The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-06 00:00:00

The New Highway of the World.

The Colorado, one of the finest of the Pacific
Mail Steamers, left San Francisco on the Ist day
of January, for Japan and China. She carried 45
cabin, and 700 steerage passengers ; $582,300 in
treasure, and 1,300 barrels of flout. She will steer
direct for Japan, leaving the Sandwich Islands to
the south, and, in all probability, will reach her
destination iu 19 days. From Japan she goes to
Shanghae, and from Shanghae to Hong Kong.
Her deparure from San Francisco was celebrated
by a public banquet, over which the Governor
of the State presided. Amid the discharge
of guns, and the cheers of the citizens,
another great ocean steam-ship commenced a
voyage which, humanly speaking, forms a main
link of a highway destined to be the greatest yet
opened over the world's surface. It will take a year
before the line gets into full working order, and,
in the mean time, the Union Pacific Railway will
be vigorously constructed to complete the chain be-
tween the Pacific and Atlantic, through the centre
of the Union. Two steamers for the service be-
tween China and San Francisco each 4,000 tons
burthen, and built in the best style, are approaching
completion in New York. Ihe Costa Rica has
been sent to China, round the Cape of Good Hope,
for service on that coast, and it was intended
that the Hermann should leave San Francisco yes-
terday as the second vessel of the line. She
will remain at Japan as a receiving ship to work
in case of accident. The Government has con-
tracted with the Pacific Mailship Company to pay
a yearly subsidy of half a million dollars, for
which the Company undertakes to despatch a
steamer from San Francisco for China once a
month. A special line will ply between the
Sandwich Islands and San Francisco. It was
originally intended that the China steamers
should touch at these islands, but fuller informa-
tion ha.s induced thelprojectors to modify this plan.
To those bound from England to Shanghae and
Japan, it may be worth while to consider whether
their best is route not now by the Atlantic, either
via New York, or by the -West India steamers,
direct to the Isthmus of Panama. When the Union
Pacific Railway approaches completion, the whole
passenger trade as far as Hong Kong and Manilla,
and probably to Singapore and Batavia, will find
its way through New York or Philadelphia. No
other route will be able for any period to compete.
In the first instance, the road will be direct, therefore
shorter and cheaper ; 2. The latitude will be main-
tained in the most equable and temperate parallel of
the earth's surface ; 3. The journey will be broken
and diversified by crossing a continent in
well-constructed railway carriages. Though
Europe gives little heed, just now, to the
steady progress made by America towards this
object, the full effects and grand designs
of the work, will, at no distant day,
burst on these nations with surprise. The revolu-
tion will, in all probability, be immense. Japan will
be hurried into the civilised world, and the walls of
Pekin become a lounge for the adventurous tourist.
What were by our old Eastern roads the furthest
points will become the nearest by the Western
journey. America, that barred the world on one
side, and was but a short time ago the ultima thule
of civilisation, will be made the highway between
the oldest empires known to history. The opening
of the line between San Francisco and China is an
event of the highest importance, not for America
only, but for the progress of the world. The change
for the United States, however, will be something
marvellous when the railway between San Francisco
and New York is completed. It is not that it
will open a new vein of material prosperity, in a
aline already so rich, although its effect in this
respect will be inealulable. It will bring the Central
States more into connection with the world,
and rub off much of the rawness of these new
communities. It will tend to dissipate ignorance
and prejudice, which the self-complacency of isola,
tion begets. New ideas will circulate more freely—
new thoughts be more more readily received, and
their bearing better understood. The great Re-
public will become more closely allied in its brother-
hood with mankind. But, if outside nations will
benefit the Union as their citizens drift to and
fro through the continent, what will be the
influence of the union on these nations ? The mo-
ment the United States establish this road as the
highway to the East, Americans will be, beyond
all question, the leading people. The United States
literally will grasp the Pacific in one hand and the
Atlantic in the other. It is surprising how little
attention the greatest work in the world is receiving
from the world, although all the world is interested.
Even in the United States but a flickering gleam of
the truth flashes out now and then from the press.

There are those, however, who know what they are
doing, and what the results will be ; and though
they work silently they work steadily and
persistently. It is not improbable that
when England begins to take this subject
up, it may be with s mind filled with alarm
She will awaken to find America standing on the
threshold of her own pet preserves, and the Re-
public in possession of the key to the East. The
influence of the Republic, in China, and the
Southern Islands, will become dominant. But in all
this we see cause only for congratulation. A more
senseless and absurd feeling than hostility between
England and the United States cannot possibly be
entertained. Both nations will begin to appreciate
more than ever the necessity of working together as

kinsmen and allies, and one of the great benefits
likely tOiwspring from the general use of the new
highway is( that it will tend, by increased inter-
course, to dissipate prejudice and to establish
friendly relations on a wider basis of mutual benefit
and goodwill.—Anglo American Times.