The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1895-08-20
CENTURY OF COMMERCIAL PRO-
GRESS


GRBSS.
This year marks the lapse Of century
since the news reached our side of the
Atlantic that Chief Justice John Jay OF
New York had effected a commercial
treaty 6etween the United States and
Great Britain. 1t was a highly important
event, though next to the Declaration OF
Independence, July T. 1776, the treaty of
1783 by which England acknowledged the
independence Of the thirteen colonies in a
separate nation, was the most important
event of the eighteenth century for this
country. For several years after the
close of the revolutionary war England
had done all 1t could to injure our COM
merce and industry, enforcing rigidly its
navigation acts excluding our merchant
ships from the West India trade and inn
pressing from them sailors for the Brit
ish army. An embryo was laid by our
| government on British vessels and this
country was on the verge of another war
with Great Britain when Washington sent
John Jay there with instructions to nego-
tiate treaty. The terms as arranged by
him were formally ratified by the United
States in June.
The assurance that England had ac-
great stimulus to our foreign COM
merce, which almost doubled In a single
year. 1t jumped from less than 6 mill
lions in 1774 to nlsarly 11S millions in 1906,
marking the first great era Of business
prosperity In ths United States. The
population then was about 100000, so that
both our population and foreign commerce
now are about fifteen times greater than
a hundred years ago.
In that year, 1875, the New York Prices
Current was established, intended to be
the voice OF the new commercial life.
The paper now is called the Shipping and
Commercial List and New York Price
Current As the oldest commercial paper
in America its managers propose to cele-
brate its own centennial and that of the
commercial liberty of the nation by pub
fishing a memorial Of American develop
ment in the three great fields Of our
country'S prosperity agriculture, COM
merce and manufactures. The work is to
be edited by Chauncey NJ. Depew and one
hundred well qualified Americans will
each write a chapter showing the enor-
nous progress made during the century in
the field treated of by him. Among the
topics chosen are national finance, for
eign and domestic commerce, postal ST.
graph, the merchant marine, Am rican
banking, American labor commercial
wealth, one hundred years of New York
commerce, American car building, street
railways thlaters figuring mills, potter
les, iron, and all other prominent indus
tries. A sufficient number of gentlemen
each of whom Is prominently Identified
with the subject NAMED for him, have
accepted the invitation to show that the
work will be one of unusual interest and
indicate the possibility that It VIII be-
come a standard for reference in future
years. The conception of the work is
Aighly creditable to the publishers Of the
p.per which on Dec. 10 next will have
complt Ted its one hundredth year.
The story to be told is wonderful one
nd without a parallel though the United
States is far from being the only country
which has enormously expanded and pro-
flied by the aid of what is a Century
of inventions" in a far different sense to
that in which the term first was used
by the Marquis of Worcester. From the
occupancy of the narrow strip of land
elong the shore of the Atlantic by a peo-
pie whose numbers scarcely exceeded the
present popuatio Of the single state OF
Illinois, the Unit.d States now comprises
all the land from the Atlantic to the Pa
cilfc ocean, between Mexico on the south
and the British possessions on the north,
and has taken in from Russia a vast ex-
pans in the far northwest reaching into
the Arctic ocean. These areas are Occu-
pied by seventy millions OF people who
have developed their mlnsral and agri-
cultural resources to an extent not merely
to- supply their own wants, but to feed and
clothe an untold number of millions OF
persons in the old world They have COW
vered much of the land with a network