The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-12-29
PROGRESS OF WEALTH DURING THE NEXT TEN
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next ten years will probably witness the most rapid
progress of civilized nations in wealth and power
that has ever been known The unwonted profl-
sion of the precious metals, and the prodgious de-
velopment of industrial resources that will be effect
cd by railroads and by steam navigation, cannot fail
to accomplish results during the next decade more
stupendous than have ever yet been witnessed, OF
anticipated by the most sanguine
Until the discovery of the New World and the i'm
poration of its immense treasures into the Old, the
vigor of the eudal system and the thraldom Of the
Of the people continued in the utmost intensity
and abjectness. There was but one avenue through
which the downtrodden many could possibly find
an exit from the universal enlhralment which en-
yeloped them; and that through the avenues OF
industry and commerce. But so long as there was
no generally difused or abundant currency and con
sequently no facilities open to enterprise either
commercial or Industrial, there no chance Of
the gradual achievement by individuals in the
humber walks Of life, influence and consdera-
ton in society tho State. Before the large
importations of the precious metals from America
into Europe, society throughout that continent
in the normal condition in which that of interior
Russia is found. NJ. Haxthausen has enume-
rated three particulars in which the peasants of that
country differ from those of western Europe, aud
which render any general and compulsory enfran-
chisement of the serfs extremely perilous, if not i'm
possible. ~. The mass of dsposable capital avail
able to carry on cultivation bymeans of free laborers
paid by days wages, bears no sort of proportion
either to the wants of the inhabitants the inn
mense extent Of arabic land which requires to be
cultivated. 2. In great part of the empire the
listing value of the product of the soil lowing to
this same absence of cash capital, if sold, so far
from enabling the culvators to pay any rent, would
not even cover the expenses of cultivation. 3 In
the remoter provinces, or where seaports are dis
tant the only possible mode of paying rent lin
consequence of this same scarcity Of money! is by
rendering forced labor legal; for there is no means
of turning the rude produce into money. Accord
ngly it has been often found in Russia that peas
ants whom their proprietors from motives of human
ity, have put under the olrok system Il. e. have lib
Grated in consideration of small yearly payment Of
money much less at their ease than the old
serfs and in many instances have returned to their
masters and requested to be again made serfs."
Thus, an abundant and healthy currency has much
more to do with the liberties of people than we
would at first suppose; and probably the man who
has more than all others contributed to the emanci
patton of the human race Christopher Columbus
in having discovered the repositories of those treas
ures the dissemination of which throughout western
Europe has armed the people, by industry, skill
and enterprise, with the power to work out their
deverance from the thraldom which oppressed their
race, and to achieve at last higher degree of social
power and of political control than is possessed
by the landed arisocracy descended from the ferda
proprietors of the middle ages.
Notwithstanding the wars which desolated Eu-
rope and taxed to the uttermost the resources of
ol, it's great powers during the sixteenth, seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries, the progress
of civilization and the growth Of popular pow
err under the influence of a metallic currency
which grew more and more abundant, was far
more rapid than it had been at any lime be-
fore, since the fall of the Roman empire. Indeed,
il was under the influence of the mighty impetus
that had thus been given to the of human lib
erly that the independence of the American colonies
of Greet Britain happily achieved, and that the
Revolution in France most unhappiy inaugu-
rated at the end Of the eighteenth century.
The disasters which grew out of this latter event
10 Spain Loaf that kingdom the control of her own
American colonies, and laid the groundwork of a
revolution which severed those colonies also from
the mother country. But it was not Spain alone
that experienced the evil consequences OF these dis
turbances The importations of the precious metals
from the Spanish colonies, which in 1909 amounted
o. .aa all off durip thn