cerned there is little difference. Seattle is a couple of hours nearer to the Straits than Tacoma. But Tacoma, if time becomes an object, can make a short cut through Gray's Harbor, and so also could Seattle. Therefore, supposing the latter to have secured what Tacoma has, a direct transcontinental railroad, the chances are so nearly even as to make the most sagacious decline to venture a prediction.
Merchants will tell you in a general way that the trade of China amounts to one hundred and thirty million dollars annually, that it is only in its infancy, and that it is principally in the hands of Great Britain, but that the Pacific Coast of the United States must compete so strongly for it as to divert it to itself. The} T will tell you that in twenty-five years China will have a trade hundreds of millions greater than at present, because the empire will then be thrown open by railroads and rapid transportation generally to commercial operations. The Chinese will consume American wheat (which they are beginning to do now), wares, and manufactures. Besides this market for our productions, there are also to be considered the fiftyseven millions of people who inhabit those parts of Asia which approach this continent more nearly, as Japan, Manchooria, Mongolia, and Siberia. To supply these people from Europe by the present route and means of travel and Transportation requires, we are told, caravans numbering thirty-six thousand camels and bullocks and one hundred thousand horses.
This state of affairs cannot be permitted to continue in this the nineteenth century! and the question is seriously asked, "Who is'to have control of this vast trade?" and as seriously answered, America. Why? Because America has the capital, material, energy, and pluck to obtain it. That point conceded, the next one of importance is that of distance, and Seattle is nine thousand six hundred and fifty miles nearer to the A moor Biver than Liverpool. It is twelve hundred miles nearer Singapore, three thousand five hundred nearer Canton, six thousand nearer Shanghai, and eight thousand miles nearer Vladivostok than is Liverpool.
But that is not all. Seattle is five hundred miles nearer Vladivostok than San Francisco is, three hundred and fifty nearer Shanghai, three hundred nearer Canton, and three hun
