11 



REDUCTION OF COST OF TRANSPORTATION. 



To the average Eastern mind, California and its sister Pacific States 

 are on the verge of the continent. Their names are associated with 

 great distance. When they are under consideration as the objective 

 point of a future residence, contemplation is associated with discouraging 

 remoteness. Between California and the fertile area of the Eastern 

 States there lies an uninhabited region. Between the two groups of 

 civilization, that facing the Atlantic and that facing the Pacific Ocean, 

 there are 1,500,000 square miles of territory, the average fertility of which 

 is less than one-fiftieth the average fertility of the territory lying east of 

 the Missouri river. To the emigrant from an Eastern State to California, 

 the consideration of distance involves the breaking up of home ties, old 

 associations, old acquaintanceship. The distance is too great for the 

 maintenance of old associations. Nor are these things even the most 

 serious source of discouragement. The people of the East regard Cali- 

 fornia as being under special disadvantage with reference to its commer- 

 cial relation to the rest of the world. To the most casual observation, 

 California labors under a great disability with reference to transportation. 

 It pays the highest price for all supplies imported, and it submits to the 

 greatest discount in consequence of the cost of transportation upon its 

 exports. But, as has already been shown, cost in its commercial sense, 

 is convertible into distance. If it costs the same to ship goods from San 

 Francisco to New York as from the Missouri river to New York, then, 

 commercially, California is as near the great metropolis of the country as 

 the Missouri river. As specially instructive, I beg leave to present the 

 following terminal rates over a period of nine years from 1880 to 1889 : 



