The daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1863-1864, 1863-09-26

Frenchmen who to-day occupy Mexico, o
are pursuing Juarez to San Luis Potos
are the advanced guard of an immens
commercial army, and their bayonets vii
open to our commerce harbors which hav
been too long closed upen it. Let us thel
hear no more of these mendacious outcrie
over the emptiness of our projects in Mex
leo. What Napoleon III. means ne mean
distinctly, he has long meant it, he vii
continue to mean and to will it until it il
achieved. He means to regenerate ou
trans ATLANTIC commerce, to restore to II
or to create for it profitable avenues ane
outlets; he means that our national indus
try in all time to come shall be able to pro
vide itself with the materials indispensable
to it's success. This is his meaning. and be
will pursue this purpose until he has &C
compllshed it, Now thattbe solution is sc
near at hand, there would be no partlculaf
merit in predicting it if the easy prophecy
were not accompanied with acomplete ex
position of the advantages which France is
to draw from its fulilment
II.
When we examine the map Of Mexico
the fortunate and peculiar geographical sit
uation Of this privileged country at once
attracts our attention. Bathed by either
ocean, it lies at an equal distance between
Asia and Europe. 1t mas free commupica-
tion with the richest and most commercial
people of the old continent, and were the
public mind resssured and the movements
of industry directed by serious, well-es-
tablished government, Mexico might rival
the most commercial nation of the new
world. The general temperature in Mex
leo is hardly more than two or three de-
grees higher than the average temperature
Of Rome or Naples, while the physical con-
formation of the country is at least as "a
vorable as its maritime position. With the
exception Of q narrow coast line on some
parts of its frontier, especially about Vera
Cruz, the climate is wholesome, agreeable,
mild, and traders who having long inhabit
these distant shores, return to Europe, look
back upon them with regret. Mexico,
which might furnish tue whole world with
precious woods and splendid dyes, could
nourish France and Spain with her cereals
country whose soil abundantly yields tie
finest grains. The generous loins of its
mountains, rising eight or nine thousand
feet above the level of the sea, are filed
with almost inexhaustible mines, which
have never yet been adequately worked
The only ones now really opened, and which
are able to endure the enormous taxation
imposed by autocratic and ephemeral gov.
ernments driven TO procure money at any
cost, belong to English companies; and the
number of them is relatively small. We
may be certain that the development of the
mineral wealth of Mexico is still in its in
fancy. The natives have never succeeded
in it. But what the English never could
we who have shown ourselves their equals
at every international exhibition in the in
dustrial arts may teach the natives o. .Iex.
leo to do. When one runs over the cata
logue of the riches of Mexico, its wealthln
grain and gold--those two vital forces of
nations-one is tempted to ask how it is
that its inhabitants make no more Of their
advantages T.? Why is it that notwithstand-
ing European aid, the movement of industry
in that country has never been orderly and
regular? 1t is hardly possible that anarchy
should have taken root in the needs and
aspirations Of a population too sparse for
the country it inhabits.
In Mexico disorder has never arisen from
the lower ranks ofsociety, but from the up.
per and governmental regions. The peo-
pie are not the dgtatorS, and brigandage
itself has been most commonly undertaken
by persons of property, generals, even by
the aids de camp of presidents. The Iudi
ans, not naturally Industrious, live on the
plantations or factories of Europeans, whilst
the mixed race seeks in tyranny, exactions
and robbery the facile existence which it
does not care to ask from labor. In short,
although there is an actual want of popu-
lation in Mexico, there is more idleness
there than industry; aud this unfortunate
state of things, this destruction Of agrcul-
ture and industry by the deprdations Of
Incidence will continue till European emf
grafton shall modify the relations of the
three races which barely people these i'm
mense regions Mexico waits for-calls-
demands emigration; not the unhealthy,
foolish emigration which transports from
one latitude to another creatures without
industry or intelligence, but the emigration
of the capital and intelligence which finds
no room in our society. Such an emigra
tion it is which has given to the United
States, industry. wealth and courage, and
let US add has, at tho same time, secured
the quiet of England. Whoever has lived
long in England must have been struck
with the fragrant and perpetual contradic.
tion between the private genius of the En-
ghshman always disposed to commercial,
maritime, and industrial adventure, and the
public genius of the English which is radi.
cally hostile to all revolutionary ideas.
The resson of this is not to be looked for
in the perfection of English institutions, for
if we admit the superiority of their repre-
sentative system, we must also allow that
their customs and social laws, particularly
in respect to property, are very far from be-
ing perfect. We in France, on the contrary
have always been fond of political adven
ture. Sufficient unto the day" was pre-.
dominan political maxim with our fathers
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