The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1847-10-14
Fom the Christian Citizen.
The Wants of the West.

We trust that none ofour readers will deem
us partial to local interests, ii we recur to the
subject of a railway for The transportation Of
the produce of the great West to the Atlantic
sea-board, when other channels of convey
ance have closed. In a recent article, we
considered some bearings of this necessity in
the light of humanity. We endeavored to
show how that vast, fertile region had all its
Egyptian graneries locked, as with bars of
adamant, whenever fumine, or want came
upon other lands. Hunger, in the sharpest
agonies gifts appetite, though eating through
stone-walls, could not cat through the icy
barriers girdling a region Of measureless a.
%bundance. We endeavored to demonstrate,
.lat noraporson in Ireland would have per-
ished with hunger, during the past bitter year
Of want, if the West could have got at that
unhappy country through the ice Of the
Erie Canal that, trusting to the short-lived
facilities Of that precarious ditch, the grain of
Ohio and Michigan was actually eight month
on its passage from the lake-ports to the sea-
ports of Great Britain or Ireland where it
arrived just as the fields of those countries
were white unto the harvest, and the hun
CRY laborers were going forth to them with
sickles in their hands. Since we wrote that
article, and before this will reach our read
ers, thousands in America must ave verified
cur statements in their own experience. To
that experience, in all the freshness of its
disaater, we now appeal for credence to the
conviction, that the want Of the West has
been, this year, the want Of the world, to a
distressing eXigency that, if that want had
been supplied, two years ago, by a good rail
way from the Northern boundary of the Hi
nois to the port of New York, Baltimore or
Boston, it would not only have saved The lives
of two millions ofhuman beings in Ireland,
supposed to have persisted in consequence of
famine, but it would have prevented every
one of the tremendous failures that have re-
Gently occurred in the Corn Trade in Eng 4
land, and which must react, with almost e.
quail ruin, upon the corn-dealcrs in America.
The liabilities Of the firms in England which
have already fallen beneath the pressure Of
the crisis, amount to more than $15,00o,000.
The house of Mcssrs. w. Robinson & Co., the
partner of which is the governorof the
Bank of England, will pay,it is estimated, rs
to los in the pound. 1t would be fair to as
sumo that half the amount Of these liabilities
be a dead loss to the corn-dealers in the
United States, in consequence of these fail
ures, and of the great fall in the price of
grain in their hands, were $4,000, 900; then
We nave Il sum tOlal vi u Z,VUU;ONO enough
to build 480 miles OF railway, at $25, 600 per
mile. This ismerely the amount of loss in
cured by the corn-dealers of the two coun-
tries, in consequence of the English market
being overwhelmed with vast importations Of
grain at the -mmenceme of harvest. And
he importations that chiefly produced this
condition of things, were those from Amcri-
"a. 1t was the unlocked for influx of a gulf
ri tbo v-LooE nr1 Ip1i,, ,o,,, +1o+ Inv
nearly six months in the lake depots, wait
for the opening o~fnayigation' through the
Erie Canal.
But this is but one item of the loss to the
world occasioned by the barriers of Ice which
prevent the productive region of the West
rom coming to the rescue, when scarcity
md want are abroad. Let us see how it af-
rects the consumers and nor. producers of
grain, on both sides ofthe Atlantic, and what
The lack of this Railway for the West costs
them in a year like the past, or one of much
pressure. Let us suppos that there are
Is, 00O, 900 individuals in Great Britain, and
10000, 900 in the United States, who must
buy all the grain they constructive raise
not a handful of wheat, or a hill Of corn. Let
us suppose also that they require, upon an ay-
erago, one quarter, or eight busheIs,per head,
Turing the year. Well, something inauspi-
cious has occurred to the crop in Great Brit
ain, and about the first of October, a rulnor
Of a deficiency in the wheat harvest, or in the
crop, reaches America. All kinds Of
grain exhibit an upward tendency, but large
transactions are suspended for further advi-
ces from abroad The Erie Canal is doing
its little best in the meantime, and its narrow
is full Of produce threading its way
the locks to Albany aud New York
and, by the middle of November, there is
nearly grain enough in the eastern ports to
the manufacturing and non-producing
population of New-England through the win
ter. But about this time, further advicesfrom
abroad establish the fact, that some important
crop is short, at least, % per cent Of the
usual and necessary amount. This estimate
may prove too low it is the interest Of the
corn-hoiders in England to produce that i'm
preston, at least. So the price Of breadstuffs
has advanced 25 per cent. on previous quota
tons, and the last reports leave them tending
upwards. OF course there is a remarkable
in the grain market in the United
States Speculation is rife and rampant.
Corn-holders in the Eastern sca-ports are
alive to prospects and probabilities Of
prices. In three days after the arri-
val of the foreign steamer, the price OF every
barrel of flour in the country is enhanced at
least 25 per cent; and the Iaboring men Of
New England are told, when they 90 to their
groccrs on Saturday night for a temporary
of provisions, that flour is rising, and
that they had better lay in a stock at once
Tie journeyman mechanic who bought his
last barrel of flour Tor Sc, now pays $3.50.
for one of the same brand, aud trundles it
home on his whecl-barrow, feeling that he has
bought it at a bargain, although his lastis
still half on hand. And now M a frosty
night or two about tho GOTH Of November, and
the Erie Canal is gone for. From Buffalo to
Albany it is frozen through all its length,
breath and depth. The Ohio river closes
soon afterwards, and the whole region ofthe
West g%oesinto winter quarters. Now comes
the harvest of speculation in the Eastern
States. No more grain from the West until