Weekly Trinity journal., 1865-01-28
Observations Oh California.

The following interesting extract is from an
able paper furnished by Rev. Henry w. Bel
lows for the January Number of Gazlay's Pacific
Monthly:
81 have been amazed, since my return to Now
York, at the number of inquirers who have Wis
tied me for reliable information concerning your
coast, and not 80 much with personal ends and
objects as for national anxiety to know how
your coast is affected towards ours what your
real resources are and how they are developing
what the obstacles to your progress are and how
they may be removed 1t is not that papers
are not full of California stories that our peo-
pie do not hear enough about metallic resources,
and mining stocks, and big trees, and monstrous
pears, and great-hearted sanitary contributions
but that they know not how much or how little
to believe about these things, and that the exGg-
geration not uncommon among travellers, dispoSeS
them to deduct so largely from current reports,
5 to leave the real truth in the shade, and in
very diminished form, well as very dull
shadow. When, therefore, any one OF RESPONSE
bic character, who has the public ear, returns
from California, it becomes him to take special
heed unto his words, for they are sure to have
all the weight they merit, and perhaps even more.
Thus the eloquent and excellent Bishop Simpson,
SO patriotic and justly influential, in speech
made in the Academy of Music, a fortnight since,
made, in what suppose were intended as rhetor-
zeal exaggeratious, some remarks about chambers
of solid gold, which have infamed the magma
tons of the people more than anything sad
about California for long time. Doubtless, the
interest aroused will do good, but the solid
golden chambers not near SO likely to be
found as the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem
paved with pure gold Yet it shows how eager
the people arc for trustworthy information about
the Pacific slope.
have told the people here that my full con-
vic,ion was that the metallic resources OF your
coast were inexhaustbe, and within scientific
reach to Il fabulous extent that had no idea
YOU had touched milonth part of them, and
that they would employ the energies of success
sive generations to dig them from your soil that
YOU needed two things equally essential to the
development Of your mineral resources, capital,
and population and that you would get both OF
those things together, or not at all That the
way to get both was to build the PACING Rail
road at the earliest possible moment, and that
NOW was the time to do it. Build that road with
any necessary expense to the Governmental
thousand millions if necessary-and it would
repay the nation its whole cost every hve years.
And this because only So can the Pacific coast
be speedily furnished with population the one
thing essential to that cheapening OF labor, with
out which mining on grand and extensive scale
is impossible, and to the creation OF that home
market without which agriculture cannot thrive
nor commerce flourish Want of population,
NOR, even than of capital, is the poverty OF the
De coast 1t is no answer to this to say that
tbere are more people there now than the actual
business of the country calls for. iha' ID 'rue'
ord tbore never will be any more business until
great influx of population, 81 the racine null
road. creates an entirely new standard OF tninee
makes it possible for the cheapness Oh iipor W
undertake a thousand things not wholly ont OF
the question, and to develop industries. mining
and otherwise that now languish or lie latent
Became many men in San Francisco are out OF
employment and in other parts OF California,
too it is not to be inferred that labor is abund-
ant The cost of living is so high that nobody
can afford to work for low or even moderate,
wages Wages are so high that only the most
sure and profitable business can afford to pay
them Men who can make from SO to 50 per
dav in gold refuse to work at ALL long as their
old savings will support them And So in this
vicious circle labor and capital, both intensely
high smothering each other, the great and rich
interests of the country are brought to COM
paratiye stand. Intense efforts are meanwhile
making to correct this difficulty by encouraging
capital TO 90 where the rate of interest is from
one and half to FIVE, and even eight, per cent
a month. But prudent men know that there
must be very perilous reasons for such rates of
interest and that it is very doubtful whether
ANYBODY. riskng his money in such market
for it. does not every now and then, in a loss Of
in interest. Capital never ai1, and never will,
certainly sacrifice safety to hope OF excessive re-
turns. There is nothing so bad for a community
morally and economically, as this excessive
usurv 1t is the bane Of the Pacific Coast, con-
verting its business life into one great gambling
concern and making any accumulation of wealth
there next to impossible The sole correction
for the evil is the increase of the population,
and the consequent cheapening of wages, which
would at once rectify all other evils and this
brings back to the Pacific Railroad as the
great moral, as well as economic, necessity of the
nation, and especially of the other slope.
There is another necessity for building this
road at once, which few seem to appreciate -
We want, and we have got, finally, to rely upon
the gold and and silver got out Of the great
auriferous and argentiferous chain that forms the
axis of our Pacific possessions for the payment
of our vast national debt, and the resuscitation
of our business and trade after the We
cannot wait for the slow development of time