Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean: Vol. 1, Pt. 2

PUGET SOUND, AND ITS RELATION TO THE TRADE OF ASIA.
the Columbia river, and the interests of the two Territories of Oregon and Washington will
soon require a railroad.
A question of the highest importance in connexion with the proposed railroad, is the effect
which it w'ill have in securing for this country the control of the Asiatic trade. The magnitude
of the subject, the want of reliable statistics, and the difficulty in reasoning from the past when
political revolutions, mechanical inventions, and new routes of travel are producing such great
changes in the relations of commerce, will preclude me from considering the subject in detail.
A fewv general considerations will be sufficient to show the importance of the proposed road as
an avenue for the trade of Asia.
The position of this country, standing midway between the great centres of Asiatic and
European population, indicates its future commercial greatness. Facing our Pacific possessions,
and separated from them by the smooth Pacific, is a vast region covering an area of over twelve
millions of square miles, and having a population of over six hundred millions, the outlets of
whose commerce and productions are nearer not only to our Pacific, but our Atlantic cities,
than to the ports of any European nation; Calcutta, Singapore, Manilla, Canton, and Shanghai
being nearer to New York, New Orleans and Charleston, by lines of communication entirely
feasible, than to England.
The trade of this vast region, including China, Japan, and the Asiatic Archipelago, has been
the great commercial prize in ancient and modern times. Persia, Assyria, Carthage, and Rome,
each swayed the world, as it controlled the commerce of the East. Venice, Genoa, Lisbon,
Amsterdam, and London, each in its turn attained commercial supremacy, as it became the
dispenser of Eastern luxuries to the Western world. The value of the import and export trade
of the Asiatic region, which cati be made tributary to our commerce, cannot be readily deter
mined; but that of China has been estimated at one hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars
per annum, the greater part of which has been carried on by Great Britain; and the annual
value of the export and import trade of Great Britain with the Asiatic Archipelago and Pacific
islands is estimated at seventy-five millions of dollars.
An important fact bearing upon the feasibility of diverting the trade of Asia from the old channels, is the comparative nearness of our Pacific possessions to the city of Shanghai, which is
most favorably situated to become the future emporium of China, and the outlet of trade of over
three hundred millions of people, who are just beginning to break away from that exclusive
policy which has, for so many centuries, shut them out from the rest of the world. The concentration of British capital at Canton, and its greater nearness to England, has made the latter
city the centre of the foreign trade with China. But the silk and tea producing districts lie
much nearer to Shanghai, while this city, situated upon a river which is connected with the
Yangtze Kiang, the great artery of China, has water communication with one third of the empire.
Shanghai, which may be called the New Orleans of China, is distant only 5,000 miles from Puget
sound, and the route passes by Japan, with its fifty millions of inhabitants-Jeddo being only
3,660 miles distant from Puget sound.
Nature has clearly indicated the northern pathway for the commerce from the future mart of
Asiatic trade to this country and Europe. The great lakes carry us water-borne half-way across
the continent. The proposed road communicates on a direct line with the northern lake tradethe most wonderful internal commerce the world has ever known-a traffic which is stated to have
amounted in 1851 to -$326,000,000, employing 74,000 tons of steam and 138,000 tons of sailvessels. It intersects the Mississippi river, and thus communicates with the southern States. It
is on the line of the great wheat-producing region of America; and, above all, it is on the direct
line of the shortest distance between the centres of European and Asiatic population.
The opening of this avenue is already eagerly sought by our own people to facili
exchange of their products with those of Asia. From New York to Shanghai, by way of Cape
Horn and Lima, the sailing distance is 21,000 miles. By way of the Cape of Good Hope, the
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