Year: 1859

Recent administrations have great deal to answer
for as to the policy OF Government is due the extra
ordinary exhibition of ingratitude with which the
country has requited the generosity Of Providence 10
giving us the rich gold producing region Of Cafor
mia. How have we abused the costly trust -Four
hundred and twenty-eight million dollars worth of
gold has been taken out in nine years and yet the
foreign export of precious metal during that time has
exceeded the import by three hundred and FIVE mil
lions-that is, nearly seventyfve per cent. Of the
California gold enrches other nations instead OF this
where it was produced, but about twenty-five per
cent. OF 1t remaining in American hands, and this
specie exhaustion still continues and rap
idly than during the current year. The gold which
savage climes produce which the negroes Of Africa
dig, passes from them in the same way in exchange
for manufactures and does not enrich their country.
The gold Of California pours out Of the country at
the thousand leaks which eur international policy
suffers to drain 1t, going to the enrichment Of other
nations and the impoverishment Of this, which would
be speedily exhausted and bankrupt but for the good
turn which best bower the cotton crop, in
bringing back enough money from abroad to keep
our heads above water. We export surplus over
import and production of three hundred millions Of
gold, and the money is gone from the country,
whereas if it was compelled to stay here and the
proceeds Of its investment exported instead, the
country would not only retain the capital but add to
it the value Of the exports which its investment pro-
duced, and the balance of foreign trade would soon
be in our favor in place Of being vastly against
as il is, and getting heavier from year to year.


How much richer does California gold make the
country? California mail arrives with one million
dollars which the miners Of that Ell Dorado have un
earthed. The telegraph announces the receipt in
flaming headetter, "$l 900 900 in gold!" and the
reader peruses with qualification an announcement
which shows that the country is one million dollars
richer. In another column of the same paper he
may note, unostentatiously set forth, the shipment
of one million Of dollars by an European steamer,
and if he thinks at all about it, he reflects that "ts
all right-we have received quid pro quo for this
money which fully represents its value and the coun-
try has lost nothing" But what is the nature of
this quid pro quo which is "as good the money :"
1t consists of merchandise, manufactured articles
almost entirely, and may be "as good as the money!
so far as the immediate holders concerned, but
is million dollars worth Of perishable goods as
valuable to the country at large the $1,000 900 in
cash, which has gone to pay for them to be divided
among the people of other nations and added to the
operative capital invested in manufactures which
support, and whose commercial and industrial inter
| ests wealth sustains to our cost? Would it not
be better to divide the million of dollars among oul
own people, as it would be were the manufacture Of
the imported articles which we pay the money out
for encouraged by proper policy of internationa
| commercial relations. -


Every year shows a balance of many millions
against US, and by just so much is this country
poorer and others richer. The miners of California
digging gold for the pockets Of the Englishmen
Frenchmen, Germans and the other thrifty people o
the world whose governments look after the interests
of citizens We manage to keep up tolerably crisis
reputation occasionally coming to assistance tc
rub out portion of the balance against u.s. and that
our mercantile interests are enabled so quickly and
so phGnixlike to resume their ruinously prosperous
condition is due to the cotton crop of the South and
a few other minor staples, which bring back por.
tion of the money spend SO lavishy for manufact
ures, while the gold crop of California is alienated
in assisting to pay off our balances. "Thats the
| wav the money pops