The effect of this emigration, for the moment, is obviously to assist the reception of the multitudes from Europe. It is thinning the population of the United States, carrying off the labourers, and turning every unoccupied eye in the direction of the west. The drudgery of Ireland, the skilled labour of England, and the patient and not unintelligent toil of Germany, will daily find the mart more open; and thus even the mania of gold-digging will have its effect on the sober welfare of mankind.
But a still more important effect, though more remote, may follow from the Californian mines. The celebrated Burke, sixty years ago, predicted that the new population on the plains of the Mississippi would extinguish the power, if not the existence, of the cities on the coast, and that when those "English Tartars," as he imaginatively described them, once poured down on the New Yorks, Bostons, and Philadelphias, they would turn them into warehouses, and their sites into watering-places. They would have fulfilled his prophecy long since, but for the boundless expanse of territory which lay behind this "Tartar" region. Their discontents evaporated into the wilderness; the provincial who looked with a jealous eye on the man of cities, found it easier to travel than to make war; and he forthwith set up a state for himself in the boundless prairie. A Californian republic may erect a formidable balance to the domination of the old States. Washington will no longer be the capital of America, and the north of the New World may yet have a stronger resemblance to Europe—with its great kingdoms, its little princes, and its commercial cities—than the anomalous government of the Stripes and Stars.
But the noblest of all the projects which have ever excited the curiosity of the world is still to be consummated—the communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific—a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. That isthmus is but twenty miles broad, but a passage across it would shorten the voyage to China, perhaps to six weeks, instead of four months; annihilate, the perils of the navigation round South America, and bring Europe into rapid contact with Australia, India, and the unexplored glories and exhaustless opulence of the finest archipelago in the ocean.
The project is so natural that it had been a hundred times conceived; but the perpetual wars of Europe, the angry jealousy of Spain, and, in later years, the disturbances of the native governments, have wholly obstructed the mightiest benefit ever offered to the progress of civilisation. The enterprise of the Americans had not overlooked this key to both hemispheres, and, some years since, a compact was entered into with a company headed by the American Biddle. But it was suffered to die away; other contracts succeeded, equally abortive, the government on the spot demanding terms of such exorbitance that it was impossible to carry the work into execution. With the usual short-sightedness of the foreigner, they had placed all their profit on the rent and tolls of the canal, foolishly forgetting that their real profit was to be found in the wealth which the intercourse of all nations must bring into their country.
Two projects are now said to be under consideration—a railroad, which would be exclusively for the benefit of the Americans; and a canal capable of carrying large vessels across the Isthmus, and which would be open to all nations. There can be no question as to the superior benefits of the latter to mankind.
Of the five routes, four are exposed to obstacles arising from elevation of ground, (the track to Panama rises a thousand feet,) from insalubrity, and from other circumstances of the soil and the locality. The fifth, by the river of Nicaragua, evidently deserves the preference. It lies through a fine river, reaching from the Atlantic to a central lake, and thence descends through a second river to the Pacific. The whole distance would be but two hundred and seventy-eight miles, which would require locks and other works, (the rivers being at intervals interrupted by rapids,) but this portion would amount to but eighty-two miles. The lake-sailing would be a hundred and twenty-five miles. The whole expense, estimating it at the prices of Europe, would be less than four millions sterling. Sanguine calculators value the profits at twelve per cent. But whatever might be the smallness of the dividends in the first instance, there can be no imaginable doubt that, with fair dealing on the part of the local government, the Isthmus would soon be worth all the mines of Peru, with all the gold-washings of California besides.
The next great enterprise would be the junction of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, by a passage across the Isthmus of Suez. There is already a road, but the passage is slow and difficult, from the heat, the soil, and the imperfect conveyance. Two proposals have been long since made, the one for a canal and the other for a railroad. To the canal there seem to be insuperable objections, the shallowness of the sea at Suez, the shifting nature of the sands on the way, which would soon fill up the canal, and the difficulty of water for its supply. It has been also ascertained by the survey of the French engineers that the Red Sea is about thirty feet higher than the Mediterranean.
The railroad is obviously not merely the true expedient, but the only one. But it is almost impossible to deal the foreigner on any subject of prospective profit. The habit of living but for the day deteriorates all the movements of national progress. Unless he can grasp his profit at once, it exists no longer to his eye. With the man of the East, the grasp is eager and avaricious. Mehemet Ali might have brought millions of wealth into Egypt by a railroad, while he was wasting thousands in paltry contrivances to make a royal revenue for himself, out of the contending bargains of English and French engineers. The result is, that except a miserable canal between Alexandria and the Nile, dry half the year, and scarcely navigable during the other half, nothing has been done; and the journey across the isthmus occupies nearly two days, gives infinite trouble, and makes money only for donkey-boys and tavern-keepers, which, by a railroad, might be effected luxuriously in three hours.
The Ethnography of this volume forms the material of a treatise, which might itself be expanded into a volume. Some years ago the population of the globe was computed at 860 millions; but, from the accelerated rapidity of increase, year by year, we should suppose it to be now 900 millions; and even that, a number which, unless some great human catastrophe should arrive, would speedily increase to 1000 millions! The laws of population are yet imperfectly comprehended; but, like all the other great problems of nature, they are given for our inquiry, and will ultimately yield to our inquiry.
The chief obstacle to population is evidently neither poverty, nor general discomfort of living, nor inferiority of food. Under all these circumstances, population accumulates in an extraordinary degree. The population of Ireland is a case in point. War seems to exercise but a slight check on population. Barrenness of soil must have its effect, for where men cannot eat, they, of course, cannot live; but insecurity of property, implied in tyrannical government, is the great depopulator. Men will not labour, where they cannot be certain of the fruits of their labour; they sink into lassitude, indolence, and beggary. The actual power of life departs from them, and they either perish by the first pressure of famine, sink under the first attack of disease, or emigrate, to make the experiment of renewing their existence in a freer soil. But the subject is still equally obscure, boundless, and interesting.