Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-10-15
CONSULAR REPORTS.

There is issued monthly from the De-
partment of State at Washington thick
pamphlet containing the reports of the
Consuls of the United States on the COM
merce, manufactures, etc., of their Consular
districts. That for August is before us,
from advance sheets. The Department
permits the Consuls the broadcast liberty
they may write of anything under the
sun, if only they manage to localize it in
some respect. They can romance, revel in
poetry, advance theories, criticise the Gov
ernments at will, be horid, witty, dull,
dry, or what they please, and the Depart
ment sends all their matter to print. Some
of the Consuls indulge to their hearts
content in the extent and character of their
reports, one going so far as to sketch a
pleasure trip along a Japanese coast. Many
of the documents are extremely interest
ing, while others are not worth the paper
on which they were written. In the main,
however, they are of much value, and the
observations of our agents abroad recorded
in these volumes should be more widely
distributed among the people. The orders
to the Consuls concerning these reports
conclude with these italicized words
" Bearing in mind, however, while giving
yourselves the broadcast field for the &C.
complishment of the work herein assigned
"you, that your principal efforts must be
f." directed to the introduction of Ameri-
" can trade into, and the enlarge
"ment thereof in, your several districts.
The August issue is altogether too bulky
too permit of liberal extracts in single
article, but few notes will serve to show
the character of the reports, and direct
attention to some very valuable. papers.
Thus we learn that the financial condition
of Liberia is bad, but will grow worse I'M
til public morality shall be vitalized and
official delinquency can be punished. Evil
IDENTIFY the Liberian emigrants carried with
them our vices, and forgot our virtues.
Our trade with Liberia shows no increase.
Our commercial agent in Canada devotes
his whole report to the ''Ontario Medical
"Act," which prevents any American
graduate from experimenting upon Cana
dams. Our Sonoran Consul reports the So.
nora Railroad as progressing rapidly,
and large influx of American
capital looking for investment. From
Buenos Ayres comes the news that
the postponed Continental Exposition will
take place February Is, 1882. Consul
Bartlett at Guadalupe, after an elaborate
tabular exhibit, concludes that our Gov
eminent should not reduce the duties on
sugars. The sugar. producers sell more to
us of their own than they buy of our pro-
ducts, will always seek for the best prices,
and at present for raw sugars the United
States is their best market. We learn
that we are the best customer the province
of Rio Grande Do Sui (Brazil) has for raw
hides, we buying seven-tenths of all that
pIOuuCU, DIS well DIS VI uOlSC-Ad1 Ouu
land carries off most of the bone-ash. Thus
we take the hides and England the bones,
and commercial honors are apparently
EASY. The Colombian Consul says our
brandies and wines are as good as any, but
somehow our sales there are insignificant
as compared to those of Europe, fact he
greatly deplores. The Venezuelan Consul
says we could double our trade there if our
merchants were not so recklessly careless
about packing, and he adds 81 am re-
luctantly forced to admit that the United
Estates holds no respectable commercial
"position on this great continent South
America). This official statement, frank
and to the point, should cause fur
ther inquiry into the subject, and
the application of possible remedies.
From Asia Minor we learn that Tur-
key caught the contagion of "Porko-
phobia" from France, and American hog
products are there under both commercial
and legal ban. This is an exhibition of
most extraordinary solicitude on the part
OF the Porte for his Christian subjects, for
the Turk never touches &c the polluted"
meat in any form. From Smyrna we learn
that the locusts threaten Asia Minor with
a famine, and on this statement our pork
exporters may find some sweet consolation.
From Ceylon we hear of greatly increased
consumption of American goods, and the
outlook is that we will control the chief
imports there. The Australasian colonies
are urging upon the Uuited States such
modification of the duties as to permit
them to export wool to this country. They
complain that it is unjust to compel them
to market it in London, and send their
gold to us for our manufactures. Our
Consul rather favors this admission of the
best classes of New Zealand wool, and
thinks the result would be an enlargement
of trade between the two countries, but
admits that an obstacle in the way is found
in the fact that we have no direct
exchange with New Zealand. The merchant
has to work all his exchanges for New
York and San Francisco via London. To