The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-02

strip along the southern part of the coast
are all that would be worth taking as a Gift.
Other explosive enthusiasts think the pur-
chase opens brilliant prospects for the China
and Japan trade AS the territory can never
have population of consumers and lies at n
vast distance from the route for supplying in
habited countries it is not very obyious how
the new acquisition is to contribute SO nightly
to the development of the Asiatic trade
Another item in the catalogue of expected
benefits is the promotion of our whale fisheries
in the Northern Pacific. This is less extrava-
CANT but Russia being a friendly power and
likely always to remain so, there would he no
difficulty in securing the hospitality of her
ports for our whalers without purchasing IL.
The price PAD, seven millions in gold is
equivalent to between nine and ten millions i'm
our currency. Computing the interest Of the
rate paid on our Government bonds. the new
territory will be an annual cost of nearly half
a million, besides the expense of maintaining
military posts and naval station-sav in tbe
whole, million year. The total value of
the Iur trade at its most hourishinp
pe1od, nay, the whole annual value of
the furs collected in that territory. has
probably never been half that sum. The
small value OF the territory in itself being so
evident to every one who will be at the Mains
to look INTO the subject, its purchase at the
price paid, is not defensible except with view
to ulterior objects. What those interior oh
jects must be requires no great sagaoitv to
descry. They touch Great Britain so nearly
that 1t is no wonder Sir Frederick Bruce forth
with telegraphed to Lord Derby to know what
he should do. Nobody in this country can
have forgotten the clustering Oregon contro-
versy, which ragged twenty years ago. and
threatened to pTecipitate the two nations into
war. President Polk maintained, in a mes
sage to Congress, that ''our title to the whole
of Oregon" up to the southern line of the
Russian possessions was "clear and unoues
uonable;" and the popular cries of large
portion OF our people were, "The whole of
Oregon or none," and "Fifty-four forty or
fght"-the latitude of fifty-four degrees forty
minutes being the Russian boundary up to
which we claimed.
The controversy was settled by treaty fix
ing our boundary on the forty ninth parallel
and surrendering the intervening coast to
Great Britain. But although we surrendered
our claim, the territory would be no less
valuable to us now than it was esteemed then
when our President and a great body of our
people were ready to fight for it. The
purchase of the Russian territory renders it
morally certain that we shall some day acquire
the strip then in dispute
In the first place, gap in our possessions on
the Pacific coast will always be an eyesore to
the nation, whose sense of symmetry will be
offended by the ragged look of the map. The
national imagination will always require that
our coast line shall be continuous, and this
aspiration will sooner or later be potential. 1t
will secure for the Government efficient popu-
lar support whenever the time shall be ripe
for completing what is now begun. In the
next place, it will have a solid Importance as
a national acquisition. AS soon as the Mexi-
can Republic is settled, we shall probably
acquire Lower California by treaty of pur-
n.,I, SlNo IL
relinquished in the Oregon treaty to give us
the whole Pacific coast from Cape St. Lucas to
Behring's Strata coast line of nearly four
thousand miles. The advantage of this ex-
elusive continuity will be, that it will diminish
immensely the cost of national protection.
There will not be foot of ground on that eX-
tended coast where hostile power could build
fort, establish an arsenal or maintain gar
rison nor a harbor into which a hostile fleet
could enter for coal, supplies, or repairs. The
immense distances by which that coast is sepa-
rated from the rest of the world must make it
invulnerable by our foes in every future war,
when we come to possess all its harbors.
The acquisition from Russia is important
because the British part of the coast is certain
to follow, at some day more or less remote.
So long as the two nations are at peace, we
can take no other steps towards its acquisition
than proposals to purchase. If such propo-
time will accomplish much for us and nothing
for Great Britain. Our population and mill
tary strength ON the Pacific are growing so
rapidly that the seizure of the residue Of the
coast in the event of war will become con-
stantly easier. If we should never have an
| other war with Great Britain, we shall never
need the territory; if we should have a war,
we shall of course, take it.
Looking to the future, we must regard the
purchase of the Russian possessions as wise,
although they are of little immediate value.
1t is an advancing step in that manifest des-
tiny which is yet to give us British North
America. When we have completed our coast
! line on the Pacific, we shall have hemmed
around and shut in from the sea nearly the
whole British territory. Canada lies behind
our New England States and New York, which
form broad belt separating it from the At
| lantic. The st. Lawrence river is OF little
value as an outlet, because it is closed by ice
| great part of the year, and its mouth is en-
veloped with fOgs which render navigation
| dangerous even during the warm season. A
country thus shut in would find itself so Grip
| pied, if we should close our gates, that its
| people will in time be convinced that anneXa-
| ton is for their interest. 1t was for reasons
| such as these that President Pierce opened,
| twelve years ago, the negotiations with Russia
| which President Johnson is now drawing to a
conclusion.