Weekly national intelligencer., 1848-05-13
THE NEW ROUTE TO CHINA.

to which we invite the attention of our readers, as
not only valuable but highly interesting It is the
Report 10 the House Of Representatives, by Mr..
KING, Of Georgia, on system Of steam communi.
cation with China, by way Of Chagres, Panama,
Monterey OF California, and thence to Shanghae, in
China, by way Of the Fox Islands and the cluster
Of Japan. This track is, it seems--as our readers
will be surprised to fnd--that which offers the
shortest course of navigation from Panama to the
Celestial Empire because the route in question
comedies with what geographers call the arc of a
great circle" drawn through the two points of Pa
mama and Shanghae. Now, as the skilful paper Of
Lieut.. MAuRY, appended to Mr.. KS report, will
explain, and as indeed nautical science has long
understood, it is by the great circle that one must
sail when he would pass, by the shortest distance,
from one TO another Of two places, neither on the
same meridian nor both on the equator. Accus-
toned as we are to Judge Of the relative position
of points on the earth by the fiat surface of maps,
not the true figure Of the globe, we are deceived
nor would it occur, unless to man Of science,
that to pass most directly from one to the other of
the stations spoken Of, instead of false straight
line such as we naturally figure to ourselves on
map, we must pursue great curve; which great
curve would in this instance, conduct us for the
true course to China from where we must cross the
American isthmus, until we shall build railroad
from the Mississippi to the Pacific, by strange
apparent deviation away up the western coast Of
America to about Monterey, and thence across the
North Pacific, by the track now described
II will be recollected that we had, more than
year since, the pleasure of submitting to our read
ers former Report from Mr.. KING. the beginning
Of that system of steam communication and de-
fence of which what is now proposed makes the
complement. The Atlantic part Of it was soon
after authorized by an act of Congress, and has
been carried into effect by the establishment of
line of Government steamers to Europe, already
in motion or on the stocks, while others are about
to- begin plying to Chagres, and third line TO pass
regularly from Panama up the western coast of our
continent to Oregon) has been contracted for. TO
complete the wide system of communication then
designed, the portion now brought forward was yet
wanting as the last link in this great commercial
and political chain. 1t was already projected and
formation as to its great object (the China trade)
was to be collected and this was to be carefully
sought not merely in Great Britain, but as far as
China itself-the statistics of all whose CONNER
cial exchanges were to be ascertained in order to
form just estimate of the possibilities of the
trade which we might open with that great and po-
pulous empire, by means Of the far more rapid and
regular intercourse to be accomplished through this
agency Of steam. The highly encouraging and in
teresting results Of these inquiries will be found
embodied in the earlier part of the present Report,
and have shaped-in the main soundly, we think,
though very brilliandy--its conclusions.
Our growing establishments on the Pacifc-we
may say, indeed, with less than the usual violence
of favorte national figure of Anticipation, our
rising empire that great sea, points US not only
to the measures already taken for connecting that
remote region with us by what can alone effect it,
(the quickening power of that vanquisher Of dis
tance steam, but to new avenue for that trade to
China and Japan, to which Oregon and California
will have very far easier access than any other
countries inhabited by white race. That shore
is indeed so obviously the destined seat and entre-
pot Of all our future commerce with the land of
teas and silks that it already justfes, to the expec
taton of great part Of our people, the gigantic
enterprise of railroad across wastes and deserts
of above fifteen hundred miles. The report, there
FORE considers first Of all, the present state Of the
general trade with China and our own share in it.
1t then proceeds to show, out of English Parlia-
mentiary documents, that Britain and ourselves
the great, but yet unequal competitors for that
trade that, however, we rapidly gaining ground
in this rivalry This progressive transfer of bus-
ness is traced to definite and permanent cause,
the fact that England does not possess the elements
for fair and therefore permanent interchange with
China so that from her constantly draining. that
country Of specie, her trade, even without any RI
valry, must extinguish itself; while the United
States, the contrary, do possess all the necessary
elements for an equal exchange Of products with
these Cataans, as old Marco Polo calls them-these
children of the Light of the Universe, as they style
themselves; for they are, like ourselves, modest
nation; not very republican perhaps. like us and
France; but then God, in granting so many other
sources Of happiness to democratic countries, has
not chosen to confne TO them the national bliss Of
an immeasurable selfcomplacency. The Turk
looks on all institutions but his own as perfectly
beastly; the Russ regards the despotism under
which he bends as the perfection Of human wis