The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1873-08-15

In one OF his recent speeches. Mr..
Gladstone declared that Great Britain
was creating wealth faster than n coun-
try on earth. with one exception. His
exception referred to the United States.
He might have added that this nation
had two sources Of the creation of wealth
wholly peculiar to itself. The conversion
Of wild lands into arabic farms is not so
much an addition to our national wealth
as a creation. Every year a wave OF pop
~ulation, one thousand miles long and
fifteen deep, extending from the Canadas
TO Mexico, passes on beyond the confines
Of the older States, settles down on viz
gin soil, and converts wild territory into
the homes Of civilization. Prior to its
settlement, that land was worthless ;
once occupied, 1t averages two dollars
and a half an acre. Here arc sixty thou
SAND hOmesteads Of one hundred and
sixty acres each, worth in the aggregate
not less than one hundred million dollars,
annually added to national property.
And this Is only the beginning of the
creation of wealth. The forest standing
on those Western hills and prairies,
financially worthless in its primeval
state, becomes Of great, recognized value
when cut down and converted into houses
and barns and implements of agriculture.
And each years cultivation OF the soil,
the steady growth of population, the in
trusion Of railroads, the building of towns
and cities. rapidly swell the value of bor-
der-land from its original price Of two
dollars anda half an acre till it sells read
lily az ten, twenty, and fifty dollars al
acre. This increase Of property, owing
70 the increase of population, adds some
five hundred million dollars a year to our
real-estate valuation. But these wild
lands are subdued by a population largely
foreign {; and this Is the second source of
the increase of wealth peculiar to this
country. Every German, every Irish
man, every Scandinavian, landing on our
shores, is reckoned by statistics as an adj
dition TO our wealth-producing power of
at least one thousand dollars per capita.
liz the aggregate. and considered only as
a source Of wealth, they constitute an adj
ditioD of four hundred million dollars to
us, and a corresponding deduction of that
amount to some part of Europe. Then,
too, the production of our mines-the
gold of California, the coal of Pennsyl-
vania, the iron of Missouri-is nearly all
creation, all pure profit over the expense
of the miner. Missouri alone contains
iron ore sufficient to give tie nation q
million tons a year for the next two CEN
turtles.
And after the consideration Of these
three sources of national wealth comes the
still greater growth of real and personal
estate by the excess Of production over
expenditure, mainly due to the power Of
labor-saving machinery. These varied
sources of addition to our national wealth
may be seen i'm their clearest form by a
comparison of the wealth of the country
i'm 1850, then estimated at fourteen thous-
and five hundred million dollars, with that
Of 1870, when IL was thirty thousand mill
lion-an increase Of one hundred and
seven per cent. in a single decade. Some
part of this growth Is undoubtedly due
70 the more trustworthy census of 1870.
But making all due deductions for this
cause. and remembering that the wave of
immigration Is increasing about thirteen
per cent. a year. it Is safe to say that we
are to-day creating wealth by agriculture,
by manufactures, by commerce, by w.
ings, by immigration, and by the CONVEX
sion of wild lands into farms, and towns
and cities, at the rate of two thousand
million dollars every year! And such n
statement as this no other nation In the
world has ever been able to make.