The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-05-30

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900 acres short staple cotton, sugar,
rice, corn, and all the cereals; to sup
ply, in a new field of industry, the fro
zen north perpetually with vegetables
and tropical fruits; to develop the vast
mines of mineral wealth, salt, sulphur,
petroleum; to supply By the cheap,
rapid transportation of stock, tine north
and east with an unprecedented quail
ty of beef at one-third the present
cost; to bind more closely together, by
one common and all-pervading inter-
est, the states of the Union; to operate
as line of defense in case of foreign
war. Wars recur. The world has not
recently made any obvious approaches
toward that perpetual peace which is
its favorite dream. Some comblna-
tons might awaken us, some day, to a
war whose proportions would dwarf all
precedent wars. In that day this
work would have secured advantages
in massing troops of which recent wars
have demonstrated the advantage.
Why should not this measure be re-
vived 1t promises almost fabulous
results. The enormous increase in
wealth and production from contin-
ueusly inhowing tide of capital and
labor, Immediately remunerative, has
to be left, without numerals to signify
its probable extent. In Mexico it
would open direct highway from her
rich mines of gold, silver: lead, copper,
tin, saltpetre and sulphur, and her pro-
duce of coffee and dye stuff, as we'll as
invite her to an enormous stock of pro-
duction. 1t will bring her stability in
trade, while that trade will be wholly
controlled by us, worth many millions
and constantly increasing.
And little further on, as an ulti-
mate, lies the inevitable absorption of
the Mexican states, New Leon, Chi
huahua, Coahuila, and so much of
Tamaulipas as lies within The continu-
Gus mountain range which constitutes
the natural boundary between the Re-
publics. There is no other true boun-
Diary. An inadequate, unconvincing,
arbitrary line is that of the Rio Grande.
Extension will do its work without d.
plomacy or war-the peaceful triumph
of enterprise, without annexation in
the rhetoric of the statesman. Peopled
by the new emigration, and strength
ened through their inter-relations with
Texas, and the line of states toward
the Atlantic border, the elements of
nationality will change unperceived;
while Mexico will accept a higher ma
tionality, made secure by her new re-
lations, wise and powerful at home,
and everywhere respected abroad.
We know ofno other world wonder,
no great national enterprise to COM
pare with this, excepting the New
York and Erie canal two-thirds of
century ago. Few imagine now how
large a portion Of that prodigious pros
perity which has eliminated in an en-
pire so vast as the great state of New
York and in private fortunes so innu-
merable and of such magnitude, is to
be ascribed to the genius of Dewitt
Clinton and to the contamination of
that great work which brought to the
doors of the marts and markets of the
country the whole vast producing re-
glon of Middle and Western New York
a great portion of which, until then,
had gone untitled, and whose yet vast
stores of production had annually rot
ted in the granaries. 1t is too late
far the imagination to recall the time,
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