De Bow's Review

peril, to save her from destruction. Adopting that resource, cherishing that hope, she is invincible. An energetic consciousness of her own power is intensely necessary to that union of effort without which she falls. A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether," would give her a stand stronger than Sebastopol against the allies. Let us cease, then, to feed the weak among us with silly tales to sap our own strength, and, remembering how often "our doubts are traitors," let us carefully avoid making our own periodicals the vehicles for instilling such doubts into minds which it is the duty of these very periodicals to instruct and enlighten. In our remarks we have limited ourselves to proving the inaccuracy of the statement upon which we have commented. We have simply proved that it is not a fact that the manufactures of Rhode Island are more profitable than the manufactures and cotton of Carolina. That their profits are very great we do not deny; but these profits, even were they as enormous as the reviewer has stated, could scarcely, we think, even then be considered as settling "beyond a cavil or doubt the true grounds upon which a State must rely for its greatness." We who remember the struggle for "free trade," in which the gallant little State, here placed in invidious juxtaposition with Rhode Island, took no insignificant stand, can tell something of the beginnings of those profits. We can tell how, by means of tariffs and American systems, New England manufacturers drained the pockets of southern planters, and doubt, not a little, whether such political pilfering is the true ground "on which a State must rely for its greatness." Aye, and even now, this same little Rhode Island which, like a leech, has sucked itself full from our fatness-even now, could her iniquitous schemes of abolitionism be realized, and the slaveholding south be (as in the blindness of her madness she asks that it should be) laid a desert waste, the sacrifice to her headlong fanaticism-even now, we ask, where and what would be her greatness and her profits unsupported by that south which she reviles? Will the author of "statistical views of Illinois" answer us on this point? To us it seems that without these same southern slaveholding States, without their produce, without their cotton, Rhode Island would have little to characterize her beyond "her inhospitable climate and her flinty soil." Whatever may be the conclusions on this point in the latitude of Chicago, surely we of southern blood and southern home, with southern duties and southern hopes, should cease to play into the hands of our enemies by helping to circulate laudations of them, at the expense at once of truth and of our own rights.

JOURNAL OF HOME AND FOREIGN COMMERCE.

COMMERCE OF THE PACIFIC.

THE SAN FRANCISCO AND SHANGHAE MAIL STEAMSHIP LINE.

One great fault which our Atlantic brethren exhibit, when speaking of the western coast of the United States, is an almost total want of knowledge of the commerce, trade, and resources of the Pacific. Dwelling contiguous to another great ocean, they appear to feel no particular desire to inquire what is going on upon the bosom of the great sea, upon a part of whose shores it is our lot to reside. California has frequently been represented in our national legislative halls as having been a constant applicant for favors, and as swallowing up a large amount of the national resources, whilst the questions, how much the wealth and enterprise of California have added to our national prosperity, how far the produce of our gold mines have sustained the tottering credit of the whole Union, and how much the facilities of our position have given and are destined to give to American commerce, if not entirely lost sight of, are treated not as being essential to the proper appreciation of the subject, but as merely involving speculations in finance.

Upon one side of the Pacific ocean there dwells a new, but energetic people, coupling the experience of age with the strength of youth, possessing untiring industry, great adaptation to every variety of pursuit, and a nautical skill which must ere long take the palm from the oldest and most powerful maritime nation; upon the other side exists the oldest civilization on earth, a very high degree of industry, deficient, however, in the method by which inventions and discoveries are made, and a great fondness for commercial pursuits, which is only limited by imperfect navigation and a very great inferiority in their naval architecture. To connect these two nations, there was introduced into the House of Representatives, during the last Congress, a bill to provide for the establishment of a mail steamship line between San Francisco and Shanghae. The advantages of such a communication were well urged by the representatives from this State, and an unanswerable array of facts, figures, and statistics set forth, but altogether without success. It is to be hoped that during the coming session the subject may again engage the attention of our delegation, and that being brought forward at a more propitious moment, Congress will be inclined to give a more favorable hearing to the case.

Reports to Congress and to the British House of Commons

afford elaborate statistics of the comparative commerce of the United States and England with China, and from these it appears that at present the balance of trade between the two last is vastly in favor of England, whilst ours, yet in its infancy, presents an entirely different aspect, having a wide margin for the enterprise of our merchants. British trade depends at present upon the capacity of China to pay in cash, while with us they can yet for a long time pay in goods and products of their own. The English trade cannot long continue, since all the imports for Chinese consumption, and all, or nearly all, the freights are earned by English or American vessels. Thus it would appear that we are better circumstanced than the English; and so long as our population and increase are at a more rapid rate than those of any other country must our capacity for greater exports and imports increase. The advantages which San Francisco possesses from its position in augmenting the trade between the two countries is very great. Situated upon the same ocean, the loss of time, the expense, and the dangers attendant upon a voyage round the capes is avoided, and such articles as would so deteriorate as to become almost valueless after a long voyage through the various temperatures passed through by ships bound round the Horn or Cape of Good Hope might safely be shipped from our eastern ports. Instead of sailing from eighteen to twenty thousand miles to reach a market, the distance between New York and Shanghae would be reduced to eight or ten thousand. Add to this the immense advantage that would be gained by our merchants from the early intelligence they would receive of the wants and demands of distant markets, whereby they might anticipate the supplies of all other maritime countries. All the information received by our merchants now comes by way of England, giving to shippers there an advantage of at least ten days. Should this mail route be established, commercial intelligence would reach New York more than ten days earlier than the same information could arrive at Liverpool by the present English overland mail route. The quickness with which such intelligence could be conveyed would serve to multiply commercial transactions, and diminish the risk attending them, inasmuch as our merchants will be enabled to improve the first favorable turn in the market. Since the settlement of California the commerce between the United States and China has been more than doubled. During nearly the whole of this period, too, it will be recollected, China has been convulsed with civil war, and her usual trade, foreign and domestic, has been almost broken up; still under all difficulties we have been gradually increasing our trade with that country, and gradu

ally impairing the commerce of the English, the French, and the Dutch in that quarter of the world. England has numerous great chains of ocean steam lines, and they connect with nearly every quarter of the world. For this reason she at present controls the commerce of the Chinese seas and the Indian archipelago. We now have almost entire control of the trade of the Sandwich Islands, with a fair prospect of soon supplying the wants of many of the other numerous islands of the Pacific, while our pioneer trading ships will soon open with Japan a new and important commerce. And the same advantages would be extended to all these countries by the establishment of the line of steamships to Shanghae. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, August 16, 1855.

COMMERCE OF SOUTHERN CITIES, 1854-55-NEW ORLEANS.

The following is from the report of the New Orleans Prices Current, showing the receipts from the interior up to the 1st September, for one year. The other tables of this report, together with extracts from those of the Bulletin, Picayune, Delta, etc., will appear hereafter.