East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1864-01-06
The Future Of This Nation.

ern States, and by military orders in
the border States Of the South.
W
The Future Of This Nation.
Whatever may be the result of the
present war, whether it be disunion
or reconstruction, we are certain of q
future whose splendor and magnif-
ceuce no war of ten or fifty years, nor
any other hostile influence, can de-
dprive us. Its coming may be ipdefi-
nitely delayed by such contests as are
now. raging; vcnal Legislation, national
folly, and thousand other similar oc-
currences may interfere to prevent its
speedy arrival; yet its final presence
is not a whit the less sure.
There are many inevitable causes
which will produce this result, a ma
jority of which are not to DO found in
the maternal character of modern ages.
A nation is now great precisely in
proportion to the extent that it has
mastered and put to work the forces
of Nature. In other words, that ma
ton is the richest, strongest, and most
enlightened, which uses the largest
amount of steam machinery. The
leading nation to-day is the nation
that possesses the most locomotives,
steamships, railroads, iron-clad war
vessels, power-looms, improved ord
nance-the one which, in short, has
the most intimate partnership with
Nature, and is engaged in employing
the greatest number Of their forces.
That nation is, beyond all doubt,
England; but its power has reached
its height; and must, ere many. gene
rations, be on the wane. Her declen-
sion, however, is not matter for
which cant finds an explanation in
Glib assertions relative to '1pampered
aristocracies, "rotton despotisms,"
and the like; but it is simply for the
reason that her greatness depends
upon the use Of natural sources whose
supply is nearly exhausted. Two es-
sential elements Of her vastness are
her coal and iron mines, and these are
in a condition of exhaustation, which
enables one to see, at no very distant
period, q time when Nature will have
given to England the last ounce Of
coal and iron in her possession. Long
cccctt1re this hour arrives, tho grand
climacteric Of England's existence w ",
nave been passed; e.sna she viii be hur-
rying rayidly forward to take her
place among the ruined, buried, for
gotten states and cites of antiquity.
Even to-day she feels the ,pronaoni
ton Of this distant, but inevitable
doom. In an article upon the enor-
nous quantity of coal and iron used
by Great Britain, a London paper re-
marks:
GAS manufactures fed from Sails
bury, Spitalfelds, Willis, Somerset,
London, whenever the coal and iron
fields and the use of steam power gave
an advantage to the north, so, as the
raw material becomes dearer and
scarcer in England, population will
follow it to the Pacific. When prov
ident political economists are already
entering their protest against the
waste of the coal debris cast aside at
the mouths Of the pits, as being de-
struction of what we may be one day
made to discover that we need, IT can
not be said that the fears which have
been expressed of the collapse of our
physical power, point to results too re-
mote to be other than chimercial."
This embraces the whole matter
Manufactures will follow tho sources
of fuel and iron, and when exhausted
in that country, they will seek some
other, and, with their departure, will
go the ascendency of England.
And to where will the greatness of
that country journey? Who is the
first-born of Great Britain, to whom,
by the law of Natures inevitable
primogeniturc, she must bequeath her
possessions, her superior civilization,
her wealth of enlightenment, when
her course is run, and she islaid away
in the vast graveyard of nations-the
"Ruins of Empires 2" 1t is here where
her greatness will journey-itis Amer
lea who is her eldest born, her heir
apparent, the next in the line of sue
cession, the one to whom all her vast
possessions must fall when her exis-
tence has been finished.
Our country and Great Britain are
isothermal-our iron mines and our
coal beds will last for a hundred CEN
turtles, and to this continent must, and
in time will, be committed the care OF
Human Progress, and the inestimab!c
jewels of the highest civilization. Al.
ready are the labor-classes of THAI
country leaving her, and guided by the
same instincts of Nature, are pouring
yearly countless thousands over tho
hills and valleys and prairies Of tn,
Western Continent. 1t may be long
centuries pefore this greatness will b,
ours, but its arrival is as sure as tho
revolution of planets or the existenc,
Of God.-ChicGgo Times
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