The record-union., 1892-06-21

first capital and proceed to initial steps of
location, is 81. -cere and the result of per-
ception at last of what has so long been
known to the interior, that San Fran
cisco's highest interest is in the invest
ment of her capital and business energy
in the development and upbuilding of
industrial and productive enterprises in
the interior of the State.
Such enterprise. therefore, as the new
proposition outlines is to be commended
and encouraged; this inauguration of a
| new policy means, if followed up,
awakening to new life in California. 1t
means the illustration of the truth that
the growth of any commonwealth de-
ponds upon activity on the part of its
people and its capital. Prospective profit
induces industrial activity, but capital
must point and lead the way 10 it. In
California the whole problem of agricult-
ure and of horticulture hinges upon capt.
tai; In no other country is this so true as
here. At the very outset the question is
more one of investment than of labor
upon the soil.
Our mercantile and capitalistic classes
will come to understand, let US hope that
they already realize it, the essential truth
that capital must take the initiative to
assist Drawn and courage to develop our
natural resources. For our resources are
SO diversified, our territory spread out
upon such q grand scale, our whole
scheme of State building is so wide
based and of such broad view, that labor
and physical energy, however coupled
with resolution, cannot alone do the
work of development and keep pace with
the age and the rivalry of other sections
striving for the same end. Here, as in
other countries, our merchant classes
must also become producing classes.
In England the dealer in fiber furnishes
the capital to those who go to the South
Seas to grow fiber. In France the mer-
chants outfit all French colonies for new
development, and likewise in Germany
mercantile capital backs all new indus
trial enterprises. Thus the Old World
merchants create the very products in
which they deal and out of which they
make profit. They do not, as has been
the rule in San Francisco, profit out of
the production of the metropolitan trade
area, and invest the entire gains within
city limits, leaving outside industry to
seek capital in sections having least or
no interest in its development.
In the island of Ceylon last year Brit
ish capital induced the production of
100000 pounds of tea, and this, too, in
competition with the cheap labor of
China. During the war banks were
formed in England, and successfully
maintained, for the sole purpose of pro-
noting cotton-growing in India. The
consular reports monthly sent to the
State Department from our representa-
tves abroad TEEN with official state
ments of mercantile encouragement of
industries in all parts of the world by the
merchants of Germany, France, England
and Holland, but it is only at rare inter-
walls that we find accounts of California
mercantile enterprise being made mani
fest abroad.
The movement to engage in independ-
ent railway construction between San
Francisco and Salt Lake warrants the be-
lief that the metropolis is awakening to
the truth that true mercantile enterprise
directs production as well as distributes
/ the results of industry. When the mer-
chants and their close allies, the capital
lists of San Francisco, enter freely into
this higher realm of conjoining the profit
Of dealing in products with the fostering
of enterprise to create such products a
new and distinctively important era in
the development of California will have
dawned. With its full development will
come also a broadening of the horizon of
mercantile activity that will. as is the
case with the merchants Of the East and
the Old World, take foreign countries,
the islands of the sea and the commerce
of all oceans into the scheme of the new
activity