The Arkansas banner., 1843-10-07


 traders cayalcade winding through defiles and over naked plains, with the stealthy
 war party lurking on its trail; the buffalo chase, the hunting camp, the mad carouse in the midst of danger, the night attack, the scamper, the fierce skirmish among rocks and cliffs; all this romance of savage life, which yet exists among the mountains, will then exist but in frontier story, and seem like the fictions of chivalry or fairy tale. D
 @Surely 1t well behooves us, who have an interest in every new corner of the earth, to note tlie signs of these changes, and turn them to our profit when we may. And one thing strikes us forcibly: However the po litical question between England and Ame rica, as to the ownership of Oregon, may be decided, Oregon will never be colonized overland from the Eastern States. It is with the view of pointing out the entire distinct ness of the two regions, that we have gone (perhaps at tedious length into description of the geographical partcularities of the vast space which separates them. It IS six or seven hundred miles from the westerRiost limit of the fertile part of the pralrles, to the cultivable region of the Columbia. Six months of the year, the whole of this space is d bowling wilderness of tempests and snow During the other six, 1t exhibits every variety of hopeless sterllity-plains of arid sand, defiles of volcanic rocks, hills covered with bitter shrubs, and snowy noun taIns of many days journey; and Its level part is traversed by the formidable predatory cavalry we have dcscribed-an enemy of more than Scythian savageness and endu- rance, who cannot be tracked, overtaken, or concilated. We know and admire the ex- traordinary energy which accompanies the rambling habits of the citizens of the States we know the feverish, irresistible tendency to press onward, which induces the settler to push to the uttermost limits of practica- ble enterprise, regardless of the teeming and inviting regions he may leave behind. Still, with these natural obstacles between, we cannot but imagine that the world must as sume a new face before the American wagons make plain the road to the Columbia, as they have done to the Ohio. In the mean time, the long line of coast invites emigra- ton from the over-peopled shores of. the Old World. When once the isthmus of Darien is rendered traversable, the voyage will be easier and shorter than that to Aus tralia, which thirty thousand of our country men have made ill a single year. Whoso- ever, therefore, are to be the future owners of Oregon, its people will come from Europe The Americans have taken up the question in earnest; their press teens with writing on the subject; we need only mention the able Memoir of Mir. Greenhow, translator to the Department of Sate,' in which their claim
 IS historically dedueed with much ingenuity French writers, as may be supposed, are already advocating the American view. Let us abandon ours, from motives of justice, if the right be proved against us; from motives of policy, if 1t be proved not worth contest but net in mere indoeeaeecc. Let Ct ;;is iilot fold our hands under the idle persuasion that we have colonies enough; that 1t is mere labor in vain to scatter the seed of future nations over the earth; that 1t is but trouble and expense to govern them. If there is any one thing on which the main tenanee of that perilous greatness to which we have attained depends more than all the rest, 1t is colonization; the opening of new markets, the creation of new customers. It is quite true that the great fields of emigra- tion in Canada and Australia promise room enough for more than we can send. Bnt the worst and commonest error respecting colo nization, is to regard 1t merely as that which 1t never can be-a mode of checking the in- crease of our people. What we want is, not to draw off driblets from our teeming multi tudes, but to found new nations of commer- cial allies.
 "And, in this view, every new colony r,unfIoJ E,rf ctr l, older ones, inluses into them additional vigor To them, as well as the mother country, 1t opens a new market. It forms new link | in the chain along which our commercial Is carried, touching and every point in the line as 1t passes. Thus, in former days, the prosperity of the West India Islands was the great stimulus to the peoplng of North America; the newer colony of. Canada has flourished through its connection with our settlements in the States the market of New Zealand will excite pro duction in Australia. The uttermost portions of the earth are our inheritance; let us not throw 1t away in mere supinaness, or in de- ference to the wise conclusions of those sages of the discouraging school, who, had they been listened to, would have checked, one by one, all the enterprises which have changed the face of the world in the last thirty years.o
 England must have Oregon as its colony, because to "the mother country t acW open q new market!"' "The uttermost portions of the earth (says the reviewer) are our in- hertance; let us not throw it away in mere supmeness!!"
 What comment is this upon the conduct of our own Government, whose supineness left England in possession of Oregon! Eng land has foothold on ali the shores of Africa and Asia-on multitude of islands in the