Los Angeles herald., 1891-10-14
STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER.

OF the Nicaragua canal. But that ad-
dress is so pregnant with suggestion
and so replete with practical sense
touching the commercial and industrial
needs OF our state, that it ought to be
read by every one who has ever seriously
the relations the develop
ment of our resources bears to the econ
omy of transportation to the great mar
kets of the world. We therefore
make no apology for reverting
again to this admirable address.
Mr.. Mills, although closely identified
with the management of the Southern
Pacific and presumably not Indifferent
to the great railway interests on this
coast, still insists that the building of
the canal is the highest wisdom from
every view. In his address he points
out the fact that California's greatest
need today is a cheap outlet for its raw
and cheap material, and the cheapest
possible inlet for the articles into
which we desire to convert our labor,
and shows that the value of many Of
our products in the great markets is not
equal to the actual cost OF carrying them
over long lines. He shows that certain
grades of ores and MINERALS, lumber and
other articles we have in great supply,
cannot be taken to market two or three
thousand miles by rail, or around the
Horn.
As to the vast body of our raw
material the Isthmus canal is the only
practical route of shipment and for
bringing back what it will buy that we
need.
Mr.. Mills insists that the greater por
ton of the present volume OF tonnage
would still be carried by rail, and that
the new industrial and commercial con-
ditions developed by the canal would
create its own tonnage. Not only this,
but it would develop much other bust
ness to be done by rail. Our great need
is the necessity of employment and this
means greater population. We want
not only to bring people here, but we
must find employment for them. 1T is
occupation that attracts population"
wherever prosperity invites, people,
CO." Here is a striking passage from
the address:
when our commerce can be carried
by steam on the ocean, an entirely new
condition will arise-one vastly more
favorable to industrial and commercial
development than we have ever before
known. A great commerce will focalize
ok &c GO
will cease to be a mere geographical
designation, and become, as it should,
vast commercial factor"
San Francisco business men and
capitalists ought to read prayerfully the
following passage which closes an ap-
peal to them to make of that city what
can be made of it by a more liberal
policy:
"The entire western third of the
national domain needs here at the
Golden Gate a metropolis in which to
reservoir it's surplus capital, and con-
serve in the highest degree the mercan-
tile side of our industrial prod uction.
So long as the commerce generated by
the products of this great territory must
find import and export in distant met
ropolitan cities, that long will there be
wanting in our development a potent
factor. The surplus capital accumu-
lated at such long range suffers estrange-
ment, and thus impoverishes the region
from which it is drawn. On the other
hand, the wealth accumulated in a
metropolis belonging to our own
region becomes a constantly aug
menting force in industrial and com
mercial development. The present use
lessness in commercial sense of the
ocean which washes our shores, is DENY
ing to US the existence of great COM
mercial metropolis, with its inds-
pensable influence upon all growth and
progress. In my humble opinion, the
construction of the canal means to us a
new position on the commercial map of
the world-the introduction of entirely
new conditions, making possible the
full development of our vast natural re-
sources. The very statement itself is
pregnant with meaning-'the develop
ment of our natural resources These
resources exist. They will be developed
only if all the economies influencing and
controlling their development are favor
ing, and they are so vast and varied that
their development necessarily presup-
poses the existence OF vast population
finding profitable employment out of the
development"
1t would be hard to compress into
these few lines of space more wit and
wisdom than this paragraph contains:
"The industrial resources of California
are impaled upon the longest lines of
rail by land and the longest lines by sea,
traversed for commercial purposes, on
the geography of the globe. The bare
statement of this fact signifies the great
est possible disadvantage of location.
All we import stands charged with the
largest freight bills, and all we export
must submit to the heaviest discount,
when we attempt to place them in their
final markets.
If this epigrammatic summing up OF
great subject can be burned into the
consciousness of the leading men of
California the state board of trade will
have done great service to the common
wealth in the publication of this address.
THE rumor reaches us from San Fran
oicoo fhat Rloipo will NOT ron,,x,a L.