State Agricultural Society. 91 



irrigate the orchards and gardens, to make their region again thriving 

 and populous, and he will say, "It is water." Many of these observa- 

 tions apply to quartz mining, which is and will be for generations a 

 profitable pursuit of the State. Thus the great industry that gave the 

 first impulse to the settlement of the State is yet one of its most deserv- 

 ing and promising interests, and must not be omitted or underrated in 

 calculating its resources. 



Sitting within the unfolded doors of the Golden Gate, our commerce 

 should bring to us tribute from the opulent East, and direct to us that 

 vast trade which flows in currents as naturally as rivers run to the sea, 

 wherever it flows depositing riches. Our ships were driven from the 

 ocean partially by English cruisers, but kept-from it by the impossibility 

 of competition in the foreign carrying trade with the heavy taxation 

 necessary to the late war and the reestablishment of public credit. 

 The extraordinary expenses of war are happily over, and a partial 

 reduction of the debt, demonstrating that the nation can, if it pleases, 

 extinguish it, has so firmly founded the national credit that only a few 

 partisans advocate repudiation. With this condition of things Congress 

 felt able to add a lengthy free list to the tariff, to reduce the duties on a 

 multitude of articles, to abolish all internal revenue taxes except on 

 spirits and tobacco, and a modified income tax, which ought also to be, 

 and I think will be soon, abolished. The reductions to take effect 

 during the next year amount in round numbers to eighty millions of 

 dollars. With this burden off the industry of the country we can build 

 and sail ships more cheaply than at any period during the past eight 

 years, and 1 trust we may soon see American commerce prosecuted in 

 American bottoms, and that we may do a part of the carrying trade of 

 the world. Everything that aids foreign commerce builds up our city 

 by the sea, and so far furnishes a market for our products. But I do 

 not think that that object is obtained by a license to buy ships abroad, 

 or transfer foreign lines of mail steamers under our flag, leaving the 

 organizations which own and manage them and absorb their profits, 

 unchanged. Such a measure, coupled with another admitting duty free 

 all articles that go into the manufacture of ships, with a corresponding 

 bounty where the materials are of American production, might be the 

 dictate of wise statesmanship. So inseparably woven together are all 

 our interests, so much does the farmer, the miner, the merchant, and the 

 manufacturer each depend on the other, and so much does the pros- 

 perity of each go to make a grand total for our noble State, that these 

 observations may not be deemed misplaced on such an occasion as this 

 when the products and interests of the whole State pass in review. We 

 have reason for thankfulness that, despite the errors of the past and 

 some slight depression of the present, the review is so favorable and the 

 prospect for the future so bright. 



Finally, my friends, I congratulate 3^011 that our continent is at peace; 

 that we may work out our destiny undisturbed by moving armies, by 

 carnage, famine, and fire. Our peaceful homes are not leveled by deadly 

 missiles, our harvest fields are not trodden red in the blood of men and 

 steeds, our } r oung men and adults are not summoned to fight, our wives 

 and sisters not left to weep. The horrible war that tramples France in 

 the dust, and makes two great peoples contend in hate and suffer 

 wounds beyond estimate, may be the legitimate contest between the 

 aspiration tor German unity and the resistance imposed by traditional 



