reason to com-
plain of the inequalities of her representa-
tion, which Sir JOHN EARDLEY WILMOT'S scheme
does not redress.
With regard to the extension of the suffrage,
Sir J. WILMOT inclines, as most moderate men are
beginning to do, to a household suffrage, on pay-
ment of taxes, with a certain time of residence. He

* " Parliamentary Reform." A Letter to R. Praedom,
Esq., by Sir J. C. Wilmot, Bart. Second Edition,
Eidtivoy,

is anxious to increase largely the number of electors,
thinking this the best and most effectual means of
checking corruption. We regret not to find so
able an advocate and so consistent a reformer in
favour of the ballot, which he holds to be ineffectual;
but the experience of America does not encourage
us to hope that mere numbers will be much protec-
tion against corruption.

Mr. GIBSON, in his brief but able pamphlet on
the Philosophy of the Franchise,* recommends the
representation of classes, say dividing the popula-

tion into six classes, and allowing each 100 mem-
bers. This scheme, though theoretically fair and
comprehensive, must, we fear, be laid aside as at once
too visionary and too great a disturbance of the
existing system.

" Robert Bush, Charing-cross.

All that relates to the laying of the Atlantic

Cable is sure to attract interest, and most deservedly
so, for it was a triumph of skill and perseverance
such as the world has rarely witnessed. On Thurs-
day evening a grand banquet was given to the
layers of this cable by the membeis of the American

Chamber of Commerce, and it is satisfactory to

know that the affair went off well. The Mayor of

Liverpool was present, the presidents of the chief

commercial associations of Liverpool and Manches-
ter, and the principal resident American merchants.
The Chairman presented to Messrs. CUMMING,

ANDERSON, FIELD, and W. SMITH a gold medal,

which was most beautiful. The name of the gentle-
men to whom it is given is on one side and below
the arms and legend of Liverpool, while on the other
side are the words " Atlantic Telegraph Cable,"
in a circle below which is the Great Eastern in full

sail on the ocean. The health of Mr. FIELD was

proposed in most appropriate terms, and that gen-
tleman made a speech worthy of the occasion and of
himself. He said that he should prize the medal

that had been presented to him the more because it
had been the gift of English and American merchants.
Liverpool is indeed the most fitting spot for such a

ceremony as this to have taken place, for, as Mr FIELD
remarked, it is one of the greatest commercial
centres in the world, and the " white sails of many
fleets and goodly and well-laden ships" speak not
only of great trade, but of the community of
friendship and interest which binds Liverpool to

the people of the United States. The great merit

of a work like the Atlantic Telegraph is that it
belongs to all time, and that hereafter posterity will
realise it yet more fully and forcibly than we do.

The descendants of those who hare thus united two
worlds may point with pride and satisfaction alike
to the greatness of this exploit and the benefits that

accrue therefrom.
It is very interesting to notice that Mr. FIELD
mentioned that thirteen years that very day he

spoke he left his home in New York for Boston

and sailed thence to Newfoundland to " obtain the

privilege of landing cables to connect Europe with

America." Few men can hare a part of their lives
so instructive and interesting as a retrospect as this

gentleman has, and well may we sympathise with
his struggles and applaud his energy. The living
and the dead who have contributed to the fulfil-
ment of this wonderful task belong to history, and

it will assuredly render them justice. Many share the
gratitude and good-will of those who profit by the

success of this great enterprise. Foremost we
must mention the Governments of the United
States and of Groat Britain for the assistance they
gave in providing ships, and the Governments of
the British North American Provinces also afforded
the privilege in a prompt manner. The directors
and officers of various companies were likewise
most efficient in the completion of the task, and
those who were so liberal in subscribing the capi-
tal must of course rank high in the list. The com-
manders of the ships were also very important
agents in the work. Especial mention was made
by Mr. FIELD of the " eminent engineers and their
efficient staffs, who planned and perfected the
machinery, and not only triumphantly laid one
cable, but by a transcendent navy an unparalleled
exercise of patience and skill, picked up the broken

cable from the eternal solitude and darkness of the
sea ;" and also of those distinguished electricians,
whose wonderful discoveries seem indeed too great,
if not to excel all that we read in childish days of
fairy touches and magicians' wands. Step by step
they have ascertained the laws by which the
" invisible electric current" in its passage through
the ocean depths " may be as completely subordi-
nated to the human will as the simplest piece of
mechanism which can be felt and handled in a
busy workshop." As Mr. FIELD observed, it may
safely be affirmed that so many men were never
gathered together in one enterprise who were so
admirably adapted for the work they undertook,
both by their particular knowledge and by their
diversified endowments. The problem of the
Atlantic Telegraph could not possibly have been
solved by those who were not particu-
larly well fitted for the work, and the Great
Eastern was also of great service, with its able com-
mander ! "The man," said Mr. FIELD, " was made
for the ship, and both were made for us." The
press of England and America supported the enter-
prise in adversity as well as in prosperity, and
grateful mention is here made of it. Only one was
mentioned by name by Mr. FIELD, because he is now
no more—RICHARD COBDEN. He proposed that the
profits of the Great Exhibition of 1851 should be
devoted to the establishment of electrical commu-
nication between Great Britain and America.
In returning to the more general subject of the
cable, Mr. FIELD said that they had now laid
across the Atlantic two of the most perfect cables
that had ever been made, and they are, it is
gratifying to know, i❑ such excellent order
that they can now transmit twelve times
as much business as they are doing. It is not
surprising that one who has had so much to do
with the work of the laying of the cable should be
anxious that as much advantage as possible should
be derived from it, and the suggestions of Mr.
FIELD are worthy of notice. He wishes that the
tariff may soon be reduced, so that the cables
may be kept constantly employed, and that the
political intelligence for the press may be trans-
mitted at such a rate that its conductors on both
sides of the ocean may publish every morning a full
summary of news of the world. It will afford one
a good idea of the wonders done by this cable to
learn that in New York they often send a message
to London on their way home to dinner, and in the
morning they find the answer on their desks at their
return to business. " Only a few weeks ago the birth
of a Princess wasknown earlier on the morning of the
day on which it occurred in San Francisco and the
shores of the Pacific than it was here." We think
that all who are engaged in an arduous undertaking
may learn a lesson from Mr. FIELD'S reminiscences,
and not despair of eventual success, but look to the
future with hope and confidence. "What a contrast,"
said he, " is my present appearance in this town
to my former visits. Instead of pointing to two
cables ill working order, they could only show
specimens of a cable which they trusted would
one day be laid, while they literally wen
from door to door to beg for subscriptions. We
stand, indeed, on the threshold of that glorious
future wheu the telegraph will cross and ream