The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1854-04-13
THE PACIFIC RArnRoAD.

We have read with infer the speech OF
senator Gwin, Of Californi advocacy OF
this measure. The bin Of, o. Select Com
mittee advocated by Mr.. GNin. proposes q
grant of land and Mr.. GwiH devotes much OF
his argument to an effort TO prove that Con-
gress has the power to make the necessary
grants of land and the right Of way proposed
in the bill. 1t establishes no eastern termi-
nus and gives no preference to any State in
the Mississippi Valley. Dir. Gwin says that
by the bill the mail win be carried daily both
wavs, in less than a week, from our Atlantic
and Pacific borders, for little more than il now
costs for semi-monthly mail, -occupy ing
nearly four weeks in the transit With the
construction of the road, he predicts that the
alternate sections oflands now valueless, will
bring millions into the treasury, while an en-
terprising population will cultivate and fill up
both sides of the route from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. He advocates the road also as a
great military road, by which we can keep
the Indians in check, and, in case of war, pro.
tect California. speeks of the tremendous
effects of England to secure the Eastern trade.
She has established no less than three over
land routes to India. She is also contempla-
ting a stupendous scheme for railway by
which London and Calcutta, the capitals of
the Western and Eastern worlds, will be
brought within weeks journey of each
other. The proposed route, says Mr.. Gwyn,
is from Calais to Ostend, thence to Cologne,
through Augsburg, Lombardy, to Trieste ON
the Adriatic; thence along the valleys of Eu-
ropean Turkey to Bassorah, on the Persian
Gull, passing along the northern shores OF
that gulf, through Persia and Beloochistan, to
the Indus, and thence to Calcutta, on the cas-
tern coast of Hindostan. This route from
London to the capital of the Bengal Presiden-
cy, would be about FIVE thousand six hundred
miles in length, and, it is supposed. can be
constructed in fourteen years.
Is not our government as capable as Great
Britain of aiding the commercial interests of
her people
Without subscribing to all the positions of
Mr.. Gwin, there are few who will deny that
the scheme of the Pacific Railroad is worthy
the gigantic enterprise of Young America,
and when it is consummated, as some day it
will be, willmakethe United States the wealth
lest and most powerful nation on the face OF
the earth.
The New York Herald, while acknowledg-
ing the interest of the facts which Mr. Gwin
has collected, thinks there is no probability
that this bill or any other bill will give us a
railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific,
for the next fifty years. 1.-TWO thousand miles
ofrailroad," says the Herald, land fifteen hun
bred miles of this distance through continu-
Gus desert of barren plains and volcanic
mountains; without inhabitants, except In
dams without timber, except stunted thorns
and desert chapparal; and, to great extent,
without even water! Suppose that over such
route the first five hundred miles of rail
road, single track, were constructed from the
Mississippi river-what, from the said river,
would be the cost for the transportation of
the timber, iron and other materials, men and
provisions, required for the next five hundred
miles ="