Los Angeles herald., 1892-03-09
A sHREwD AND oBssRvANr VISITOR

Cal IuS Oub tAC tlCdblhChb With Oil viz
safeguards their Importance demands.
A sHREwD AND oBsERvANT VISITOR.
For man of keen and observant fac
ulties, Andrew Carnegie becomes fatu-
ously weak and diaphanous when he
talks politics. Here is gentleman of
acute understanding, who looks upon
ordinary things with practical eye and
who reasons clearly and strongly upon
all matters with which he is familiar; /;
who has an eye for plastic art, an ear for
cadent music, a mind to discover the
elements OF material success, and soul
to enjoy and appreciate beauty and the
higher order of good things in life; yet
who reminds one of the beset ostrich
in the desert when he comes
to talk about tariff and the Re-
publican party. With all his
keenness and wealth of understanding,
he cannot see that his exceptional
riches, acquired by the favor of the very
party and policy he so necessarily ex-
tolls, are sufficient to refute the gilded
reasons he advances to sustain his po-
litical hobby. He causes the mind nat
urally to revert to the fact that the pol
icy he defends has made but one Carne
gle out OF thousands and hundreds of
thousands of mudsills it has oppressed
in order to produce this fine specimen
of Republican evolution. Under, per-
haps, any system of administration Car
negie would have become rich man;
but under no other system than that
which has been fostered by the Repub-
lican party could he have become a
forty times millionaire.
But whilst Mr.. Carnegie's political
views may be incontinently dismissed
as of no value whatever, his. opinion
upon ordinary matters may be received
and studied with profit. There is no
doubt that he knows about all that is to
be known of the possibilities of any
country he has carefully studied in the
line of manufacturing and productive
development. Therefore, when he
tells US that from what he
has seen of our resources in
California we are much nearer an era of
development in manufactures than We
suppose; we are impressed with the idea
that he sees further into the means at
our command than we ourselves see.
With reference to our soil productions
he tells us nothing new; but he throws
out hint which is manifestly
the result of careful, if not curious, OBJ
servation. He says that California
fruit here and at the east are percepti-
bly, different. Here it has all the deli
cious flavor and bouquet of the perfect
fruit; at the east it has mere soupcon
OF it, and he accounts for this difference
in the fact that we have to ship our
fruit green 80 that it will arrive at it's
destination mature; and in the transit
he believes the rich flavor of the freshly
plucked fruit is lost. We doubt, how
ever, whether this criticism is true of
citrus fruits; or at least 80 true in ex-
tent as it is of deciduous fruits. Fruit
growers, however, all over the state can
take the lesson from this remark that it
behooves them not only to agitate for
cheap overland freights, but for expedi-
tious service.
Mr.. Carnegie's head is clear and
sound on the subject of the Nicaragua
canal when he says that it is OF the ut
most Importance to the people of the
Pacific coast. SIT will place them,"
says this keen observer, Gas near the
Atlantic seaboard as Kansas and Ne
braska are now, and this would mean
much more than can be expressed in
words. At present your transportation
rates are SO high on many of the things
you produce that they are entirely pro-
hibitory. You can't send half the prod
ucts east that you could if you had the
canal. If you had that, your redwood,
pine and many other things of bulk
would reach US at large profit to you."
And then the iron magnate falls into a
rhapsody Of praise of our potatoes, which
he says remind him of the fine, mealy
ones he used to have "at home," and
which, with the canal, could be shipped
east at a profit.
1t is true that the Nicaragua canal
would be of inestimable value to this
coast. II would enlarge and diversity
our industries it would tend to build
up marine commerce here that would
enable us to become an important factor
in the trade of South America it would
give us market, as Mr.. w. II. Mills
very justly said, for vast range of
materials, both of growth and make,
that are now of little or no commercial
value. In fine. it would bring us
twelve thousand miles nearer to the
great markets of the world than we now
are, and that means conditions of pros
perity ofEincommensurable value.
The German emperor has again