The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-08-20 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 20, 1650.

THE advices received from, the United States by
the steamship Asia contain some startling news.
The majority of mankind, we believe, ha for
some time been looking to that country with feel-
ings of envy, mingled with wonder, at its rapid
progress in population and prosperity. Week
after week we have heard of fresh golden regions
being discovered in California; of cities rising, as
if by magic, on the banks of the Pacific—cities
actually built upon golden sands—and of a vast
commerce being opened there with the eastern
world ; and we have been solemnly warned that,
through the abundance of the precious metals within
-her reach, America would shortly be enabled to
grasp the dominion of the world, whilst the nations
of Europe would sink into insignificance by her
side. We learn now, however, that what has been
all along regarded as a vast acquisition to her
power—as the lever, in fact, by which she was to
overturn the world—is likely to be to America
productive only of disorganization of her com-
merce, loss of capital, panic, and ruin to thousands.
We beg the attention of our readers to the following
extract from the New York Herald for Europe,
in which the difficulties impending over America,
caused by her acquisition of California, are de-
scribed :

• " The attention of all kinds of speculators is turned
anxiously to California ; in fact, the merchant, tile manu-
facturer, and mechanic are deeply interested in the
production of gold in that part of the. world. Private
credits have become very much expanded, in anticipation
of a full supply of precious metals from our Pacific pos-
sessions, and it is absolutely necessary that the receipts
should continue large, or in fact become larger than thus
far realised, to prevent a collapse for the want of sufficient
material to keep the machinery in motion. California
has thus far disappointed the early expectations formed in
relation to its product of gold. It has, it is true, sent
out into the world many millions of gold, but it has been
a greater consumer of the necessaries and luxuries of life
than its staple product has paid for. Food and raiment
for 200,000 people cost a pretty large sum annually. At
the lowest calculation, we can nut it down at forty mil-
lions of dollars. Here is S-10,000,000 for the mere neces-
saries of life for one year; add to this twenty millions for
the first year, and we have an expenditure of sixty mil-
lions of dollars for food and raiment for the people of
California, from the first discovery of gold up to the pre-
sent time. This is independent of the immense amount
of capital invested in building materials of all kinds, in
shipping, steamers, &c., which, at a moderate calcula-
tion, can he put down at forty millions more. One hun-
dred millions of dollars, in round numbers, is, therefore,
the sum, according to this estimate, which has been
drawn from other parts of the world, for the support of
the people of California, and supplying facili+ics for car-
rying on the commerce of that country during the past
two years."
- - - -

We must premise that there is considerable
obscurity in the above passage, caused by the very
common practice of writers upon subjects connected
with money, of using terms in other than their
strict sense. The meaning of the writer, however,
is obviously this : the people of California have
been going too fast. Brother Jonathan himself
has been. doing the same. The plant and machi-
nery for carrying on an extensive commerce, and
winning the golden stores of the far west, have
been provided in anticipation of the means of pay-
ing for them ; and if gold this season is not
gathered by tons instead of handsfull, there must
be "a collapse for the want of sufficient material to.
keep the machinery (credit) in motion." In short,
America has become the possession of a mine of
untold wealth; and she is in danger of being
ruined by her acquisition for want of money to turn
it to account.

We cannot enter into all the fears of this writer,
although we must acknowledge that there is some-
thing to fear. It may be true for example, as he
says, that deducting the yield of gold thus far in
California—viz., 40,000,000 dollars—from the
amount sunk in that country, 100,000,000 dollars,
represented by corresponding capital created in
houses. ships, machinery, &c., she will be indebted
to the rest of the world about 60,000,000 dollars,
which he contends it will take years to pay off.
But we can see no reason for the following gloomy
view of the state of things :

" The mines of California have produced from fifteen
to twenty millions of dollars per annum from the labour
of diggers, averaging from fifty to sixty thousand each
year. At this rate, it will not be many years before Cali-
fornia becomes more deeply indebted to other parts of the
world than ever before known in the history of any
country. With no other resources or product for pay-
ment of imports but the gold dug from the bowels of the
earth, with a large and rapidly increasing population, the
whole of whom require the necessaries, and many the
luxuries of life, what prospect or possibility is there of
more than a small per cant. of the immense arnount of
capital involved in the trade of that country ever being
realized."

Before the diggers in that country get hold of
any of these luxuries or necessaries of life, spoken
of here, we presume they must raise the dust to pay
for them, and, when they cease to be able to do so,
population will cease to flock there, and capital to
be invested for carrying on the trade. For the
rest it is a mere matter of credit and mercantile en-
terprise, .in which the loss will only be ruinous in
case it is proved that the events of the last two
years have been all a dream, and the presence of
gold in the soil only accidental and temporary, a
supposition which is refuted by recent advices from
the country.
We concur, however, to a considerable extent in
the justice of the following remarks, representing a
coming crisis in the United States of too probable