The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-25 00:00:00

~~ i-~

we have shown how it can be done, which, if wa (fare
them to-morrow, they would not hold for as many hourse
as we have held years. Our great error was in allowing
the Hindoo priesthood into our native army. Such a
power, among priest-ridden people like the Hindoos,
wag, to say the least, insane folly.
Your newspapers are either traitors or fools, who
will not speak because they de not see ; or, if they do
know, will not speak out. Lot Britain be true to herself,
and turn out all those mawkish-speaking and do-nothing
men out of the nation's senate-house, and let none but
the men of plain common sense, who guide her destinies,
as men of business and trade, put their strong common
sense to the work of the State, as they do to their own
private enterprises, and old Britain will be what she
has hitherto been—first among nations ; second to none.
Only, her navy and army must be opened up like all
other professions—the highest places for those who can
win them. There must be nothing hereditary but our
Royal fami:y, our noble Queen and her descendants.
Such is my idea of India and her connection with Great
Britain. If they be true to each other, they need fear no
bugbear—be it Russian, be it aught else in the bear line.
We have been doing little in masonry for the last four
months—all out on drill, picquet., and reviews. And,
what think you ? your old larkish companion is elected
by my fellow-citizens to be their captain of the central
division of the city—the 3d company of the Calcutta
Volunteer Guards. We have infantry, cavalry, and
artillery ; and the proficiency in the different drills and
evolutions is the astonishment of all who have seen
them. We'have not had 60 days' drill in all, besides
night and day picquets and guard duties, yet we have
been complimented by the Commander-in-Chief, Sir
Celia Campbell.

Now, the troops are beginning to come in. God send
we had some 10,000 more, and 10,000 sent by the over-
land route to Suez, right up to Karrachee, from thence
to Mooltan, and thence to Ferozepore. Lucknogv and its
garrison still hold out—they have now been five months
besieged. Part of Delhi is taken. Every hour we ex-
pect to hear that Agra is besieged by the Gwalior troops,
only GO miles off. God keep them all safe until we have
more troops. The prestige of the European is gone, and
nothing but the most fearful punishment will restore it.
No single European dare to travel the country now
where ladies and children used to go with safety, such is
the change of five months in our destinies. Business of
every kind at a stand-still. All communication with
Upper India stopped, and will be so for a while.

AMERICAN RAIL WAYS.

(From the Morning „post )
Almost from the time of the discovery of America
—almost from that day when Nunez de Bilboa, first
caught a glimpse of the great South Sea—various
projects have been formed for the purpose of effect-
ing an easy means of communication between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But ages pass. d,
and during those periods the Spaniard, the foreign
lord of the soil, with the listlessness of his race,
paid little attention to any measure which would
have developed the material prosperity of the fertile
regions which he had conquered by the sword.
When the transatlantic empire of Spain had passed
from the sovereignty of the Most Catholic King ;
when its place had been supplied by the weak and
inefficient dominion of various independent re-
publics the mixed Spanish and Creole population
had neither the means nor the inclination to pro-
vide those facilities for commerce which would have
increased their wealth and given solidity to their
national power. The enterprise and energy of the
Anglo-Saxon race, have, however, been brought to
bear upon that great and important isthmus which
is occupied by the Republican States of Central
America. The Panama Railroad has now for
some years united the two oceans, and farther
to the north a wealthy Auglo-American Com-
pany is engaged in the construction of an inter-
oceanic railway between Porto Cabellos and the
Bay of Fonseca. The importance of these commu-
nications in reference to the trade of California,
Australia, and the islands of the Pacific, it is im-
possible to estimate too highly ; and when the dis-
putes which have arisen between England and the
United States on the subject of Central America
shall have received a just and honourable settle-
ment, we have a confident belief that European
and North American capital and enterprise will be
largely applied to promote the internal improve-
ment of every portion of these most interesting and
valuable regions.
The Message recently communicated to Congress
by the President of the United States recommends
the construction of a railroad across the Continent
for the purposes of military defence. The line sug-
gested by 3.4 r. Buchanan will pass through some of
the newly acquired territories of the United States
to the seaboard of the Pacific. Mr. Buchanan
adds that the difficulties connected with an under-
taking of this description have been greatly exag-
gerated, and that by a wise expenditure of public
money, assisted by private enterprise and free grants
of land, this line, of so much importance on military
as well as commercial grounds, might at some dis-
tant day be completed. Here we may mention that
some years ago an American citizen proposed the
construction of- another line stretching from Lake
Michigan, between which lake and New York
there is already steam communication, and proceed-
ing thence through the Far West to California.
The projector of this scheme asked for no grant of
public money, but merely that thirty miles of the
waste be conceded to the company to enable them
to accomplish this gigantic work. Mr. Whitney's
scheme, although it received the sanction of many
separate States, still remains in that category of
useful projects which from their magnitude and
expensive character are favourably considered,
whilst they are rarely, if ever, carried into execu-
tion. We do not intend to institute any compari •
son between the two routes which have been sug-
gested by Mr. Buchanan and by Mr. Whitney.
But it must be obvious to the most superficial un-
derstanding that the opening of any interoceanic
line through the territory of the United State would
effect as great a revolution in the trade of the
world as that which was brought about by the
discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route to
India and to the other countries of the East.
The trade of China, Japan, and of regions com-
paratively unknown, would be impelled to the
Pacific terminus of the railroad, whence it would
be carried to the great Atlantic ports to be after
wards distributed over America and Europe. Hong
Kong, Shanghai,
.Canton, and the other marts
of Chinese trade would be brought by steam within
a few days' distance of the great American empo-
rium which would spring up on tho coast of the
Pacific. If a facility of this kind existed, the most
important and lucrative trade in the world would
fall into the hands of the people of the United
States, and the long voyages round the Cape, or
round the Horn, would rarely be undertaken fur
any purpose of commercial gain. Whilst the citi-
zens and the Government of the United States are
perfectly alive to the advantages which their coun-
tryiwould derive from the possession of this great
" highway of nations," the merchant princes and
rich capitalists of England appear almost to have
forgotten that in British North America there exist
vast regions admirably adapted for the construction
of a railway, by means of which England could, as
at present, defy the competition of the world. The
position of British North America is peculiarly
favourable both as regards physical geography and.
means of water communication. The distance
between the north-west point of Lake Supe
lior and the Straits of Fuca on the Pacific
is estimated not to exceed sixteen or eighteen
hundred miles—just double the length of the
great Trunk Railway of Canada. From the recent
investigations of Professor Palliser, it appears that
large portions of the territory through which the
line- would pass consist of level pralLe lands, and'
that the most formidable difficulty which the pro-
jectors of such an undertaking would have to
encounter would be the discovery of some pass

or gorge in the Rocky Mountains permitting
the construction of a railway. But no one
can Leld such an obstacle to be insuperable
when on the same continent the science of a
Stephenson has spanned, by a bridge of two miles
in length, the waters of the mighty St. Lawrence
In 1851 the scheme of which we have given an
outline was submitted to the legislature of Canada,
by a gentleman of the name of Allen Macdonald.
The scheme was rejected by a committee, on the
technical ground that tb e projector had not obtained
the necessary capital, but the report distinctly stated
that the construction of such a railroad wa3 not
only desirable, but practicable, and that it ought
at some future time be undertaken. If the

' Grand Trunk Railway were continued to
' Halifax, the route up to the lakes would be com-
pleted from a British port accessible t oughout the
year. The construction of a rail way running to the
north-west of Lake Superior and onwards to the
Pacific would terminate the line. The expenses of
this undertaking have been estimated at 10 or 12
millions—a sum insignificant when compared with
the profits of that stream of wealth which would
flow from the east through" British territory to
Britain herself. The abolition of the Hudson's
Bay monopoly and the constitution of Vancouver's
Island as a British co!ony will attract hardy and
enterprising settlers to the hitherto neglected re-
gions bordering upon the North Pacific ; and
whether or not the formation of this great inter-
oceanic communication he speedily undertaken, a
new Liverpool will spring in that part of the
wt.r.l, affording a centre for British trade and
British industry. With iron, coal, and timber on
the spot, the railway then would become a matter
of comparatively little difficulty. Commencing at
thus
both ends, and advancing with the progress of
population, it would eventually meet ; and
n...
that iron girdle would bo placed around thwe cloyinug
nent, subjecting territories which are
waste and unproductive to the beneficeanntutd:oininiuirgiiini
of civilisation and commerce, and ma
would. seem to
British hands that superiorit
•
be the heritage of the Anglo-
yswaihuicuilre'