GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TREATY.
From this survey of the treaty, as seen in its origin and the questions under it, I might pass at once to a survey of the possessions which have been conveyed; but there are other matters of a more general character which present themselves at this stage and challenge judgment. These concern nothing less than the unity, power, and grandeur of the Republic, with the extension of its dominion and its institutions. Such considerations, where not entirely inapplicable, are apt to be controlling. I do not doubt that they will in a great measure determine the fate of this treaty with the American people. They are patent, and do not depend on research or statistics. To state them is enough.
1. Advantages to the Pacific Coast.—Foremost in order, if not in importance, I put the desires of our fellow-citizens on the Pacific coast, and the special advantages they will derive from this enlargement of boundary. They were the first to ask for it, and will be the first to profit by it. While others knew the Russian possessions only on the map, they knew them practically in their resources. While others were indifferent, they were planning how to appropriate Russian peltries and fisheries. This is attested by the resolutions of the Legislature of Washington Territory; also by the exertions at different times of two Senators from California, who, differing in political sentiments and in party relations, took the initial steps which ended in this treaty.
These well-known desires were founded, of course, on supposed advantages; and here experience and neighborhood were prompters. Since 1854 the people of California have received their ice from the fresh-water lakes in the island of Kadiak, not far westward from Mount St. Elias. Later still, their fishermen have searched the waters about the Aleutians and the Shumagins, commencing a promising fishery. Others have proposed to substitute themselves for the Hudson’s Bay Company in their franchise on the coast. But all are looking to the Orient, as in the time of Columbus, although like him they sail to the west. To them China and Japan, those ancient realms of fabulous wealth, are the Indies. To draw this commerce to the Pacific coast is no new idea. It haunted the early navigators. Meares, the Englishman, whose voyage in the intervening seas was in 1788, recounts a meeting with Gray, the Boston navigator, whom he found “very sanguine in the superior advantages which his countrymen from New England might reap from this track of trade, and big with many mighty projects.”[19] He closes his volumes with an essay entitled “Some Account of the Trade between the Northwest Coast of America and China, &c.,” in the course of which[20] he dwells on the “great and very valuable source of commerce” offered by China as “forming a chain of trade between Hudson’s Bay, Canada, and the Northwest Coast”; and then he exhibits on the American side the costly furs of the sea-otter, still so much prized in China,—“mines which are known to lie between the latitudes of 40° and 60° north,”—and also ginseng “in inexhaustible plenty,” for which there is still such demand in China, that even Minnesota, at the head-waters of the Mississippi, supplies her contribution. His catalogue might be extended now.
As a practical illustration of this idea, it may be mentioned, that, for a long time, most, if not all, the sea-otter skins of this coast found their way to China. China was the best customer, and therefore Englishmen and Americans followed the Russian Company in carrying these furs to her market, so that Pennant, the English naturalist, impressed by the peculiar advantages of the coast, exclaimed, “What a profitable trade [with China] might not a colony carry on, was it possible to penetrate to these parts of North America by means of the rivers and lakes!”[21] Under the present treaty this coast is ours.
The absence of harbors belonging to the United States on the Pacific limits the outlets of the country. On that whole extent, from Panama to Puget Sound, the only harbor of any considerable value is San Francisco. Further north the harbors are abundant, and they are all nearer to the great marts of Japan and China. But San Francisco itself will be nearer by the way of the Aleutians than by Honolulu. The projection of maps is not always calculated to present an accurate idea of distances. From measurement on a globe it appears that a voyage from San Francisco to Hong Kong by the common way of the Sandwich Islands is 7,140 miles, but by way of the Aleutian Islands it is only 6,060 miles, being a saving of more than one thousand miles, with the enormous additional advantage of being obliged to carry much less coal. Of course a voyage from Sitka, or from Puget Sound, the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, would be shorter still.
The advantages to the Pacific coast have two aspects,—one domestic, and the other foreign. Not only does the treaty extend the coasting trade of California, Oregon, and Washington Territory northward, but it also extends the base of commerce with China and Japan.
To unite the East of Asia with the West of America is the aspiration of commerce now as when the English navigator recorded his voyage. Of course, whatever helps this result is an advantage. The Pacific Railroad is such an advantage; for, though running westward, it will be, when completed, a new highway to the East. This treaty is another advantage; for nothing can be clearer than that the western coast must exercise an attraction which will be felt in China and Japan just in proportion as it is occupied by a commercial people communicating readily with the Atlantic and with Europe. This cannot be without consequences not less important politically than commercially. Owing so much to the Union, the people there will be bound to it anew, and the national unity will receive another confirmation. Thus the whole country will be a gainer. So are we knit together that the advantages to the Pacific coast will contribute to the general welfare.