The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-09-24
The Pacific RuilrOad--s5outiern Revi
and Our Eastern Commerce.

Within year from this time we expect to
see the Union Pacific Railroad open from the
Mississippi to San Francisco. The rapidity
with which section after section is being re-
ported as completed gives fair assurance that
by that specified time the two ends will have
met west of the Rocky Mountains, the links
will be welded together and the chain of COM
munication become perfected. Latest ac-
accounts from the Pacific end of the road, or
Central Pacific Railroad, report the line
finished to two hundred and ninety miles
from Sacramento, and bonds have been issued
by the government accordingly TO the amount
of 81, 100000. 1t is not easy, within the
compass of ordinary language, to say what the
results of this road will be to the commerce
and general prospects of the whole country.
Possibly the first result will be to open a sys-
TEN of immigration from the superauous
millions of China and Japan. Immigration
from these countries now is confined to the
Pacific coast, and the theatre of foreign enter
prise from Asia is limited to California and
Oregon. But what will it be when the Pacific
Railroad opens up the whole heart of the coun-
Try to the labor and industry of these populous
Eastern nations? 1t is safe to calculate that
laborers from China will come over by tens Of
thousands and swarm into the valley Of the
Mississippi spread themselves over the Plains,
and work their way into all the Southern
States, there to supply the place of colored
labor, which, owing to the present system of
miscalled reconstruction, is not available for
half its nominal value. 1t is just this kind of
impetus which the South requires to develop
enough, and q soil and eli late so varied that
every product known to the American Cont
nent can be raised there. 1t has a magnificent
water power, equal to any amount of manufac-
ture, running wastefully to the Gulf of Mexico.
But the South wants labor and capital, and
when the former is abundantly supplied, SO
that the Southern States have help enough to
make their own cotton fabrics, to dig out their
own gold and coal, to smell and manufacture
their own iron, we may be sure that capital
will soon be found to pay the laborer, to work
the mines, to put the water power in opera
ton in cotton factories, furnaces and machine
shops In Alabama and North and South
Carolina alone there are coal and iron enough
to keep the whole manufacturing industry Of
the South employed, while in every one of the
Southern States copious streams carry down
with them to the sea immense motive power
which Is now going to waste
One of the consequences of the completion
of the Pacific Railroad, then, may be to make
palmiest days if she does not throw away the
The Pacific Railroad may prove the
best reconstructor. To secure its good co n
three millions of the first bonds
have been reserved for repairs on the road
as it advances. Looking to the Pacific coast
Japan and the islands of the Pacific Ocean,
how is the railroad going to serve us? We
may safely say that its advantages must bear
more fruits than those of any enterprise in the
history of the country. With the Pacific Rail-
road in running order the value of our new
relations with the Eastern nations, Of which
the Burlingame Embassy is the embodiment,
will be enhanced hundrcdfold. Instead of
the single monthly line Of steamers running
between San Francisco and China, comprising
now only four vessels, we must have dozen
or more lines to accommodate our commerce;
but we must take care that the shipping in
terests of the United States shall not succumb
to British enterprise in this matter. 1t will
never do to have American trade with China
conducted in British bottoms, under a foreign
flag, and all the profits of the carrying trade
60 into the pockets of owners of steamers built
on the Clyde. For a long time the shipbuild-
ing trade of this country has been declining in
an unaccountable manner. Shall it be said
that the new commercial steam fleet which will
be required on the Pacific in year from now
must sail under the flags of European nations?
Let the government and the shpbuilders look
to this.
We have said nothing of the advantages of
the Pacific Railroad which must accrue to that
western portion of the Continent lying between
the present termini and the ocean, because
they are too obvious. There is vast desert to be
reclaimed in that immense region-a desert
in some places, it is true, not we'll disposed for
agricultural purposes but rich in minerals and
covered with large tracts of grazing country.
All this is to be redeemed by the Pacific Rail-
road, as the eastern portions of Kansas aud
Nebraska have already been benefited by the
growth of new towns and the location of
fine farms westward and southwark towards
Colorado and New Mexico for distance of
nearly eight hundred miles. In whatever way
we regard this great national highway, there
fore, we see in il grand national enterprise,
which is destined to assist in the fulilment Of
our mission as a free and commercial nation.
Part Of that mission is to exchange, as 1t were,
our civilization for the wealth, the industry
and the labor Of the Asatic countries, and
another part is to extend that natural protec-