340 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



to be permanent and to yield a certain profit, capitalists abroad 

 will wish to take possession of it, and they can afford to pay 

 more for it than we can, because our money is dearer than 

 theirs. A man in New York can afford to pay more for stocks 

 than we can in San Francisco. He gets his money for six per 

 cent, per annum while we pay eighteen. Whenever therefore 

 any large railroad or any extensive improvement, that will 

 certainly be permanently profitable, is established in Cahfornia, 

 foreign capitalists will buy it up. We cannot compete with 

 them until our money becomes cheaper. Our ocean steam- 

 ships are owned in New York. Our river steamboats are 

 mostly owned by a large association, called the California 

 Steam Navigation Company, but the stock is very fluctuating 

 and dangerous as an investment. There is no purchasable 

 bank-stock in California. Most of the capitalists of San Fran- 

 cisco either invest their money in houses and lots, or let it out 

 at interest under bond and mortgage. The taxes are very 

 high in California, in no county less than one per cent, a year, 

 and in some places four per cent. Indeed, when streets are 

 repaired in the large towns, the taxes sometimes amount to 

 ten per cent, on the value of the property. There is a consid- 

 erable amount of French and Swiss capital invested in San 

 Francisco, most of it loaned on mortgage, and under the charge 

 of French and Swiss bankers. 



In no part of the United States is there so small an invest- 

 ment of capital, and so small an amount of real and personal 

 l^roperty held in fee simple, by individuals and local corpora- 

 tions, in proportion to the area, population and amount of busi- 

 ness done, as in the gold mining districts of California. The 

 custom-house manifests show, that during the last fourteen 

 years, we have exported $550,000,000 of gold, and no person 

 at all familiar with the business and history of the state, will 

 estimate the amount of exportation, not manifested, at less 

 than $150,000,000 ; and yet what is there to show in the min- 

 ing districts for all that immense wealth ? There are many 

 fine mountain roads, and yet they are few, and bad, as com- 



