III. TRANSLATIONS FROM HORACE.-ODE XIV.-TO THE REPUBLIC, 400 IV. DANTON.... By the Author of ROBESPIERRE. V. CALIFORNIA-ITS POSITION AND PROSPECTS. A TOUR OF DUTY IN CALIFORNIA; including a description of the Gold Re- OREGON AND CALIFORNIA, in 1848. By J. Q. Thornton, late Judge of the THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. By B. Francis Parkman, Jr. WHAT I SAW IN CALIFORNIA. By E. Bryant. NOTES OF TRAVEL IN CALIFORNIA; Official report of Col. J. C. Fremont, LIFE IN CALIFORNIA. By an American Citizen. WILEY & PUTNAM. HISTORY OF THE HAWAIIAN OR SANDWICH ISLANDS. By James Jackson 401 412 VI. THE THREE NUTS.-(From the German of Clemens Brentano,)..... 428 By MRS. ST. SIMONS. VII. LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.-(From the French of Beranger.) 435 VIII. MINNA VON BARNHELM.-A COMEDY, IN FIVE ACTS... Translated from the German of G. E. Lessing. Act III. IX. ODE.-To AMERICA... By MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER. X. ANCIENT AND MODERN CIVILIZATION.. A Paper read to the Montgomery (Orange county) Literary and Scien- XI. SELECT LIBRARY OF THE GERMAN CLASSICS-IPHIGENEIA OF XII. FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. XIII. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS... 436 448 449 460 469 475 AMONG the most remarkable evidences of the progress of liberal principles in commercial and industrial legislation, may be cousidared the fact, that on the day on which, according to the limitations of previous enactments, the corn laws of England expired, and the tax on food was finally removed, the sovereign of the British empire opened Parliament in a speech, which contained the following clause: "I again commend to your attention the restrictions imposed on commerce by the navigation laws. "If you shall find that these laws are, in whole or in part, unnecessary for the maintenance of our maritime power, while they fetter trade and industry, you will, no doubt, deem it right to repeal or modify their provisions." This pregnant announcement of the English statesmen through their royal mouth-piece, is indicative, not of any particular desire upon their part to abrogate statutes which, for nearly one hundred and eighty-five years, have operated upon the principle that England's ship-owners should monopolize the transportation of England's merchandize, but it proceeds from the unmistakable manifestations of the conviction on the public mind, that the prosperity of England will be improved by allowing her merchants to charter such ships to transport their goods, as will deliver them most safely, speedily, and at the lowest charge, let who will be the owners. Many of them, doubtless, have firm faith in the skill and ability of English ship-builders and seamen to compete with the same occupations among any other people on the face of the earth; and in order that they may compete with them, and carry Manchester goods to foreign markets, and bring home food to Lancashire operators on as low terms as the ships of any other nation, they propose, that the timber imported into England to build English ships, shall be untaxed; that hemp, canvass and cordage from untaxed materials, shall be placed at the command of the ship-wright and rigger, on terms as low as they can be had in any other nation. That the food and necessary articles consumed by those employed in the construction of ships shall also be untaxed, in order that a low money price for labor, while it diminishes the cost of the ship, shall not really diminish the wages of the artisan. This cheaply-built ship, they contend, shall no longer be restricted in its navigation by laws such as those that require that it shall retain a certain number of apprentices, whether it wants their services or not, for the avowed object of increasing the number of seamen, who, in time of wars undertaken by the patrician order for the aggrandisement of dynasties, may be pressed into line-ofbattle ships. By the removal of all the disabilities under which shipbuilding and sailing now labor, it is confidently assumed that a great saving to England's industry will be effected, through the lessened cost of the transportation of its products; and that under such circumstances, however free may be the competition they may encounter, English ships and seamen will be sure to attain at least as large a share of the general commerce as they now enjoy under reciprocity treaties, by which they are exposed to the severest competition from abroad, while laboring under disadvantages at home. The manner in which navigation laws or enactments, granting the monopoly of transportation, operate to the injury of all concerned, may be aptly illustrated in what is now actually the case in relation to the respective trades of the St. Lawrence and Hudson rivers. The former is the great natural outlet of the lakes to the ocean, but its navigation is governed entirely by British colonial laws, which give a close monopoly of its whole transportation to British vessels. The Hudson is a stream of nearly equal magnitude, draining a vast section of country, and its navigation is governed by the reciprocity treaty with England, which permits the produce that reaches its waters to be transported with perfect freedom either in English or American vessels, or in those of any other nation with which we have treaties, or to which the favored nation-clause of the reciprocity treaties apply. England has expended nearly $10,000,000 in public works, to facilitate the conveyance of the produce of the great West delivered on the lakes, down the St. Lawrence to the ocean. New-York has expended nearly an equal sum with the same object; and the result is, that the produce of the upper lakes may reach New-York somewhat cheaper than it can reach Quebec. It was not the object, however, of either nation to deliver produce on the sea-board in order to accumulate it in decaying masses on the wharves. The object is to sell it, and to do so there must be vessels to transport it at cheap rates of freight. Under the reciprocity treaties of the United States, most vessels of Europe compete for freight; but the American ships, by their superior qualities of safety and cheapness, obtain nearly the whole. At Quebec nearly the reverse is the case: the produce carried thither accumulates upon the dock, awaiting the slow arrival of the ill-contrived monopoly-built ships, which, secure in their trade, come at their leisure, and charge exorbitant rates for transportation. It is frequently the case that it costs 7s. sterling to transport a barrel of flour from Quebec to Liverpool, at the same time that 2s. only is charged from New-York to Liverpool. It might be supposed that such exorbitant rates would induce the multiplication of vessels, and by increasing the supply reduce the charge. The timber-taxed and restricted ships cannot, however, afford to sail for less, and the whole trade of the province is stran gled by this singular monopoly granted to a few ship-owners This intolerable grievance has been among the chief incentives that are driving the Canadas into the circle of the Union. The whole agricultural and forwarding interests were held in check, because the facilities for conveying the produce to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, were entirely neutralized by the artificial barriers raised to its proceeding beyond that point. This case of the provinces was, in 1847, brought home to the people of England. In that year of famine they required immense quantities of foreign grain, far more than the whole capacity of the British mercantile marine would suffice to transport. It was moved in Parliament that government frigates should have their guns taken out to make room for the grain that they should be required to load with. The obvious wisdom of cheapening the transportation of food by suspending the navigation laws, and allowing the vessels of all nations to compete for the freights, was acted upon. It could not escape the attention of a "nation of shopkeepers," whose business is to buy and sell, that if a free competition in freights saved their money in time of famine, they could not lose much by continuing it in time of plenty. Hence the conclusion to which the nation arrived as expressed in the speech from the throne. The United States are also a selling and buying nation, and cheapness of transportation is the great desideratum as well with the farming as with the plantation interests. It is to the advantage of these, that as large quantities of their productions as possible should be sold abroad. For this purpose immense sums are expended in the construction of canals and the building of railroads. Every facility is given to competition in internal transportation; and all the great works of the country point to the seaboard, where not only the "home markets" are considerable, but the foreign demand is most effective. When arrived at the seaboard, it is obvious, that unless some degree of facility to its export is granted, all the efforts made to cheapen transportation from the interior are neutralized; and from time to time the difficulties that stood in the way of export have been removed. Thus the navigation act of England, passed in the time of Charles II., provided that no merchandize should be imported into Great Britain, from Asia, Africa, or America, in any but British-built ships, navigated by an English commander, and having at least three-fourths of the crew English; and as the commercial greatness of Holland was the especial envy of British statesmen at that time, the law provided that no Dutch ship should enter England with cargo; and this provision remained in force until 1822. This law was nearly in operative, as respects the United States, down to the period of their independence, at which time Congress passed a law embracing the principles of the English Navigation Act. The consequences of these conflicting laws, forbidding the sale of American produce to England except it should be carried in British vessels, and also of the sale of British goods to the United States except they should be carried in American vessels, by causing the vessels of both nations to make the voyage one way in ballast, forced concessions from a government strenuously opposed to all relaxation; and, by the treaty of 1815, British and American vessels are placed upon the same footing with respect to the direct international trade. The consequence has been, that American ships, under this free competition, have attained the largest share of the international freights. From the moment the navigation laws were once invaded, further con |