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.
of goods manufactured from the great American staple. Great Britain has penetrated Asia,
and commanded its valuable trade almost wholly by her exports of cotton goods. Hitherto we
have had no advantage of distance in our competition for this trade. Her advantages for manufacturing are fast diminishing. The prices of labor in that country are increasing. Our own
manufacturers of coarse cottons have attained such skill and economy that they command our
own markets, and are only restrained in the productions of their enterprise by a want of outlets
fobr their fabrics. Hundreds of millions of people in China and the Asiatic Archipelago are to
be supplied with cotton clothing; and the great superiority of the American staple over the
India cotton will always create a demand for our fabrics. The English and American manufacturers take their raw material fiom the same starting point New Orleans. The former has
to transport this material 4,500 miles, to Liverpool, to be manufactured, and the products of
the manufacture 14,400 miles, to Shanghai; making, in all, a distance of 18,900 miles. The
American manufacturer transports the raw material to Boston, a distance of 1,800 miles. When
the proposed railroad is completed, he will have to transport his cotton, from the common
starting point, only 9,800 miles to the common market, Shanghai. The American will have
in his favor 8,600 miles, and a still greater advantage when manufactures are established at
the South. There can be no reasonable doubt that, with the advantages of rapidity of transit,
and shortness of distance, all our cotton fabrics of a value exceeding dollars
per ton will be transported by rail to Puget sound. It has been estimated that the supply
necessary for these new markets will require an amount of cotton equal to the present"entire"
crop of upland cotton of the United States.' When it is remembered that the United States
manufactures only one-third of the entire crop, the rest being exported, and that the capital
invested in our own cotton manufactures is $80,000,000, and the annual value of the products of
these manufactories is $70,000,000, some conception may be formed of the value of an avenue
to Asiatic trade which opens a new outlet for these products.
The manufacturing skill and enterprise of the North, and the resources of the South, are adequate to meet the future demands of an unparalleled trade. It has been said by one of the most
intelligent statistical writers of the South, that in process of time the annual product of cotton in
the United States can be augmented to six times its present yield, and it will not be more astonishing than its augmentation since 1790; and he continues: "When the cultivation becomes more
extended, and to all sections of the'cotton zone,' covering more than eight degrees of latitude,
and more thian eighteen degrees of longitude, the probability is lessened of any untoward season
or other casualty affecting the aggregate crop injuriously, and consequently the average supply
and the prices will be more regular and uniform."
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