CALIFORNIA! WHAT THEN ?
SKr that the accounts from the gold-diggings are exaggerated : what then will happen? Can all the digging and boasting go for nothing, as though the Californian fever were a dream and had never been ? On the contrary, you might as soon hope that each particular grain of sand on the banks of the Sacramento would return to its place, as that things will resume their condition without trace of the bouleversement. The gold-fever will leave many a constitution weakened and diseased, avarice has made its mark, crime has been concentrated, order has been annulled. The settlement of the Pacific coast has been violently hastened—the incessantly spreading Anglo-Saxon race has been hurried across the continent ; but it is anarchy which has settled upon the Califor- nian shore, and the population of the Pacific, licentious enough al- ready, has been recruited by a horde of adventurers and picked ruffians. If the bubble burst betimes, indeed, the lesson may be a bitter one, but not less instructive and useful—an humbling of the Model Republic, a rebuke to its political arrogance and social rudeness.
What if the accounts are true—not exaggerated ? Exaggeration is only presumed, not proved. Probability is in favour of its ex- istence, but does not establish it. Some evidence is against it. Accounts differing in source, manner, details, and combinations, concur in their general drift and conclusions ; a harmony which is scarcely possible in fabrications by various hands. Official au- thority lends support to some of the main facts. Collateral al- lusions imply much,—such as the murders on board ship, and the inability of naval commanders to trust their crews near the shore. But if true, it is the bad consequences which first startle reflection. Not, however, unredeemed, especially for those who are at a distance. It is true that the greater the quantity of gold, the more concentrated the crime, and the more widely influential the lure. It is quite within the range of logical possibility, that the greatest of all gold-formations has only just been discovered ; but if so, it is in the place of all other spots on the globe the most removed from potent authority, the most available for ruffianly adventure ; and the Dorado will present a novelty in modern times—a city of buccaneers, if civic form that vast anarchy can have. New classes of depredators will start into existence. Raleighs, indeed, will not hope to sack the gold of California, as they did that of the Spanish Main, be- cause they will now meet their match in the Anglo-Saxon; but sea-pirates will go forth to intercept the gold cargoes, equipped even from New York and Liverpool. The Model Republic must submit to see its authority contemned by foreigners as well as denizens, or else must establish a great naval and military force on the shores of the Pacific : it must exhibit helpless incapacity, or resort to a " standing army." England may have to encounter some share of difficulty. Vancouver's Island, Oregon itself, may have to be given up, or maintained at a cost frightful to the Manchester school. But if consequences are duly anticipated by our Ministers in other Bri- tish colonies of America, the better organization and the contrast of better order may be used to strengthen the affection of the co- lonists for the Monarchy ; while a chastened wave of the super- abundant prosperity may extend its benefits from Guiana to Hud- son's Bay.
At home, croakers are already looking grave at the possible de- preciation of the gold currency. But the supply must be enor- mously increased for any such ruinous depreciation as would subvert the relations of the precious metals. It must be many tunes as great before gold can be reduced to the standard of silver. And in the order of time, an increased facility of ex- changes must precede the depreciation and keep ahead of it ; so that a term of "prosperity" must facilitate the process of change. Men will find that they have more sovereigns, and will use them, before they learn that the sovereigns have lost in value ; and then there will be still more before the next fall in value; and so on, till we settle at the bottom of the Californian standard. Existing Contracts and unchangeable debts will be affected disadvan- tageously to the creditor ; but convertible contracts, and incomes
changeable though styled " fixed," will share the general rise of prices ; trade and employment of all kinds will be stimulated. Even the United States will feel this healthy stimulus. If the Dorado is a verity, it will be absolutely necessary to make the shortest road to it—a railroad, vaster than the New Brunswick railroad to Quebec : immense demand for labour—Irish labour; immense stimulus to genuine industry for feeding that labour— American agriculture ; to clothe it promptly—English manufac- tures. The field for engineering skill will suddenly be made to span the American continent ; and that vast region will be opened at a blow to the industry of the world.
Previous page
