Year: 1867

Concentration OF Capital.


San francisco journals TEEN with advertise
ments of money to loan, at small percentage,
where good security is given, and it is said that
many of the banking institutions of that city are
doing business without interfering with their in
dvidual capital, but have an abundance Of de-
posits with which to operate, no inconsidersble
portion of which belongs to the working classes.
Outside lands are bought up in large parcels, and
after being divided into !" homestead" lots,-on
paper,-are disposed of to mechanics and labor
ers of that metropolis, or to persons of limited
means, at highly remunerative prices, and on
terms to '' suit purchasers" provided, always,
the seller receives an equivalent in cash or ap-
proved security. Capitalists who in former years
expended extravagant sums on ornamental edif-
ces which abound in that city, consider them
selves fortunate if they receive one per cent on
cards of " rooms to let." Mercantile firms of
unblemished reputation are profitable patrons of
Savings and Loan Societies, and the toiing ar
tizan in his purchase of supplies contributes the
wherewith for the trader to adjust his bank ac-
count, share of which eventually finds its way
back to the laborer in the shape of ten per cent.
per annum interest ON his triHing earnings and
thus the toilers for daily bread sustain to some
degree both merchant and banker. Competition
in laboring pursuits has compelled the reduction
of wages, and yet with all that the different
branches of industry fail to employ large share
of the labor at hand, and professional men, me-
chanics and laborers often want for the common
necessares of subsistence in that city. 1t ap-
pears that the excitable nature of our popula-
ton, after having passed its eliminating point
by the collapse of mining sensations, now finds
relief only in the hustle and stimulating excite
ment of city life, and a precarious subsistence
there is preferable to substantial home in the
agricultural or mining districts.


1t is hardly worth while to comment on the
sefshness and self-importance of the population
Of San Francisco, as it has become disease
with its people to consider that to it the State
owes its existence, while the facts assert to the
contrary. What the mines have been to it in the
past, the agricultural resources will become in
the future. Its manufacturing interests can on
ly be sustained by an interior patronage, and up
on our farmers it must rely for its chief articles
of export The numerous mining enterprises in
the mountain districts can only be developed
and made successful by a fair distribution of the
boarded capital of San Francisco within the To-
calites which produced it. That city has for
years derived its main support from outside sour
ces, and in return has furnished few staples
for which people have had to pay literally.
Money in abundance has been furnished to build
quartz mills and develop the mines of adjoining
territory, but the hard-fsted, persistent workers
in our own mines have received little or no en-
couragement, and must rely on their own resour-
ces for future developments.


The real wealth of our State does not consist
in the number of banking-houses or brown-front
buildings on Montgomery street, but in the agri-
cultural and mineral resources of the interior,
and upon these its future prosperity must de-
pend. The thousands of acres of untitled soil
contain the germs of its commercial trade and
this coast will eventually regulate the market
for breadstuffs of both the United States and the
Old World. No other portion Of our national
domain offers the advantages of climate, soil and
productiveness of which we can boast If occa-
sionally we are sufferers from drouth it may be
said that no country is free from its effects, and
it should stimulate our disposition to be frugal.
But so long as our people continue to remove
to the commercial metropolis with their first ac-
quistlon of available capital, and laborers pre-
fer the inducements of city life to a thrifty
home in the country, shall lack the advanta-
ges our location offer. An industrious, content
ed population is the essential requisite to our
future prosperity and wealth