Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1857-08-18
WASHINGTON NEWS AND GOSSIP.
The NEW GRAxADIAS IsrHxUs.-we and

an article explanatory of the policy Of New
Granada with reference to her isthmus transit
route, which embraces many facts OF interest
and Importance to the American public hitherto
unknown comparatively, in this country. We
republish it below, by way of substantiating
our remarks made few days since upon the
growing difficulties which New Granada is now
throwing around an amicable adjustment of the
questions concerning her isthmus at present in
issue with this Government. The rejecting
reader will at once perceive in these details ad-
ditional weighty reasons why the United States
authorities should hasten to secure our great
and hourly-increasing travel and freighting
business across Central America, so that it may
hereafter be beyond the contingencies of the
caprices of any such government as that of New
Granada.
1t strikes US that there is no telling, with such
a power or government to deal with, at what
hour the American public may find the Panama
isthmus entirely closed to the crossing of Amer
leans or their property; or so hampered and
embarrassed by unjust taxation in the face of
the very letter of the stipulations of that Gov
ernment as that the nominal right to resort to
it will be practically useless.
All such occurrences as those explained In the
article we republish, tend to show the pressing
Importance of policy with reference to other
Central American isthmus transit routes that
will render our countrymen entirely independ-
emit of New Granadian facilities.
THE IsrHMus TRANsIT-The Congress of
Bogota has Just passed law relative to the 90 Sc
curity and the administration of national affairs
on the Isthmus,'' which is likely to prove ex-
besides exposing the two governments to un-
pleasant political complications. BY it the SOW
ereignty Of the Isthmus is transferred from the
Governor of the State to an "Intendente General -
as an executive officer, vested with power to adj
Indicate upon all questions relating to the mill
tary force, national revenues, intercourse with
foreign governments, &c. 1t also contains a
clause establishing passenger tax against which
the United States government has already earnest
ly protested tonnage tax, and custom house
duties,-a large proportion of the revenues there
from to go for the support of the Intendente and
his subordnates. The amount to be thus placed
at his disposition is estimated to be not less than
$50 900 per annum. OF this measure the local
press of the Isthmus expresses a strong disapprO-
baton. The Centinela, which is regarded as the
organ of the people, ventures to suggest that
separation from the general government would
be preferable to submission to the obnoxious
enactment. The Isthmus, it says, has been s'per-
fidiously sacrificed in the endeavor to get
:. abundant resources out of the railroad, and to
obtain the means of paying the foreign debt"
Ii further remarks:
Such are the benefits which the Isthmus of
Panama receives for being united to New Grana-
da-such the indgnities-such the insults, of
which it is the victim. They tell us from Bogota,
that on account of the sacrifices which the result
of the pending question with the United States
will cause it to make, New Granada cannot con-
tinue purchasing at such high price the honor of
having the lsthmus adjoining the National Coat
OF Arms. Neither can the Isthmus continue pur-
chasing at the expense of the sacrifices which are
imposed on it, and of the humiliations which are
placed on it, the horror Of continuing part of a
nation unable to protect it, that only esteems it
as long as il can produce revenues, as If ii were
feudal appendage which gives it the means of ex-
tinguishing the cancer of its foreign debt. If the
relations between the Isthmus and New Granada
must continue on basis Of intolerable inequali-
ty if this situation must be indefensble for long
time, let US do now what we must do later-let
US separate
The Panama Star and Herald speaks In SINH
lar strain, and expresses doubt whether the gov
eminent of the United States will calmly acQui-
esce in measure apparently unconstitutional and
in violation Of existing guarantees and treaties.
That journal says:
''We do not believe that this clever dodge, by
which the foreigners on the Isthmus flor the
whole burden falls on them) will be thus treby
taxed, will escape the keen perception of Mr.
Cass at w Washington, or be submitted to, by him,
satisfactory settlement of that part Of the de.
mand of the United States that requires guaran-
tees for the future Ii these guarantees are to be
purchased at the cost of the tonnage and passen-
dear and in fact ali that the thed states has
been contending for, for the past two years will
be lost and the last state Of the foreign interests
on the lsthmus, under its threefold unjust taxa
ton, will he worse than if the passenger tax had
not been resisted"
II has long been desirable to secure a recopni-
ton Of the Isthmus by the chief commercial gov
efnmen,s as an international highway, subject to
no oppressive restrictions; and the act Of the
government at Bogota is most to be regretted as
indicating policy hostile to the attainment Of
this end.
lSyENTORs.-A late able and interesting ar
ticle in the Washington Union has given rise
to many newspaper jeremiades concerning the
pecuniary fate and misfortunes of American in
ventors generally, many Of which embrace no
little CANNON. Thus, the fate and failure to
accumulate, of that public benefactor, Eli Whit
ney, is mourned over as disgrace to the ma
ton. 1t seems to US that Whitney's notorious
want Of thrift and business tact were at fault in
bis case, rather than American gratitude Like
most men OF genius in any line, he was incapa-
bic Of descending to the stern realities of bust
ness transactions, and was therefore bitten in
relrly all his bargains; in making them, and
then in the manner in which they were carried
out. If men of genius fritter away their oppor.
t1nities to accumulate, and their means accu
INFLATED, surely themselves and not the public,
are to blame. 1t is said that they are compelled
to part with their inventions, generally, for a
mere song. We apprehend that, in the hands
Of such of them as make such bargains, they are
only worth a mere song. They sell them for all
they will bring, and the capital, shrewdness and
energy of assignees most frequently make thom
of substantial value, by bringing them into pub
lie favor, &c. 1t not unfrequently happens,
too that assignees are themselves terribly bitten
in machinery patent rights. Our own opinion
is, that of every ten for which inventors find
purchasers at what they are willing to sell them
for, not half ever get back their money out of
them. Such We believe to be the impression
among the patent agents in this city, than whom
no others are so competent judges in the prem
ises
The mournful case Of Professor Morse, too,
is another one Of those being resorted to to
prove the ingratitude Of the American pubIic