REVENUE AND INCOME. 129 
into the United States ; that new markets would be opened among the dense 
population of the East for our varied productions ; and that a great increase 
of public revenue would result from increased importations; and if goods im- 
ported be not entered, but warehoused, vast advantage would follow to our 
commercial and shipping interests. Shippers of goods to be warehoused and 
sent to a more favorable market, would necessarily draw on their consignees, 
and the additional great commercial advantage of exchange would thus be se- 
cured to our merchants. 
" The competitors for the China trade are the British and American mer- 
chants. The commerce of the United States with China has been steadily 
increasing, and it can scarcely be doubted that the contemplated facility of 
communication by steam will give to our enterprising countrymen advantages 
which cannot be countervailed by those of any European nation. 
" One of the greatest and most important effects of the concentration of this com- 
merce at some point in the Bay of San Francisco (where must necessarily be lo- 
cated the depot on the Pacific), and the extension of our intercourse with the Asiatic 
nations, would be to hasten the adoption of some practicable plan for connecting 
the two oceans by a railroad across the continent ; thus binding together two widely 
separated members of our confederacy, not only by the moral influence of the same 
constitution and laws, but by another link in that vast system of improvement by 
which the common welfare is to be so greatly promoted, and by which alone the 
remote State of California and the coterminous possessions of the United States 
can be brought into those easy and intimate relations, and that constant intercourse 
which ought to subsist between all parts of the same government" 
This picture is far from highly colored. All the advantages 
which \are foreshadowed in the Keport of the Committee would 
assuredly flow, not from the establishment of a line of steam- 
ships alone, but principally from the opening of a railroad to 
connect the Atlantic with the Pacific oceans. Such a commu- 
nication would of itself effect the revolution we speak of; for 
whether a line of steamships be built or not, the whole of the 
commerce between England and France with China, and be- 
tween the United States and China, should in the nature of 
things pass over this route in preference to any other. Hith- 
erto England has had the advantage over us in the Pacific and 
Indian trades. Lieut. Maury, in his letter to the Hon. Mr. 
Kockwell, says : 
" Owing to the course of winds, the direction of currents, and other physical 
circumstances, British merchants are ten days' sail and upwards nearer than 
we are to all the markets of the world, except those of the Caribbean Sea and 
Gulf of Mexico. They are next door to all the markets of Europe ; to Brazil, 
to Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope ; and, consequently, to all the ports 
9 
