point; also, a general synopsis of the lakes, severally, with their trade and back countries; and added to these, detailed statistical tables in reference to the whole of the great St. Lawrence basin. To enter in this place on a discussion to prove what is so generally admitted as the advantages accruing to a country from a various and extensive commerce, would be superfluous; but, nevertheless, so little appears to be known, and such limited interest to be felt, in relation to our own internal commerce, and to its bearing on the trade and prosperity of the country at large, that a few words on its nature, past history, present requirements, and bearing on our commercial, social, and political condition, will not, it is presumed, appear entirely impertinent. In the first place, the general self-gratulation of the people and their legislators at the fact that within scarcely a century's lapse our foreign commerce has grown up to be second only to that of Great Britain, and to threaten it also with rivalry, appears to have blinded them to a perception of the difference of the circumstances attending maritime and inland navigation; of the reasons why the latter requires aid from the public to effect what in the former is safely left to the means and enterprise of individual communities; and, lastly, of the preponderating influence of the latter on the former branch of national prosperity. It appears, moreover, to have led casual observers to the opinion that, because our maritime commerce has experienced so wonderful an increase under circumstances somewhat untoward, it could have made no greater or further progress if liberally fostered by the hand of government; and, secondly, that because one branch of commerce has so succeeded, all other branches can so succeed. To these propositions it may be replied, briefly : First. That the maritime commerce merely exports to foreign markets the surplus productions of our country, whereby to purchase imports from the same or similar markets. That this maritime commerce is sustained for the most part by opulent commercial communities, on whom no burdens rest, at farthest, but the construction of their own harbors and their maintenance. That without a supply of produce for exportation, the foreign commerce would be carried on under such an adverse balance of trade as would be injurious rather than profitable. That, for the present, the preponderance of our foreign exportations must be of raw material, as agricultural produce, produce of the forest, the fisheries, and the field. That even when this ceases to be the case, and our articles of export shall be more largely manufactures and articles of luxury, in lieu of raw produce, the necessity of raw produce to the seaboard and the large commercial cities will still exist and increase, from the necessity of supplying material and subsistence for the commercial or manufacturing population. That of those articles of raw material which are neither shipped as foreign nor used as domestic provision, such as minerals and metals, every ton native, brought into the domestic market and manufactured at home for home use, supplants so much of foreign raw material or manufacture, and tends thereby so far to change the balance of trade in our favor. It is contended by some political economists, that of nations engaged in commercial pursuits, the largest exporters and the smallest importers must be the gainers, since a large excess of importation must cause a drain of the precious metals to pay for such excess. It does not follow that if this be true as to foreign or maritime commerce, it is equally so as to inland or interior trade. The former cannot exist but by means of the latter; the latter may exist, and in some sort flourish, without the aid of the former. Again, for articles of bulk and weight, no means of transportation can compete with water carriage, especially for great distances. It is the best and the cheapest. This, then, is the position of our inland and maritime navigation and commerce: the former is the feeder of the latter, the source of its greatness; for at such a vast distance do our granaries and storehouses of agricultural and mineral wealth lie from our marts and workshops, that but for the network of lakes, rivers, and artificial improvements with which our country is so wonderfully intersected, they could never be rendered available for exportation, or home consumption on the seaboard, and in the old and thickly settled districts. These considerations show the interest which the external or maritime commerce has in the advancement of the lake trade and navigation; and establish that the maritime commercial communities, and the commonwealth, should, as a matter of justice and duty, as well as of expediency, aid liberally all improvements which may facilitate the prosecution of business, the cultivation and exploitation, and yet more the transportation, of that produce which is necessary to the existence of the one, and the well-being of the other. The lake trade is obliged to effect much more by its own means than the foreign, and it has infinitely less means whereby to effect it. It is well known that this inland or lake trade is in the hands of new States, peopled, for the most part, by emigrants, whose chief possession is their industry, swelling the coffers of the older and wealthier communities. The latter now virtually demand that these infant States shall not only produce, but transport produce, and clear the way for that transportation, for their benefit, at their own expense. Hence the expediency and justice of lending, under these circumstances, federal aid to the new States, so far as removing or surmounting such obstacles in free channels of trade open to all or any States, as are offered by the flats of the Lake St. Clair, the rocks and shoals of Lake George, or the Sault St. Marie, is, it is considered, incontestable. The details of the districts, and the general synopsis of the lakes and lake country, will undoubtedly suffice to establish the facts and show the realities of the vast extent of the existing trade, its past growth, and its gigantic future. But a brief glance at its general features may be useful for the concentration of ideas and ready percep tion of results. The coast line embraced in this report includes both shores of Lake Champlain, with which it commences (discharging its waters into the St. Lawrence by the Sorel or Richelieu river,) the southern bank of the river St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario, the Niagara river, and Lake Erie, to the dividing line between New York and Pennsylvania; thence the southern coast of Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania and Ohio line; thence the southwestern coast of the same lake to the Michigan line; and thence the whole southern banks of the Detroit river, St. Clair lake and river, the western coast of Lake Huron, along the southern peninsula of Michigan, the whole coasts of Lake Michigan, including the shores of Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and all the southern and southwestern coast line of Lake St. George, the river St. Mary's, and Lake Superior, including the shores of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, to the frontier of the British possessions at the outlet of Rainy lake and Lake of the Woods into the waters of Lake Superior. The extent of the whole line exceeds three thousand miles in length, and embraces portions of the following States, several of them the wealthiest of the entire Union: Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Minnesota Territory, on the one side; while the lakes open to our commerce on the other a coast line of nearly equal extent, and in some parts of hardly inferior fertility, on the Canadian shore. The lakes themselves, with their statistics of measurement, are as follows: These lakes are estimated to drain an entire area of 335,515 square miles, and discharge their waters into the ocean through the river St. Lawrence, which is rendered navigable from Lake Erie downward to all vessels not exceeding 130 feet keel, 26 beam, and 10 feet draught, and the free navigation of which for American bottoms may, it is anticipated, be acquired by the concession of reciprocity of trade to the Canadian government. The whole traffic of these great waters may be now unhesitatingly stated at $326,000,000, employing 74,000 tons of steam, and 138,000 tons of sail, for the year 1851; whereas, previous to 1800 there was scarcely a craft above the size of an Indian canoe, to stand against an aggregate marine, built up within half a century, in what was then almost a pathless wilderness, of 215,000 tons burden. It may be interesting to state that the first American schooner on Lake Erie was built at Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1797, but she was lost soon afterward, and the example was not followed. Another point should be here mentioned in regard to this vast aug mentation of maritime force and tonnage, which is that the increase of business is most inadequately represented by the increase of tonnage; since, by the increased capacities of the vessels, their speed while under way, their despatch in loading and unloading, and the substitution of steam as a motive power, both for sail on the waters and for human labor at the dock, the amount of traffic actually performed by the same amount of tons in 1851, as compared with that performed in 1841, is greater by ten-fold. To illustrate this position, it is worthy of notice that, in 1839, the twenty-five largest steamers on these lakes had an average of 449 tons burden, the largest being of 800 tons. In 1851 the average of the twenty-five largest fell little short of 1,000 tons, and the average of the whole steam fleet, consisting of 157 steamers and propellers, was 437 tons. Ten years since, from a week to ten days was allowed to a firstrate steamer for a voyage from Buffalo to Detroit and back. In 1851, three days only were required by first-rate steamers, and four to five by propellers. These facts show that four times as much business is transacted in 1851 by ten steamers, as was effected by the same number in 1841. The substitution of steam for sail in the same period has, it is evident, effected a yet greater increase in the speed of transit and celerity of transhipment; and this substitution is hourly on the increase; in proof of which, of 7,000 tons of shipping now on the stocks at Buffalo, 250 only-one brig-are sail; all the remainder steam or propellers. Of this latter species of vessels the increase is so great and so regular, and so rapidly are they growing into favor, that there can be but little doubt that they are destined ultimately to supersede vessels propelled by sail only, especially for voyages of moderate length, and in localities where fuel is abundant and easily to be procured. In no region of the globe are these two conditions, on which rests the availability of screw-steamers, more perfectly complied with than on the lakes, where the longest voyages do not exceed three weeks, at an extreme calculation, and where bituminous coal of a very fine quality can be procured at an average price of three dollars and a half per ton, and at many points at two and a half on the docks. The following table, taken from a very valuable report by Messrs. Mansfield and Gallagher, of the statistics and steam marine of the United States for 1851, will show the comparative force of the steamers employed in the oceanic and the lake trade, and will exhibit a result sufficiently surprising to readers unacquainted with the business of the interior. |