They are changes that usually have their origin in the action of a single man in the timely use of money, sometimes by a distant cause, sometimes by legislation; but never does commerce forsake an available point for the development of mechanical industry. Looking at St. Louis, with her location for internal commerce and mechanical industry without a parallel on the earth, we can safely say that she is destined to unite in one great interest a system of commerce and manufacturing that will surpass in wealth and skill that of Old England. It is true, her iron furnaces and glass factories. will be built some distance outside of her corporate limits, but the wealth and the labor will be hers, and beneath her sway will be united side by side, in the most profitable relations and on the largest scale, the producer and consumer; and they, actuated by a universal amity, will seek the most liberal compensation, attain the highest skill, aspire to a better manhood, and learn to do good. The manufacturing of wood into its various uses will also form a very important part of the industry of this city, as will also the manufacturing of fabrics of various kinds. Thus, with a great system of manufacturing industry, compelling the coal, the iron, the wood and the sand to serve the purposes and wants of the commercial interests, as well as to enter into all channels through which capital flows and which industry serves, both wealth and population will be developed and concentrated in the highest degree. The time fixed for the future great city of the world to grow up, as the most consummate fruit of man's civilization, is within one hundred years from our date. Let us look still deeper into this matter, and consider the new agencies and influences that tend in modern times with such irresistible force to concentrate mankind in the great interior cities of the Continents. The greatest of these agencies compels a more rapid development of the internal commerce of modern nations than in past times, and the consequent organization and concentration of human power in the interior cities. There is not a living man whose experience, if he knows the facts written in the records of his own land, does not teach him of the continental growth and the consequent interior development of the country, in support of the argument under consideration. So great are the facts, that the constant development oft he internal trade of our continent is rapidly reversing the proportion of our domestic to our foreign commerce, so as to soon show the latter to stand in comparative value to the former, as the cipher to the unit; and that the immense growth of our domestic and internal commerce will guide and control our industry, and establish and organize human power and civilization in our own land in conformity to the most economic principles of production, supply and demand, there is no manner of doubt. This done, our foreign commerce will only be ancillary to the enjoyments of our people, and contribute to the development of cosmopolitan ideas among the world's inhabitants, more than to the creation of wealth among the nations. It may be asked, to what cause must this change in the relative value of foreign and domestic commerce, and the influence of each upon civilized man, be referred? The answer is, that steam is the cause. It is the most wonder ful artificial agency to advance public and private wants that man has yet made subservient to his will. It almost serves his entire mechanical wants "It sows, it sculls, it propels, it screws; It lifts, it lowers, it warps, it tows, It pulls, it pushes, it draws, it drives, It weaves, it winds, it twists, it throws, It slits, it turns, it shears, it hews, It coins, it prints—aye, prints the news." Thus we have a suggestive statement, in measure, of many of the varied uses of steam. Its value cannot be estimated, nor can the wonderful influence which its use, during the last half century, has exerted upon civilized man be measured. We, then, again repeat that it is this agency that is rapidly transforming the ancient order of the world's industry and commerce to a new application and a new power; and will compel the cities of the interior, in the future, to outgrow in all time the coast cities. It is this agency, more than all other mechanical agencies, that has lifted mankind from the vassal empires of Cyrus, the Cæsars, and Charlemange, to the great empires of our own time. It is this agency that will forever develop domestic commerce to a vastly greater value than that of foreign commerce, and, consequently, is the most powerful agent to produce the great city of the future that the genius of man has made subservient to his wants. But let us not be understood as desirous of undervaluing foreign trade. We hope and believe that its greatest blessings and triumphs are yet to come. Many of the articles which it brings to us add much to our substantial comfort, such as woolen and cotton goods, sugar and molasses; and others, such as iron and steel, with most of their manufactures, give much aid to our advancing arts, But if these articles were the products of domestic industry-if they were produced in the factories of Lowell and Dayton, on the plantations of Louisiana and in the furnaces, forges, and workshops of Pennsylvania and Missouri why would not the dealing in them have the same tendency to enrich as now that they are brought from distant countries? A disposition to attribute the rapid increase of wealth in commercial nations mainly to foreign commerce, is not peculiar to our nation or our time; for we find it combated as a popular error by distinguished writers on political economy. Mr. Hume, in his essay on commerce, maintains that the only way in which foreign commerce tends to enrich a country is by its presenting tempting articles of luxury, and thereby stimulating the industry of those in whom a desire to purchase is thus excited-the augmented industry of the nation being the only gain. Dr. Chalmers says: "Foreign trade is not the creator of any economic interest; it is but the officiating minister of our enjoyments. Should we consent to forego those enjoyments, then, at the bidding of our will, the whole strength at present embarked in the service of procuring them would be transferred to other services-to the extension of home trade; to the enlargement of our national establishments; to the service of defense, or conquest, or scientific research, or Christian philanthropy." Speaking of the foolish purpose in Bonaparte to cripple Britain by destroying her foreign trade, and its utter failure, he says: "The truth is, that the extinction of foreign trade in one quarter was almost immediately followed up either by the extension of it in another quarter, or by the extension of the home trade. Even had every outlet abroad been obstructed, then, instead of a transference from one foreign market to another, there would just be a universal reflux towards a home market that would be extended in precise proportion with every successive abridgment which took place in our external commerce." If these principles are true-and we believe they are in accordance with those of every eminent writer on political economy and if they are important in their application to the British isles-small in territory, with extensive districts of barren land, surrounded by navigable waters, rich in good harbors, and presenting numerous natural obstacles to constructions for the promotion of internal commerce; and, moreover, placed at the door of the richest nations of the world-with how much greater force do they apply to our country, having a territory twenty times as large, unrivaled natural means of inter-communication, with few obstacles to their indefinite multiplication by the hand of man; a fertility of soil not equaled by the whole world; growing within its boundaries nearly all the productions of all the climes of the earth, and situated 3,000 miles from her nearest commercial neighbor. Will it be said that, admitting the chief agency in building up great cities to belong to internal industry and trade, it remains to be proved that New York and the other great Atlantic cities will feel less of the beneficial effects of this agency than St. Louis and her Western sisters? It does not appear to us difficult to sustain, by facts and reason, the superior claims in this respect of our Western towns. It should be borne in mind that the North American Valley embraces the climate, soils, and minerals usually found distributed among many. nations. From the northern shores of the upper lakes, and the highest navigable points of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, to the Gulf of Mexico, nearly all the agricultural articles which contribute to the enjoyment of civilized man are now, or may be, produced in profusion. The North will send to the South grain, flour, provisions, including the delicate fish of the lakes, and the fruits of a temperate clime, in exchange for the sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco, and the fruits of the warm South. These are but a few of the articles, the produce of the soil, which will be the subjects of commerce in this valley. Of mineral productions. which, at no distant day, will tend to swell the tide of internal commerce, it will suffice to mention coal, iron, salt, lead, lime, and marble. Will Boston, or New York, or Baltimore, or New Orleans, be the point selected for the interchange of these products? Or shall we choose more convenient central points on rivers and lakes for the theaters of these exchanges? It is imagined by some that the destiny of this valley has fixed it down to the almost exclusive pursuit of agriculture, ignorant that, as a general rule in all ages of the world, and in all countries, the mouths go to the food, and not the food to the mouths. Dr. Chalmers says: "The bulkiness of food forms one of those forces in the economic machine which tend to equalize the population of every land with the products of its own agriculture. It does not restrain disproportion and excess in all cases; but in every large State it will be found. that wherever an excess obtains, it forms but a very small fraction of the whole population. Each trade must have an agricultural basis to rest upon; for in every process of industry, the first and greatest necessity is that the workmen shall be fed." Again: "Generally speaking, the excrescent (the population over and above that which the country can feed) bears a very minut● proportion to the natural population of the country; and almost nowhere does the commerce of a nation overleap, but by a very little way, the basis of its own agriculture." The Atlantic States, and particularly those of New England, cannot claim that they are to become the seats of the manufactures with which the West is to be supplied; that mechanics, and artisans, and manufacturers are not to select for their place of business the region in which the means of living are most abundant and their manufactured articles in greatest demand, but the section which is most deficient in those means, and to which their food and fuel must, during their lives, be transported hundreds of miles, and the products of their labor be sent back the same long road for a market. Such a claim is neither sanctioned by reason, authority, nor experience. The mere statement exhibits it as unreasonable. Dr. Chalmers maintains that the "excrescent" population could not, in Britain even, with a free trade in breadstuffs, exceed one-tenth of all the inhabitants; and Britain, be it remembered, is nearer the granaries of the Baltic than is New England to the food-exporting portions of our valley, and she has also greatly the advantage in the diminished expenses of transportation. But the Eastern manufacturing States have already nearly, if not quite, attained to the maximum ratio of excrescent population, and cannot, therefore, greatly augment their manufactures without a correspondent increase in agricultural production. Most countries, distinguished for manufactures, have laid the foundation in a highly improved agriculture. England, the north of France, and Belgium have a more productive husbandry than any other region of the same extent. In these same countries are also to be found the most efficient and extensive manufacturing establishments of the whole world; and it is not to be doubted that abundance of food was one of the chief causes of setting them in motion. How is it that a like cause operating here will not produce a like effect? Have we not, in addition to our prolific agriculture, as many and as great natural aids for manufacturing as any other country? The water-power of Missouri alone is greater than that of New England; besides, there are immense facilities in the States of Kentucky, Minnesota, and Ohio, as well as valuable advantages possessed in all the Valley States. But to these water-powers can be added the immeasurable power of steam in developing manufacturing industry in our own as well as other States of this valley. If our readers are satisfied that domestic or internal trade must have the chief agency in building up our great American cities, and that the internal trade of the great Western Valley will be mainly concentrated in the cities situated within its bosom, it becomes an interesting subject of inquiry how our leading interior city will, at some distant period say one hundred yearsbecome the great city of the world, and gather to itself the preponderance of the industry and trade of the continent. But our interior cities will not depend for their development altogether on internal trade. They will partake, in some degree, with their Atlantic and Pacific sisters, of the foreign commerce also; and if, as some seem to suppose, the profits of commerce increase with the distance at which it is carried on, and the difficulties which nature has thrown in its way, the Western towns will have the same advantage over their Eastern rivals in foreign commerce, which some claim for the latter over the former in our domestic trade. St. Louis and her lake rivals may use the outports of New Orleans and New York, as Paris and Vienna use those of Havre and Trieste; and it will surely one day come to pass that steamers from Europe will enter our great lakes and be seen booming up the Mississippi. To add strength and conclusiveness to the above facts and deductions, do our readers ask for examples? They are at hand. The first city of which we have any record is Nineveh, situated on the Tigris, not less than 700 miles from its mouth. Babylon, built not long after, was also situated far in the interior, on the river Euphrates. Most of the great cities of antiquity, some of which were of immense extent, were situated in the interior, and chiefly in the valleys of large rivers meandering through rich alluvial territories. Such werd Thebes, Memphis, Ptolemais and Rome. But when we consider that our position in vindication of the superior growth of interior cities over outports is sustained by the civilization of the ancient nations, as found in the examples of their great interior cities, and that, too, when water facilities ruled the commerce of the world, must not all opposing argument in favor of seaboard cities be of naught when we bring to the discussion the power and use of steam, the railway system, and the labor-saving and labor-increasing inventions which the arts afford? Comprehending this mighty reversal in the order and means of industrial civilization, must we not say, with Horace Greeley, that "salt water is about played out"? |
